Book People News: In Melbourne? It’s Time to Talk About Love at the MWF19

Are you ready for the Melbourne Writers Festival?

This year’s Melbourne Writers Festival is focussing on Matters of the Heart. Through the lens of this year’s theme, When We Talk About Love, authors, journalists, playwrights, poets, songwriters and artists will tell stories of resilience, of heartbreak and letting go, of family and bodies and home.

Held across the Festival’s new literary precinct from 30 August to 8 September, there will be talks, oration, music, immersive art and performance that explore the myriad ways that words move and inspire us.

International guests include DeRay Mckesson, Eve L Ewing, Val McDermid, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Becky Albertalli, Patrick deWitt, Tayari Jones and former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark. Local guests include Richard Flanagan, Jane Caro and Denise Scott, Tony Birch and Bruce Pascoe, Sophie Cunningham and Greenpeace’s David Ritter.

To choose from are A Day of Romance, Graphic Art Day and Blak & Bright, where Blaktivists vs Blakademics argue the toss: should Australia Day happen on 26 January – or not – and why? Also, there will be the official opening of the second Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival, with Daniel Browning and Evelyn Araluen Corr.

YA events include authors such as Randa Abdel-Fattah (When Michael Met Mina) and Melina Marchetta (The Place on Dalhousie, Looking for Alibrandi) discussing why they write for YA audiences.

The Family Day is filled with fun activities. Join Oliver Phommavanh for a laugh-out-loud lesson on how being your wacky self is all that’s needed to be happy.

For updates and more information, visit the MWF19 site here.