Meet the EWF 2025 Guest Curator, Coral Reeve!

Tell us a bit about yourself, Coral! Apart from being this year’s festival Guest Curator – what do you get up to?

I am Coral Reeve, the human kind. I am also a proud Gunditjmara woman, currently living on Wathawurrung Country. I think the most important thing is that as a First Nation woman, my writing does not just sit in society’s expectation about culture, our human rights and the intricacies about how our individual and community life envelopes the writing space, (which it should), but that our words no matter the prose or theme represents us as individuals too. My main practice is in poetry and short stories, and my pet procrastination project ‘Welcome to my home’.

I have been shortlisted twice for poetry in First Nations life writing for the Lord Mayor of Melbourne Creative writing award, and in a few books, Summer is Always Black and Sexy (Indigenous Etchings, Ilura Press), Outside (Q-Lit) and Five Hearts, One Flame (community children’s book/Charter Hall) and have studied literature for six years.

For those who don’t know, each year the EWF Guest Curator envisions, programs, and hosts the opening event of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. What made you bring your incredible curatorial work to EWF?

I seen the EOI advertised on Facebook and, just like when I write, I seen the visual layout of the event. It looked a lot like Songlines, and the idea of making that contemporary and bringing First Nation people’s words along the journey just felt good.

From curatorship to your own writing practice, you’re doing a LOT creatively!! What has drawn you to the kinds of creative projects that you work on? Is there anything in particular you are working on inspired by at the moment?

Sometimes my writing is inspired by events such as heartache, politics and Domestic Violence, anger and nature. But lately, it’s as if I am ingesting other people’s experiences and then their story becomes my writing.

Beyond that, I have been drawing a lot of inspiration from the development of homes (which in a lot of ways is needed) but also the flipside of that coin, the destruction of land. I just started a First Nations-run editing and proofreading business, which I think is a great step in supporting First Nations authors and their words, and educating others about being culturally sensitive in their writing.

Do you have any handy hints or tips for other emerging writers looking to begin their creative journeys?

Be open to opportunities and to click save, even if it is one line – because that one line can become a chapter or poem later on!

All this talk about writing and creativity!! We’re curious to hear, what have you been reading lately, or what are you excited to pick up soon?

A few years ago, I went into a house that had been on fire a month or so prior and, with permission from the owner, I got to scavenge around in there and found Simon Wells’ chilling biography Charles Manson: Coming Down Fast. It really put into perspective how delicate people’s psyche can be. Next, something a little lighter will be Stephen King’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes.