2021 Melbourne Writers Festival begins this week
These MWF21 workshops have gone digital due to Covid-19, so you can now beam in from anywhere around the country to learn your craft from some of Australia’s brightest and boldest writers. These guided sessions cover topics the range from learning to fictionalise your real life experiences to exploring pathways to publishing your first novel.
Below are three workshops that we’re particularly excited about, but you can browse the full workshop program here.
Workshop: How to Write Speculative Fiction with Claire G. Coleman
In increasingly unreal times, readers are turning to the imagined worlds of speculative fiction to make sense of the past, present and how our story might end. Join prize–winning Noongar author Claire G Coleman (Lies, Damned Lies) who leads an online workshop on the ins and outs of the genre, sharing insight into her own creative process crafting the celebrated speculative novels Terra Nullius and The Old Lie. Find out why the genre is such a powerful political force, its capacity to explore colonialism and its undoing, and how to build realistically unreal words in your writing.
When: Saturday 4 September, 2.30pm
Tickets: $120–$140, book here
Workshop: How to Fictionalise Your Life with Kavita Bedford
How can your writing convincingly push beyond memoir to make compelling fiction inspired by real-life events and relationships? Join Kavita Bedford, the author of the critically acclaimed novel Friends & Dark Shapes, for an online workshop on how to fictionalise your life. She looks at literary devices, breaking down form and creating voice; how wrestling back a narrative can serve as a political act; and examples of modern writers who draw from stylised personal perspectives, including Rachel Cusk, Jenny Offill, and Bryan Washington.
When: Sunday 5 September, 2.30pm
Tickets: Tickets: $120–$140, book here
Workshop: Creating YA Characters with Alice Pung
Beloved bestselling author Alice Pung conducts an online workshop on how to write compelling character-based YA stories. She shares insight and tips from her own writing, including her novel Laurinda, which won the Young People’s Literature prize at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Learn more about developing three-dimensional human beings, crafting dialogue and inner monologue, creating a character arc, and if and how to write characters of different backgrounds.
