Here’s a collection of our favourite moments from the Melbourne Writers Festival this year.

Bronte Coates on Colm Tóibín

Last year I went to see Jeffrey Eugenides speak at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne and he described Colm Tóibín as being remarkably funny. I had my doubts as – from what I’d read of Tóibín’s writing – I’d created an image of him as unbearably serious, the kind of man who might appear in a French film as the solitary figure whose gruff exterior hides a well of sadness. Yet, I’m now forced to admit I was very wrong in my assumption as Colm Tóibín at MWF was utterly delightful – wry and hilarious.

He spoke about his mother’s reading habits, her love for fast-paced stories with plots (suggesting that this seemed her way to torture him about his own slow, careful writing) and being found with a copy of Doris Lessing’s Love, Again on her bedside table when she died. Then he promised he only has one more ‘mother’ book in him, as long as he wasn’t ‘found out’. He claimed that The London Review of Books was already trying to get him to write about being gay but that really, he was not the kind of person most homosexuals would want as a representative. He also gave a rousing tribute to Seamus Heaney who’d passed away a day prior to Tóibín’s event.

One of my favourite stories was when he was describing a class he’d taught at The New School, a progressive University in New York City. Feeling a certain amount of competitive pressure to be popular, he’d called his class ‘Relentless’ in the hope of attracting a certain kind of student. During the semester, one such student had spoken to him about finding an alternate way to get the results of taking cocaine: a double express with a bubbly coca cola poured on top. Tóibín then began to drink one of these before class. ‘I was on fire,’ he said.

Ann Le Lievre on Peter Goldsworthy

I entered this session from a mind-numbing cold winter’s day to find a warm haven of ideas and discourse. I was simply enchanted with Peter’s eloquence as he shared his experience of writing His Stupid Boyhood. I loved how he spoke about his efforts to not allow adult hindsight to colour or interpret the childhood story he was creating.

During the session, Peter also talked on how he’d initially kept the young boy he was writing about at arm’s length – with an almost dispassionate sense of engagement. Yet, as the story progressed he began to find himself embracing his younger self, coming to understand that this boy was not so much ‘stupid’ as inexperienced and impressionable. One of my favourite moments from the session was when Peter spoke on why he loves writing, saying: ‘I just love fiction writing for never knowing in advance where the writing might take me.’

Afterwards, I returned to the steely, gray outdoors having visited fragments of my own childhood and experienced frank, unencumbered moments with a great Australian writer.

Emily Gale on Tavi Gevinson

Walking cliché that I am, at nearly 40 I’ve inevitably reached that time in my life when I’m worrying about death and lack of achievement. And wrinkles. So being invited to a talk being delivered by a beautiful, confident, phenomenally successful 17 year old seemed like a dreadful idea. What was I going to get out of that except self-loathing?

In this case, the person who had asked me to the event made all the difference – it was Melbourne-based YA author Fiona Wood, and because her new book Wildlife is my favourite so far of this year and I’d basically walk across hot coals for the woman, I said yes. So I went in fully prepared to find Tavi Gevinson – blogger extraordinaire by 11, magazine founder by 15, actor, icon, you get the picture – to be nothing short of alien, possibly irritating, and for her to talk about things I’m not very interested in. Wrong on all counts.

If the evening hadn’t been such a happy experience I might feel more embarrassed about how very wrong my preconceptions had been, but that would be to dwell on my shortcomings instead of highlight Tavi’s achievements. And so to those: Tavi was wise, funny, ambitious, sweet, philosophical and wonderfully impressive. Oddly, she also seemed pretty normal. Extraordinary but regular; supremely confident but still riddled with teen anxieties. The audience was rapt as Tavi shared her notebooks and literary influences, encouraged us to embrace the fan-girl within, talked about depression, success, heartbreak and Beyonce, all in a presentation that was so fluid and charming I don’t think there would have been a single person there who didn’t leave with a massive smile on their face. My companions – Fiona Wood and fellow authors Simmone Howell and Gabrielle Wang – were equally impressed. We all agreed on one thing: this girl will write a brilliant novel one day.