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Pens at the ready! The fourth annual Emerging Writers’ Festival is taking place from May 25 to 27 at the Melbourne Town Hall and State Library of Victoria, with extra events at Trades Hall, Federation Square and Horse Bazaar across the weekend. Writers seeking to grow their audience or improve their craft, avid readers, and anyone interested in Australia’s evolving literary and cultural landscape will have an abundance of grist for their intellectual mills with practical workshops, timely panels, outstanding speakers and even multilingual dancefloors on offer.
 
Festival Director Steve Grimwade says, “It's the only festival where you can rub shoulders with the best of the next generation of writers - where you can be a part of the conversation and an active player in the creation of culture. We're not interested in what your name is. We're interested in what you do, and how you write… It's like you climbed to the top of a giant, rusty, tourist-sized Henry Lawson to see a brighter future.”
 
Registrations open this Monday 16 April for the Emerging Writers’ Festival, which provides invaluable exposure and resources for a diverse range of writers in the midst of their careers, as well innovative free events showcasing the literary arts for the general public. From script writers to lyricists, journalists to novelists, the Emerging Writers’ Festival encompasses the written word in all its forms. Among the many erudite speakers appearing at the festival is Mark Davis, who is revisiting his seminal book Gangland and the cultural role of youth in Australia ten years on. Opening Night features John Marsden, who is launching the John Marsden Prize 2007 for Young Australian Writers, and Casey Bennetto, the man behind Keating!, will be perform at the Town Hall over the weekend. Horse Bazaar in Little Lonsdale Street will host the festival club for the duration of the Emerging Writers’ Festival, with cosmopolitan tracks provided by Uber Lingua every night.
 
The Emerging Writers’ Festival also incorporates the Rich Text exhibition, which will be held at the RMIT Gallery from May 1 to June 9. Curated by Tai Snaith and supported by RMIT Gallery, Rich Text explores the allure and integration of the written word into installation, neon, performance, graffiti, moving image and printed publications in the current work of ten emerging artists currently based in Melbourne, Adelaide, Berlin and London. Artists include Gabrielle De Vietri, James Dodd, Tim Fleming, Danielle Freakley, Is Not Magazine, David Keating, Antuong Ngyuen, Pandarosa, Narinda Reeders and Kiron Robinson.
 
The Emerging Writers’ Festival is presented by Express Media in partnership with the Victorian Writers’ Centre, and also supported by Arts Victoria, The City of Melbourne, the Australia Council, the Victorian Multicultural Commission, Federation Square, RMIT Gallery, Arts Hub, State Library of Victoria, Readings and Overland.


Emerging Writers Festival 2007
Friday 25 to Sunday 27 May
 
Registrations open Monday April 16 at www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au