Melbourne Writers Festival

On Tuesday the 7th of May, the Year 9 Writing Now class visited the State Library for the Melbourne Writers Festival with Ms. Han and Mr. Dorney. We went by the tram into the city, and from Flinders St, we caught a tram to the State Library. I’d never actually been inside the State Library, so it was a great experience going there for the first time. The building itself was colossal, held up by massive pillars draped with posters showcasing the current event. And that was just the exterior! Inside, there were towering walls built with medieval-style bricks and structures, dotted with stained glass.

Of course, the setting wasn’t the highlight. We listened to four speakers in all, and each of them presented something valuable. The first we listened to was Biffy James, and she talked about her book, “Completely Normal (and Other Lies)”, which I found entertaining and hilarious. The book itself is about a mean high school student called Stella who falls in love with a guy named Isaac, but Isaac has a girlfriend (shock and horror!)! Later on (and this isn’t a spoiler so don’t come for me) Isaac dies and Stella learns how to handle her grief. They say that mourning can take many forms but hanging out with the ex-girlfriend of the dead love of your life may not be a great idea…  

The next speaker we listened to was Mike Lucas, who taught us how to “Get the Fright Right”, and I found this talk educational and interesting. Although I don’t often write horror, I feel more equipped to write horror, should I ever want to. I loved the appearance of the presentation too, I found it entertaining to learn more about him and his style of writing, which might influence my writing! He also told us a little bit about his book, “What We All Saw”, which I look forward to reading at some point soon! 

We then walked to Melbourne Central and enjoyed our lunches before heading back in time to catch our third presenter, Steve Mushin. He told us all about his plans to “ultra wild” our cities, presenting a slideshow demonstrating his creative design ideas! I found this presentation informative and insightful because it helped me learn that thinking outside of the box and creatively can make an impact on our lives. I believe that what he presented is a wonderful idea, because as an environmentalist, I hope to make our Earth a better and more beautiful place, and ultra wilding sounds like an amazing way to do just that!  

Our fourth and final presenter was award-winning Astrid Scholte, who wrote Four Dead Queens and League of Liars. Her presentation was called “So you want to be a writer?”, which as you can tell from the title educated us all about being an author! I found this presentation very educational and useful, because I would like to be an author when I’m older, so this was really helpful for me. I learnt about loads of different things I wouldn’t have known before, like the publishing process, and not only did I learn about publishing, but I also learnt about the author herself.  

Overall, I really enjoyed the day, and it was a great experience. 😊 

Sasha Bellsmith 9D