The Emerging Writers’ Festival work, learn and play largely on the land of the Kulin nation, and pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.

EWF celebrates the history and creativity of the world’s oldest living culture.

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☾, Performance, Creative Performance & Exhibition

Nocturnal: Earthshattering

From profound encounters with the supernatural and the natural world, to the everyday tremors of grief, love and the erotic, each realm of life has the potential to earth-shatter. Words and sounds are the mediums we turn to, to channel these transformative events. Hear stories and tributes to experiences that rooted these artists to the earth or led them to transcend it, presented as part of Nocturnal, Melbourne Museum’s monthly adults-only invite Nocturnal.

Presented in partnership with Melbourne Museum.

Please note: The full exhibition runs from 6PM to 9PM, with EWF artists featuring from 8:15PM.

    Presented in partnership with

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Thursday 12 September

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Melbourne Museum
11 Nicholson St, Carlton VIC 3053

Featuring...

Alison J Barton

Alison J Barton is a Wiradjuri poet widely published in Australian and international journals. In 2023 she won several fellowships with the Australian National Writer’s House (Varuna House) and her poetry was recognised in numerous prizes. In both 2022 and 2023, Alison’s work appeared in Best of Australian Poems. She was the inaugural winner of the 2023 University of Cambridge First Nations Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, and took up a two-month writing residency in 2024 with SomoS Arts (Berlin, Germany). Her first full-length collection of poetry, Not Telling, will be published in August with Puncher & Wattmann.

Anthea Yang

Anthea Yang is a writer and poet whose work has appeared in Going Down Swinging, Kill Your Darlings, Mascara Literary Review and the HEIDE+Rabbit Modern Women anthology, among others

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Wednesday 11 September

Digital Surrealisms

Is the world becoming unreal, or hyper-real? Sink into this series of audio surrealist works, from artists concerned with the obsolescence of memory, AI, and the relationship between creativity, and being chronically online.

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Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September

20 Minute Cities

Take a literary tour around the world, with the help of the UNESCO Cities of Literature network! Join emerging writers from Heidelberg, Jakarta, Kozhikode, Krakow, Ljubljana, Nottingham, Quebec City, Reykjavik, Tukums, Vilnius and Wroclaw as they walk you through their city, introducing you to local writers and pointing out what makes their City of Literature great. 

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Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September

A Feather Landing

This digital writing exhibition is an invitation into stillness. Four poets experiment with communicating the wordless, drawing upon language as an imperfect signpost towards the shimmering presence that exists beneath and beyond all things.

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Thursday 8 August, 6PM

Texting Images: BLINDSIDE & EWF Ekphrastic Workshop

As part of Blindside and the Emerging Writers Festival’s 2024 Ekphrastic Writing Program, Naarm-based poet and critic Dr Autumn Royal will reveal the history of ekphrasis to illuminate the relationship between literary and visual realms.

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