Enjoy listening to two of 2023's most talked about novelists – and possibly the only two people to have ever become friends over Zoom – Emma Straub (This Time Tomorrow) and Gabrielle Zevin (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow). With Brodie Lancaster, they discuss their approaches to crafting fiction, writing a different kind of love story and the idea of wanting to hit restart. 

From the geeky committee that informed Emma Straub’s rules of time travel and why she dedicated her book to Peter Straub’s ‘nemesis’ to Gabrielle Zevin’s Emily Dickinson–inspired video game and why she chose to set her novel in the 90s, this is a brilliant conversation between two wildly talented friends.  

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

This event was proudly supported by United States Consulate Melbourne

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hear from New York Times–bestselling author and millennial food icon Alison Roman as she joins Benjamin Law to discuss her career, recipes and latest cookbook, Sweet Enough.

Roman shares her journey from working as a chef in professional kitchens and becoming a much-discussed food writer at Bon Appétit and The New York Times to eventually freeing her voice from mastheads in a creative move that would change her life – as well as her readers. She is now renowned for unfussy, flavourful dishes – exemplified by hit recipes like her Caramelised Shallot Pasta and #TheStew – that tap into the culinary zeitgeist for studied imperfection over aspirationally haute cuisine. 

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

This event was supported through the Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund – a $200 million partnership of the Victorian Government and the City of Melbourne.

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Authors Tracey Lien (All That’s Left Unsaid) and Nina Wan (The Albatross) gripped readers across the country with their spectacular debut novels on family, love and identity.

Listen in as ABC RN’s Sarah L’Estrange (The Book Show) joins Lien and Wan for a wide-ranging conversation on the craft of storytelling and power of representation. Together, they discuss early influences on their writing (The Baby-sitters Club, Dolly Magazine and Judge Judy, to name a few); what it means to have 'conditional citizenship'; the poetry of golf; and the need for more Asian thirst traps. 

“I wanted to make a point to readers that we are just like everyone else. Which is to say, we are just as complicated as anyone else. Within a community, we’re just as wonderful and petty and stubborn and flawed. We’re just as capable of success as we are of failure. And if you realise we are just like you, whoever you are, then how can you justify treating us differently?” – Tracey Lien 

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

This event was presented in partnership with ABC RN

This event was proudly supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Casting fresh light on Australia's colonial past, the latest novels by award-winning journalist Paul Daley (Jesustown) and acclaimed author Fiona McFarlane (The Sun Walks Down) tell stories that upend the usual depictions in history books. Listen in as they speak to bestselling author and First Nations Curator Tony Birch about their approach to writing narratives that probe the enduring myths and brutal realities of settler-colonial life, the importance of place in their storytelling, and how they explore relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in their novels.

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

Content warning: Please note, this discussion includes references to sensitive topics including colonial massacres of First Nations peoples and frontier violence. 

This event was proudly supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"A few months before he died at 82…Oliver [Sacks] looked up from his notepad one evening in our apartment and said to me: 'The most we can do is to write – intelligently, creatively, critically, evocatively – about what it is like living in the world at this time.' So, I did." – Bill Hayes 

The last few years have changed us all in profound ways. How have we been surprised, unsettled and enlivened as we return to once-familiar relationships, routines and realities? How are storytellers making sense of how life has changed?

For our Opening Night event, some of the most remarkable writers in the world delivered their unique takes on the 2023 Festival theme: ‘I’ve been away for a while’.

Listen to author and photographer Bill Hayes (Insomniac City, Sweat) as he shares his experiences of living in New York City throughout the pandemic, and how our cities are like our bodies. He also shares a note he received from a reader in a remote part of Australia that illuminated the power of stories to leap across time and space to connect strangers, intimately and empathetically. 

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

This event was supported through the Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund – a $200 million partnership of the Victorian Government and the City of Melbourne.

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“…There is nothing more important than communicating to the Australian public the truth about our world.” – Marcia Langton 

Sophisticated systems of law, cultivated over millennia, have enabled First Nations peoples to survive and thrive for more than 2,000 generations – laws that "haven't just survived colonisation but they've survived the last sea level rise of 10,000 years ago" (Aaron Corn). 

Hear from the authors of Law: The Way of the Ancestors, Professor Marcia Langton and Professor Aaron Corn, as they shine a light on the enduring expertise of First Nations peoples. Speaking with Dr Eddie Cubillo, they discuss how Indigenous law has been historically unrecognised; how Australians can understand and respect Indigenous law; and how it can inform our understanding of treaty, native title, sovereignty and much more. 

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“It was, after all, a time of great noticing.” – Sarah Krasnostein 

The last few years have changed us all in profound ways. How have we been surprised, unsettled and enlivened as we return to once-familiar relationships, routines and realities? How are storytellers making sense of how life has changed?

For our Opening Night event, some of the most remarkable writers in the world delivered their unique takes on the 2023 Festival theme: ‘I’ve been away for a while’.

Listen to Sarah Krasnostein (author of The Believer and The Trauma Cleaner) as she seeks to measure what it means to be apart from others, and wonders if writers aren’t always just a little bit away from the world. Discover the books that became her life-rafts in testing times and what she has noticed about the world since. 

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

This event was supported through the Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund – a $200 million partnership of the Victorian Government and the City of Melbourne.

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"It's a very human thing to be an actor, a storyteller. It’s pre-historic." 
– Sam Neill

By his own account, the career of celebrated actor Sam Neill has been a series of unpredictable turns of fortune. From discovering acting at boarding school in Christchurch, to treading the boards in amateur Shakespeare productions, to finding his lucky break and going on to star in films such as The Piano, Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders.

Listen in as Neill shares true tales from his storied life, chronicled in his new memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This?, in conversation with comedy legend Jane Kennedy.

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

This event was proudly supported by ARA Group. It was also supported through the Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund – a $200 million partnership of the Victorian Government and the City of Melbourne. 

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The last few years have changed us all in profound ways. How have we been surprised, unsettled and enlivened as we return to once-familiar relationships, routines and realities? How are storytellers making sense of how life has changed?

For our Opening Night event, five of the most remarkable writers in the world delivered their unique takes on the 2023 Festival theme: ‘I’ve been away for a while’.

Enjoy listening to Jazz Money, a Wiradjuri poet and artist and author of the award-winning how to make a basket, on how some journeys can change your life – and for the first time, allow you to hear the call towards home and community. 

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

This event was supported through the Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund – a $200 million partnership of the Victorian Government and the City of Melbourne.

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Things happen, people leave us, the world shuts down and the world reopens. We realise over time, sooner or later, that we’re never going back to anything. We’re only going forward and finding a new way.” – Benjamin Dreyer

The last few years have changed us all in profound ways. How have we been surprised, unsettled and enlivened as we return to once-familiar relationships, routines and realities? How are storytellers making sense of how life has changed? 

For our Opening Night event, five of the most remarkable writers in the world delivered their unique takes on the 2023 Festival theme: ‘I’ve been away for a while’.

Benjamin Dreyer – author of Dreyer’s English and vice president, executive managing editor and copy chief, of Random House – delivers a sweeping oration on finding your way through life, sharing profound wisdom and advice from writers across time including Virginia Woolf, Robert Frost and Elizabeth Strout. 

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023

This event was supported through the Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund – a $200 million partnership of the Victorian Government and the City of Melbourne.

Support MWF: https://mwf.com.au/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.