Do you know that the very first Melbourne Writers Festival was only a “three-day read-in and talk-in” event held at The Athenaeum in Collins Street in October 1986?
Forty years on, the 2026 MWF will take place on 7-10 May, featuring over 150 artists, thinkers and storytellers participating in readings, panels and workshops across Melbourne.
This year’s theme – “Visions & Revisions” – derives from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915), the very first professionally published poem by British poet T.S. Eliot:
“There will be time, there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; / There will be time…for all the works and days of hands / That lift and drop a question on your plate; / Time for you and time for me, / And time yet for a hundred indecisions, / And for a hundred visions and revisions / Before the taking of a toast and tea.”
As Festival Director Veronica Sullivan elaborates: “Allow us to drop a question on your plate, as we embrace the curiosity, possibility and humanity of the creative process – and the eternal seeking that propels it. We hope you’ll join us at MWF as together we explore many visions, and infinite revisions.”
Indeed, as recent controversies at the Bendigo Writers Festival and the Adelaide Writers Week have reminded us – writers festivals should be safe places where open, robust and courteous exchange of ideas can happen, especially those ideas that we disagree with.
If we recognise and truly appreciate the “curiosity, possibility and humanity of the creative process”, then we will endeavour to discover the DIVERSITY beyond our own limited minds.
After all, due to the inbuilt algorithms of the digital media we use, we all live in our own small bubbles, shaped by whatever content we are familiar with – and becoming increasingly unlikely to venture outside of our political, social and cultural comfort zones.
As Peter Greste – one of Australia’s most respected journalists – explains: “The ‘grey zone’ is that space in which people of different identities, beliefs and loyalties coexist without being forced to choose sides. It is essential for writers, journalists, poets and artists to debate and argue. We can’t do politics without a healthy grey zone.”
Greste further asserts: “If we silence voices we don’t agree with, we’re doing the work of extremists for them.”
That is to say, if we allow others to shape how we respond to the demands of our times – if we let them dictate the topics of our conversations and debates – if we tolerate their silencing of meaningful, complex and nuanced discussions – if we accept their visions and decisions as our own easy way out – then we are reducing ourselves to mindless dummies.
So, please, let yourself be challenged at the MWF. Listen to – and reflect on – those different voices. Keep on seeking, and find YOUR OWN truth.
Note: This article was originally published by Ranges Trader Star Mail, May 5, 2026, P.14.
Voices under the Sun 陽光下的聲音 