Spotlight on: Victoria University

The Melbourne Writers Festival wouldn’t be the diverse, well-informed festival that it is with the support of a whole host of program partners.

Today, we’re putting the spotlight on Victoria University, just one of the organisations who help out by letting us draw on the intellectual and creative horsepower of their staff. Here are some of the VU staff who are appearing at this year’s festival.

Michael Hyde mostly writes for young adolescents (or: YA, in publishing-speak). His books include Surfing Goliath, Tyger Tyger and a heap of titles in the popular ‘Change the Game’ series, for footy-mad young readers (AFL, of course).

Michael will be delivering a seminar on The Art of YA Fiction, with Cath Crowley.

Michael is also an author of non-fiction – he’s written a memoir about his experiences as an activist in 1960s Melbourne, All Along the Watchtower.

He’ll be joining other terrific writers to talk about our fair city in Melbourne Stories, with Sophie Cunningham, Rosalie Ham, Steven Carroll and Mary Delahunty. Looks like a cracker of a session!

Enza Gandolfo’s debut novel Swimming, a compelling work of fiction about female friendship, artistic creativity, and unexpected childlessness, was shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award in 2010. It has been widely praised (fans include Amanda Lohrey) and it was launched by none other than Helen Garner, who said ‘Reading Swimming was a very rewarding experience for me, and I warmly recommend it to you’. You can read Helen Garner’s launch speech here, in Famous Reporter.

Enza will be chairing The Glue of Good Fiction, talking to a distinguished gathering of women writers about how relationships lie at the heart of their fiction: Gail Jones, Jane Smiley, Elizabeth Stead and Marion Halligan.

John Weldon is a professional freelance writer who has written about food and sports for organisations as diverse as The Age, Lonely Planet and the Western Bulldogs.

With that pedigree, he’s the perfect host of Good Sports, where he talks to sports writers Gideon Haigh (The Greatest Test), John Harms (Footy Almanac) and Angela Pippos (The Goddess Advantage) about the games they love, and writing about them.