Jimmy Barnes joins superstar authors for Melbourne Writers Festival

Big-name commercial fiction writers are rarely seen at literary festivals – but new Melbourne Writers Festival director Veronica Sullivan rails against that idea.

Commercial writing and genre fiction are important components of such events, she argues. So one of this year’s festival headliners is Irish novelist Marian Keyes, who has sold more than 30 million books worldwide, while Asako Yuzuki, author of Butter – a BookTok phenomenon – is also on the list, as is Jessica Townsend, who will reveal the latest in her Nevermoor series, and rocker Jimmy Barnes.

Veronica Sullivan, new head of Melbourne Writers Festival. Credit: Jason South

“Often the readers of those books are starved for the opportunity to go to live events; people who are consuming BookTok and are driving the bestseller books, also book club picks, [they] aren’t being put up despite them being the authors and books that are being discussed,” she says.

Launching this year’s program, Sullivan says she was determined to create an event at which every person in Melbourne would find something of interest.

Playing with form is one of the ways Sullivan plans to mix things up. Sita Sargeant, author of She Shapes History, will host the Badass Women of Melbourne Walking Tours, which will focus on stories of various identities ranging from Chrissy Amphlett to Dame Nellie Melba.

“We’re bringing these tours to Melbourne for the first time … political, artistic, activist and broader social figures, some of them well known or who we think we know, some that are new and unfamiliar,” Sullivan says.

Best-selling Irish author Marian Keyes.Credit: Simon Schluter

“I’ve been thinking about different types of storytelling, podcasts, poets, events around the visual arts, translation, the different ways people are consuming and engaging with stories and writing and translating them into events,” she says.

Examples of unusual forms include Stella Prize-winning author Carrie Tiffany’s show that weaves together works of fiction and non-fiction prose with projected images while she plays percussion, and two podcasts to be recorded live on stage – Culture Club with Maggie Zhou and Jasmine Wallis, and The Psychology of Your 20s with Jemma Sbeg and Lucinda Price (known to her 73,500 social media followers as @Froomes).

Marian Keyes is not the only Irish writer on the agenda. Colm Toibin, author of Brooklyn and its recent sequel Long Island, will be here – in conversation with The Age’s former books editor Jason Steger – as will Colum McCann.

Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey, whose Orbital took the coveted £50,000 ($102,000) award last year, is coming, as is Booker-shortlisted Dutch author Yael van der Wouden, to discuss her debut novel The Safekeep.

Although the Gaza conflict is impacting the arts sector in Australia – as Sullivan says, “it is an incredibly charged landscape” – it does not affect her choices.

“The principle that I come to with programming is the writing first and foremost. We are a writers festival driven by craft and storytelling and voices, creating spaces for those writers to do their best work,” she says.

“I’m sure Israel/Gaza will come up in sessions across the festival; that is not something we are seeking to avoid or silence. I don’t want to determine what people might say.”

She recognises that not every writer or audience member will be in furious agreement and says that’s not something to be feared or avoided.

Cancel culture is on the agenda, with philosopher A.C. Grayling discussing whether it is possible to separate the artist from the art.

Politically oriented events in this year’s festival have an Australian focus, Sullivan says, largely because of its proximity to the federal election (though the date is not yet known, it is likely to be within weeks of the MWF). Thomas Mayo and others will discuss reconciliation, justice and democracy in Australia, as well as the failed Voice referendum. This year’s First Nations curators Nardi Simpson and Daniel Browning will host an array of events within the program.

Other international guests include writer and translator Bora Chung (Korea); poet and author Norman Erikson Pasaribu (Indonesia); and scholar, teaching artist and poet Dr Afra Atiq (United Arab Emirates), plus locals Anita Heiss, Kate Grenville, Hannah Kent and Jamila Rizvi.

Sullivan, who was at the Wheeler Centre for seven years with four of those as director of programming, says free, intimate events will be held throughout the festival at the Moat Bar, and a series of experimental performances will unfold at the Fringe Common Rooms space at Trades Hall.

“I want to do things differently and have new and exciting ways in, but not at the expense of what the festival does well and has done for years.”

Melbourne Writers Festival runs from May 8-11.

The Age is a partner of the Melbourne Writers Festival.

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