Guest
Speakers
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We are thrilled to welcome a huge range of writers, editors and industry-insiders at various stages of their careers.
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Jennifer Down
Jennifer Down is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in publications including The Age, Saturday Paper, Australian Book Review and Overland. She is one of Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year, 2017. Her debut novel, Our Magic Hour (Text), was shortlisted for the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. Her second book, Pulse Points, a collection of short stories, was published in August by Text.
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Sian Prior
Sian Prior has a multi-faceted career in the arts, education and media. For the last two and half decades she has been a writer and broadcaster working in radio, television, print and online.
She has been a presenter on ABC Radio National, ABC Classic FM and ABC Melbourne and has written regularly for Fairfax Media. In May 2014 her first book, Shy: a memoir, was published by Text Publishing.
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Keynote Address
Carly Findlay
Carly Findlay is a blogger, writer, speaker and appearance activist who challenges people’s thinking about what it’s like to have a visibly different appearance. Carly has written for many publications including The Guardian, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Life, The ABC, Mamamia, Frankie magazine and BlogHer. She’s used her blog to write about her skin condition, Ichthyosis, as well as promoted causes such as Love Your Sister and Donate Life.
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Carly was named as one of Australia’s most influential women in the Australian Financial Review and Westpac 100 Women of Influence Awards for 2014. Carly received the 2010 and 2013 Yooralla Media Awards for Best Online Commentary for her body of disability focused writing. She also won the best personal blog category for Kidspot Voices of 2013, and the 2013 BUPA Health Activist award for Positive Life Change. She’s also been a finalist in the Best Australian Blogs competition in 2011, 2012 and 2014. Her memoir will be published by HarperCollins in 2018.
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Mark Brandi
Mark Brandi is a Melbourne writer. His work features in print and radio, and is sometimes awarded. In 2016 his first novel, Wimmera, published by Hachette, won the Debut Dagger (UK).
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Letter to My Emerging Self
Yannick Thoraval​
Yannick Thoraval is a Melbourne-based writer, teacher and communications consultant. His first novel, The Current, was commended by the judges in the prestigious Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for an unpublished manuscript. Most recently, he was managing editor of Home Truths: An Anthology of Refugee and Migrant Writing. He teaches professional writing at RMIT University and conducts professional writing workshops at Writers Victoria.
Fiona Scott-Norman
Fiona Scott-Norman is a writer, satirist, broadcaster and columnist who contributes to The Age, Australian, ABC radio 774 AM, and Big Issue.
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Her latest book is Bully for Them: Outstanding Australians on Hard Lessons Learned at School (Affirm Press).
Phillip Hall
Phillip worked for many years as a teacher of outdoor education and sport throughout regional New South Wales, Northern Queensland and the Northern Territory. His publications include Sweetened in Coals and (as editor) Diwurruwurru: Poetry from the Gulf of Carpentaria. He has poetry collections forthcoming with Canberra University’s IPSI series called Borroloola Class (due for release in September 2017), while UWAP will publish Fume in February 2018. Phillip loves to cheer.
Melissa Cranenburgh
Melissa Cranenburgh is a writer, editor and broadcaster based in Melbourne. For close to a decade she has worked in senior roles at The Big Issue, most recently as acting editor. She has also edited the The Big Issue‘s annual fiction edition, co-hosts Triple R’s The Reading Room and regularly chairs events at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. Her work has featured on Radio National’s Books and Arts Daily, Mamamia, The Big Issue, The Wheeler Centre and The Sydney Morning Herald.
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Fiona Wood
Fiona Wood was awarded the CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers, for Cloudwish in 2016, and Wildlife in 2014. Her first book, Six Impossible Things, was shortlisted for the CBCA. Cloudwish also won the Indie Book Award for YA fiction in 2016. Her books have been on numerous other shortlists including the Gold Inky, the ABIA and the Ethel Turner Prize. They are published internationally, and are Junior Library Guild Selections in the US. Take Three Girls, co-written with Cath Crowley and Simmone Howell, is out in 2017. Before writing books, Fiona wrote TV scripts. She lives in Melbourne.
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Literary Labels:
Helpful or Harmful?
Jo Case
Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly, and a bookseller at Readings Doncaster. She is a former program manager of MWF. Her memoir, Boomer and Me, was shortlisted for the inaugural Russell Prize for Humour Writing.
She has been published in Best Australian Stories and theanthologies Mothermorphosis and Rebellious Daughters. Her book reviews are regularly published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Michael Webster
Michael Webster has almost 50 years’ experience in trade and education publishing, and academia, including board membership of the Australian Publishers Association, the Australian Booksellers Association, Copyright Agency, and the Literature Board of the Australia Council. An Adjunct Professor at RMIT University where for 12 years he ran the graduate program in publishing studies, he introduced Nielsen Bookscan to the Australian industry in 2003 and continues to research and lecture on book sales trends. Michael just stepped down as Chair of the Melbourne Writers Festival Board and remains Chair of the Small Press Network (SPN), the membership organisation for small and independent publishers based at the Wheeler Centre. In 2008 he was awarded the George Robertson Award for services to the publishing industry. ​
Ten Poets
LK Holt
LK Holt's first collection of poems, Man Wolf Man, won the 2009 Kenneth Slessor Prize in the NSW Premier’s Awards. Patience, Mutiny shared the 2011 Grace Leven Prize for Poetry. Her most recent collection is Keeps (John Leonard Press, 2014).
Craig Sherborne
Craig Sherborne is an acclaimed memoirist, novelist, poet and playwright, best known for Hoi Polloi, Muck and The Amateur Science of Love. His poems and essays have appeared in Best Australian Essays and Best Australian Poems.
Ania Walwicz
PWE's own Ania Walwicz is an Australian poet and playwright. Walwicz's principal collections include Writing (1982; re-issued as Travel/Writing in 1989) Boat (1989), and Red Roses (1992). Her theatrical pieces include Girlboytalk (1986), Dissecting Mice (1989), and Elegant (1990).
Simon West
Simon West lives in Melbourne. He is the author of three volumes of poetry and a translation and critical edition of the Italian poet Guido Cavalcanti. His most recent book,The Ladder, published by Puncher & Wattmann, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards in 2016.