The program for the Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) 2018 has been revealed. Our booksellers share their top picks here, and you can find a list of exciting international guests here, as well as browse the full program here.

This year’s program includes an event series about ‘sacred texts’, in which writers share the books that changed their lives. The three events in the series are The Book That Made Me a Feminist, The Book that made me an Activist and The Book That Made Me A Better Lover. We gave our staff these same prompts. Here are their responses.

THE BOOKS THAT MADE US FEMINISTS

‘I’m pretty lucky to be a child of feminists, and the ideas encompassed by feminism have been in my life for as long as I can remember. However, there are still a number of texts that have pushed me along in my journey through feminism. The first I can think of is definitely Princess Smartypants, which recasts the role of the princess and reiterates that no young woman should have to change her life to gain a man’s approval. I would also cite Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar as a formative feminist novel for me. The gross inequality and awful treatment Esther is subject to through this novel really shook me as a teenager. More recently, Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race has got me thinking a lot about what it means to be a good feminist in today’s world with regards to intersectionality and dismantling privilege within feminism.’

– Ellen Cregan, marketing & events coordinator

‘I was born into feminism, and so it always seemed the natural order of right thinking people. However, the book that helped crystalise the ways in which I wanted to speak about feminism is Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.’

– Marie Matteson, buyer at Readings Carlton

‘One notable series from my childhood is Tamora Pierce’s The Song of the Lioness quartet which saw the fierce and determined Alanna disguise herself as a boy so that she could train as a knight. These books were rich in drama and action-packed with battles and magic. Looking back at them as an adult also makes me realise they were very sex positive. There’s a whole section about birth control after Alanna starts menstruating, and she’s always very much in control of who she sleeps with and why. In fact, she even ends a relationship with someone she deeply cares about after realising staying with him would mean she’d have to sacrifice too much of herself. The two of them then manage to work through their difficult emotions to maintain a loving and supporting friendship, which is a positive and reassuring thing to see in a book for young people.’

– Bronte Coates, digital content coordinator

‘I was not, in any way shape or form, a tomboy as a child. I refused to wear anything but dresses, my favourite colour was pink, and I obsessed over my friends Barbie doll collections (I wasn’t allowed any of my own). Mum was one of those amazing second-wave feminists who was determined that I would grow up with the belief that I could do anything that I wanted – even if what I wanted more than anything was to dress up as a princess and make 'perfume’ out of mashed-up honeysuckle blossoms. So The Paper Bag Princess was the perfect gateway book into feminism for young me.

Perfect Princess Elizabeth has pretty dresses and a castle and a handsome prince to marry, but when a dragon arrives and lays waste to her wardrobe and her castle and absconds with her prince, Elizabeth must use her wits to win him back. Which she does because she’s not just a princess, she’s also resourceful and smart. At the very end of the book when, spoiler alert, the handsome prince is revealed to be a bit of a dickhead, and Elizabeth demonstrates she has a strong enough sense of self-worth to kick him to the curb and make her own happily-ever-after.‘

– Lian Hingee, digital marketing manager

THE BOOKS THAT MADE US ACTIVISTS

'So many authors contribute to my activism. In my twenties, there was Anne Summers, Marilyn French, Doris Lessing, Nancy Friday and Margaret Atwood. In my thirties there was Thea Astley, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood again. In my forties, there was Roxanne Gay, Heidi Julavits and yes, Margaret Atwood again. My current obsession is Meg Wolitzer.’

– Chris Gordon, events manager

‘If we go way back, I think the book that originally made me an activist is Charlotte’s Web. Soon after reading it as a kid, I made the decision to stop eating animals, and never went back. A cliché, I know, but the impact that book had on my empathy towards animals is still going today! My second choice is also totally clichéd – both 1984 and Animal Farm awakened my political consciousness as a teenager. However, I feel like most of the books I read today stoke the flame of activism.’

– Ellen Cregan, marketing & events coordinator

‘The book that made me an activist is probably 123456789 Benn by David Mckee. While Mckee is most famous for his Elmer books in Australia, my favourite was always another one of his serialised characters – Mr Benn. Mr Benn frequents a fancy dress store and every time he puts on a new costume he is transported to its origin. In 123456789 Benn, he tries on a prisoner’s outfit and finds himself in a very grim late Victorian seeming prison. In an effort to make conditions better Mr Benn starts a painting exercise and the prisoners all paint their cells in beautiful murals and dye their clothes. It lifts and restores dignity to everyone.’

– Marie Matteson, buyer at Readings Carlton

‘I was already a vegetarian before I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals but after I finished it, I felt far more comfortable with my decision. Before, I’d often felt a need to apologise when it came up in conversation, but this book helped me to better understand why I’d opted out of meat in the first place. It also encouraged me to be more vocal in my support of animals rights.’

– Bronte Coates, digital content coordinator

THE BOOKS THAT MADE US BETTER LOVERS

‘As a teenager, like many teenagers, I enjoyed a good bodice ripper full of anger, jealousy, betrayal, and redemptive love. Think Twilight without vampires, but instead with pirates and highlanders. Luckily, before I started looking for my Bella, I came across my favourite of all Georgette Heyer’s regency romances, False Colours. It’s an historical romance that values the wonder and passion and, most importantly to teenaged romantics, the excitement, in a shared sense of humour and a kind understanding of the other’s family foibles. It’s still the model I wish to emulate.’

– Marie Matteson, buyer at Readings Carlton

‘You read about a lot of bad relationships in fiction and so when I think of how novels have impacted my love life, it’s mainly in terms of what not to do. With this in mind, probably the best book about relationships I ever read was Ann Patchett’s, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. The essays in this collection are about all kinds of things – dogs, opera, books, and yes, love and marriage, and divorce too. Patchett writes with such a natural ease and loveliness, you can’t help but feel comforted and inspired by her words.’

– Bronte Coates, digital content coordinator

‘Faced with this prompt, all I can think of right now is Sally Rooney. Conversations with Friends. While it is about an affair, is a really interesting meditation on intimacy with both current and former partners. Rooney’s protagonist in this novel is best friends with her ex-girlfriend, and sleeping with a married man. Both these relationships are surprising, and the way Rooney expresses their intricacies is so spot on. I think Rooney’s forthcoming second novel, Normal People (available in September), is also a great look at the ways we can love another person and what exactly that means – especially when we are young.’

– Ellen Cregan, marketing & events coordinator

‘When I turned 21, a very close friend gave me copies of all of Anaïs Nin’s books wrapped in ripped pages from a music book and tied with brown string. I thought it was the most sophisticated, provocative and wonderful gift. For years after I would write quotes from the books into friend’s cards believing myself to be oh so aware, so knowledgeable and with perhaps of touch of French chic. I loved that Nin’s novels were unapologetic and erotic. The women characters were femme fatales and Nin’s diaries were filled with provocation. My favourite quote was: We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Later on I learnt that she had made up much of the content in her diaries, and for a long time, I felt deceived – until I read her diaries again as a young mother. Nin says: We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations. I should never have felt deceived. Nin’s work is after all a lesson about context and acceptance.’

– Chris Gordon, events manager

You can find the full program for the 2018 MWF here.