Credit: Alan Weedon

If you’re on the hunt for something new to experience at the 2017 Emerging Writers’ Festival (or if you spent all your money buying tickets to every Masterclass we have on offer) you’re in luck! The program for the 2017 Emerging Writers’ Festival is overflowing with a range of free events, conversations, parties and workshops.

With so many free events on offer, here are some highlights and unmissables from the staff at EWF.

Will – General Manager

At the risk of sounding like I want to get the festival over and done with (I don’t, I swear!), I’m super excited for the Closing Night Party hosted by Swampland. Music and writing and parties are three of my favourite things, and now I can round out the festival doing all three!

My other pick would be Lunchtime Lit: Stories from the Archipelago. We’ve had an exchange program with Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in Bali for a few years now and it’s always fascinating to hear what it’s like being an emerging writer in a country that’s so close and yet so different from Australia. Azri Zakkiyah, our exchange artist this year, is super interesting — her debut novel was published when she was in her first year of high school — and I’m sure this in-conversation will be very insightful.

Linh – Creative Producer

The line-up for Bogong Spoken Word performance event is incredible – curated by Jane Harrison (of Blakwriters), with the likes of Nayuka Gorrie and Hannah Donnelly gracing the stage. It’s one of the events I’m most excited for in the program.

Lunchtime Lit: Autobiographical Comics with Rachel Ang and Eloise Grills should be a lot of fun – it’s great that there’s a panel on the artform of DIY zines with two of my favourite Melbourne comic artists.

Bella – Marketing and PR

I’m looking forward to Opening Night: Our Invincible Summer. It feels like ~officially~ cutting the ribbon and an excuse to uncork the champers. The conversation between journalist Michael Green with a cross to Abdul Aziz Muhamat on Manus Island will be incredibly powerful. The Messenger Podcast is one of my favourites.

Nicole – Creative Producer

All the poetry events look amazing! I’m especially looking forward to listening to some new voices at Late Night Lit: Poetry. I think it’s fantastic that the night includes an open mic which gives the opportunity for emerging writers to step up and share their talents.

Izzy – Artistic Director

Some amazing brains will be gracing the stage to talk about what inspires them for Late Night Lit: Collisions, ~plus~ the audience gets to join the conversation for the open mic part of the night!

An ambitious re-imagining of a traditional reading, Literary Live Art: Performing Place is a choose-your-own-adventure that looks at how we connect to, interpret and perform place. I can’t wait to see what these writers from many different forms have come up with, and see how their performances interweave.

Else – Program Manager

I would love to experience Fall Where They May, a reading of Christian Taylor’s new performance work about climate change. I saw him perform How Can You Sleep At Night at Melbourne Fringe and he’s such an arresting performer, so I reckon this will give you the shivers.

Also, The Dandy Slam! MCed by the ever incredible Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa and featuring some rising spoken word stars from the City of Greater Dandenong, this will be an awesome evening.

For a look at the entire program for the 2017 Emerging Writer’s Festival, click here.

If choosing is just too hard and you want to see everything free and ticketed, upgrading to a Golden Ticket for $200 gives you a pass to (almost) every EWF event. Book here!