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.

Public Transport Girl (a new superheroine?)

I had to buy a new monthly train ticket this week and look, Melbourne Writers Festival Metcard! You know you’re famous when people carry you around in their wallets.

Louise
Festival Administrator

Small talk

I’m sure people think we talk literature  at the festival office. Well, now and then, we do actually have conversations about (gasp) books. I remember having a conversation with Arnold Zable about yiddish literature and us both being rather surprised that he’d rung the festival office and we’d actually talked about writing!

But generally of course not.  Today for example we had a great conversation about Muumuus and whether we could get away with wearing them.  (Consensus was sadly no). And then the drama that is unfolding at MIFF; a staff member’s ‘princess shoes’, tram routes and whether living in Bentleigh East was too far away.

I did talk to ‘my’ artist though and give her the suggestions you sent for the colour of the artwork.  Stay tuned on that one!

All our signage is starting to be created.  I hope you have had time to check out the box office in Swanston Street and the beautiful skins created by JWT and installed by Evan Evans.  Looks stunning.  The banners and signs now being developed are going to look great.  Look out for the banners coming on Flinders Street station in mid/late August. And then everything else hits the streets on 21st August.

Anyone seen our posters in the ‘burbs?

Helenka
Festival Manager

Where Stories Meet artwork

The MWF 2009 program is now well and truly launched, available and all over Victoria. If you haven’t had a chance to see it yet then pop into a Readings bookstore or head over to your local library. The program is also available at a bunch of other bookstores and locations too. Otherwise, you can always visit the Program page on our website to download it as a pdf or browse the details online.

The other exciting news is that you should soon notice our Where Stories Meet campaign roll out over the sides of trams, on posters in cafes and in newspaper and magazine ads. The advertising agency JWT, who have done an incredible amount of pro bono work for MWF this year, conceived the campaign with us around the idea that MWF brings together writers, readers and stories from all over the world and all walks of life. Hence, we’ve gone for three core images that rather wickedly portray the idea of various literary genres coming together. If you recall, Louise wrote about attending the photo shoot for one of these images where copious amounts of green blood was spilled!

Scroll down to take a look at the posters and click on them to make them bigger.

Which one is your favourite? I like the Mystery meets Sci-fi one but two of my favourite authors are Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick!

Cheers

Thomas
MWF Marketing Co-ordinator

Mystery meets Sci-fi

Horror meets Children's Literature

War meets Humour

MWF’s Coraline fundraiser

In sponsorship and fundraising news this week, we see the winding up  of the very successful Danny Katz campaign – big thanks to all who donated – and the beginning of organising our next initiative, which is a film night.

This event will be held at Cinema Nova on Tuesday 21 July, we will be ready to sell tickets very soon, and will begin promoting the event through our e-news and website.

So far what I can tell you is that the film we have chosen is the dark fairytale Coraline. The film is based on the book by cult author Neil Gaiman, directed by stop-motion animation expert Henry Selick, and voiced by Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, among other luminaries.

The special treats attached to this event are an introduction to the film by award winning illustrator Shaun Tan, and a glass of lovely wine and a chance to mingle afterwards. For this we ask you to pay $25, and all proceeds from this event will go towards our 2009 Schools’ Program.

Stay tuned for more details and how/when to purchase tickets (they’ll be sold through our own box office) which will be in my blog next week and also on our website.

Start spreading the word to anyone who’d like to see Coraline before the rest of Melbourne gets the chance!
Nina
Development Manager

Just like Eurovision, but for authors

No talk of my ovaries this week, they are doing just fine if anyone’s interested.

I’ve just been checking off the long list of sponsors of the festival for the “Thank you” page of the program guide, and we have the support of such a wonderful variety of organisations I felt they deserved a special mention.

And we are so international. There’s the Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Melbourne International Arts Festival, which all feel the need to remind Melbourne that they are international. We think the fact that we are international is a given!

We have authors coming to the festival this year from Japan, Spain, France, Germany, Canada, the US, the UK and even New Zealand. Not all are European of course, but I’m still thinking Eurovision. Possibly sans outrageous costumes, although you never know.

The cultural organisations who assist the festival in bringing these authors to Melbourne include Alliance Francaise de Melbourne, Ambassade de France, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Australia-Japan Foundation, Consulate General of Canada (Sydney), Consulate General of Spain, Institute Ramon Llull, Consulate General of the United States of America (Melbourne), and the Goethe-Institut.

So many authors, so many books to read. I am in the middle of the first novel by Spanish author and translator Teresa Solana to be translated into English (by her husband Peter Bush), A Not so Perfect Crime. It’s a blend of satire and detective thriller, set in Barcelona and poking fun at Catalan politics and society. The characters are so vividly drawn I can see at least a couple of them on the Eurovision stage.

Both Teresa Solana and Peter Bush are coming all the way from Barcelona for the festival, and I can’t wait! Check out Teresa’s novel here.

Ciao ciao for now.

Nina
Development Manager

Swine flu or just flu?

I have been at home on the couch for the past couple of days with some kind of illness. Aches and pains, fever, general malaise. Is it swine flu? I don’t know as I couldn’t bring myself to schlep down to the doc’s for a swab. I don’t believe I’ve been in contact with anyone who has been diagnosed as having swine flu, but they say it’s so contagious I could have breathed in the virus as I passed someone on the street who had it.

Anyhoo, I’m back at work now, feeling average, but not at death’s door. There’s a fine line between keeping your germs out of the workplace, and being a martyr to a sniffle. I’ve come back to so many emails and things to do that this will be a quick post, but can I just say that daytime television is truly awful? Those infomercials are offensive in their banality. Bad production values, terrible acting, condescending communications.

I tried to read, when I wasn’t sleeping, as there was absolutely nothing to watch on the telly. After zooming through a gripping crime novel called Malice by Lisa Jackson, I picked up David Malouf‘s Ransom, his first novel in more than 10 years. Ransom revisits Homer‘s Iliad, an exploration of male bonding, loyalty, family and war. The writing is delicate and beautiful and I am in awe, even though I have only read a couple of chapters so far.

But enough from me, I must get back to work. Look out for that hilarious letter from Danny Katz, which is now on our web site too, and give whatever you can to help make the 2009 festival the best ever.

Nina
Development Manager

Dogs in literature and in life

Dogs are the best people.  I whole-heartedly agree with The Fauves on that one. It is now 11 days since I had to have my beloved canine companion Betty put to sleep. She was 14 years old and had a range of health issues, so as everyone keeps telling me it was the kindest thing to do, but it was still the most awful decision I have ever had to make.

Betty came to live with me when she was 6 weeks old, a little strawberry blonde cocker spaniel with razor-sharp baby teeth and the idea that the carpet was the place to wee rather than the lawn. We had so many adventures together over the years; air travel for beach holidays in WA, a road trip to Byron Bay (we stopped overnight in Dubbo and I smuggled her into my hotel room through the window), countless laps around The Tan (where she was once patted by Cathy Freeman and once photographed by The Age), Albert Park Lake and many other smaller parks and blocks all over Melbourne.

The house is quiet and empty and lonely without her. But I’m trying to accentuate the positives. I bought a new rug which will remain free of dog hair and ‘accidents’. I no longer have to dash home between work and going out, to walk and feed her, so I’ve been going out straight from work, which feels strangely liberated.

I still get very teary whenever I think of her. My sister advised me against reading (or watching) Marley & Me by John Grogan, and I’m sure I couldn’t handle it right now. But her advice made me consider famous dogs, and more specifically, dogs in literature.  I could think of a few – Timmy the dog in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five series, Buck in Call of the Wild by Jack London, Cerberus the hell-hound of Hades –  but when my list stopped there I decided to google the subject and found Wikipedia’s list of dogs in literature for your enjoyment.

Luckily I haven’t had much time during work hours to be sad as it’s been far too busy. Deals are being done all over the place as we get closer to program guide deadline. The guide will be in The Age on Friday 17 July, so look out for it. But first we have to lock in authors, juggle session times and venues, write biographies and other text, source photos and in my case, confirm all sponsors, trusts and foundations, and major donors.

Despite the economic down-turn, people and companies are still prepared to be generous, and we welcome several new supporters for the 2009 festival. These include the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust which has given a grant for us to take the Schools’ Program on the road to regional Victoria during the festival; The Smith Family, who are sponsoring a session in which authors discuss their paths out of disadvantage to literary success in a promotion of the importance of literacy and fostering an early love of literature;  and The Castan Centre for Human Rights Law (Monash University) in partnership with law firm Holding Redlich who are sponsoring the appearance of human rights lawyer and author Thomas Buergenthal at the festival.

But wait, there’s more: Qantas, JWT (currently working on our ad campaign which is very exciting, gorgeous and clever), the Italian Institute of Culture together with Crown Coffee, Australian Ethical Investment, CAE, Kangarilla Wines and The Finkel Foundation. Whew.

Until next week.

Nina
Development Manager