Melbourne Writers Festival 2017 #MWF2017

I've long been a fan of Melbourne Writers Festival. I attended my first MWF back in 2007, but my second wasn't until 2012. Happily since then I've been able to attend most of these annual delights of bookdom.

It's a bookish city when the taxi boots have book ads!

Melbourne is definitely my favourite Australian big city festival (well of the two that I've been to so far). It's so accessible. Mostly all held around Fed Square, the transport is easy (even if you don't get to stay across the road like I do...), it's so compact, you can easily do back to back sessions.

Joyce Carol Oates Keynote

Plus you're in Melbourne. Lots of opportunities for yum cha, cafes, dinner. Eat Melbourne 2017 is in the pipeline, in the meantime we can revisit 2016. And the art galleries are fab too, I caught a few amazing exhibitions this year. More to come on that. And I caught the start of Melbourne Fashion Week which was much more fun than expected. 

This year I saw an astonishing range of Australian and International writers. 

Alice Pung (twice)
Amie Kaufman
Angie Thomas
Anni Hine Moana
AS Patrić
Bruce Pascoe
Charles G Gross
Danielle Binks
Ellie Marney
Hannah Kent
Jennifer Ackerman
Jennifer Down
Jenny Valentish (twice)
Joyce Carol Oates (twice)
Kyo Maclear (twice)
Laurie Penny
Maxine Beneba Clarke (twice)
Megan Abbott
Melanie Cheng
Melissa Keil
Omar Musa
Randa Abdel-Fattah
Reni Eddo-Lodge
Rutger Bregman
Ryan O'Neill
Sarah Schmidt
Shaun Tan
Tracey Chevalier
Zana Fraillon
Zoë Morrison

Sadly, of course I missed many writers that I would have loved to have seen, including

Brian Castro

Jane Caro

Julia Baird

John Safran

Tim Flannery

Tony Birch

Tracey Spicer

But you just can't be everywhere at once. 

Angie Thomas YA Keynote

I am particularly keen to read many (most) of the authors that I saw. Some of them were completely unknown to me before. I was particularly blown away by Angie Thomas' YA Keynote Address. I do hope to do a blog about her session soon(ish), and a number of others, but I tend to be bad at that. I've already started reading The Hate U Give. I also particular keen to read Kyo Maclear, Melissa Keil and Hannah Kent. 

I love festival stacks of books

even more than regular bookshops

so pretty, so much potential. 

The Top 20 MWF Bestsellers at the Readings Festival Bookshop. Writers festivals always give me hope that maybe the world isn't really going to hell in a hand basket, lots of clever, involved people are buying and reading those books.