The Emerging Writers’ Festival work, learn and play largely on the land of the Kulin nation, and pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.

EWF celebrates the history and creativity of the world’s oldest living culture.

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Emerging Writers’ Festival 2022 Program Launch: Good at Being Bad. Photo credit: Hashem McAdam

Artist call out

Each year, EWF opens a call-out for writers and storytellers of all kinds to submit an expression of interest in participating in the Festival. Applicants are invited to share not only their individual work, but their ideas for the events, topics and conversations that they want to be included within the festival.

Diversity, inclusivity and accessibility are the core values that underpin EWF’s artistic program, offering a unique opportunity for writers of all ages and backgrounds, representing all genres and styles of storytelling, to participate in and engage with.

Each year we program artists from around Australia, and are committed to selecting 20% of these from the open artist call-out. As always we have budget to fly some artists to Melbourne for the festival, so we welcome interstate and regional applications.

We are really keen on ideas that play and experiment with the digital space and storytelling. You can see some examples of the things we are interested in by checking out previous Digital Writers’ Festival programs as well as our 2023 festival program.

We will open for artist applications later in the year for our 2024 Festival!

As Artshub wrote of the Emerging Writers’ Festival: "If you’re an up-and-coming writer, this is the place to get your foot in the door… as you’ll make invaluable connections within Melbourne’s thriving emerging literary scene."

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