Addi Road Writers’ Festival reboots what a literary event can be
Addi Road Writers’ Festival 2022 returns on Saturday 14 May, and it is back bigger and bolder in its second annual incarnation.
The theme this year is ‘New Lines’.
Artistic Directors Mark Mordue and Sheila Ngoc Pham promise, “New lines of conversation and inquiry. New lines in how we might live better, from responding to inequality to answering existential and aesthetic hungers within us. New lines, literally, from authors, poets, musicians, journalists and social justice activists. New lines, too, that might separate us from all the bullshit and division we’ve been wading through. New lines in what storytelling can be – and what it can do for us.”
They’ve put together a writers’ festival that builds from astrong literary foundation to embrace broader notions of storytelling and some rock ‘n’ roll spirit, as well as AddiRoad’s community-oriented activism. “We want to reboot the whole idea of what a literary festival can be.”
The festival starts at midday on Saturday, May 14 with an Acknowledgement of Country and will roll on through till twilight, when it ends with a special event led by Bigambul Elder Uncle Wes Marne, celebrating his 100th birthday and the publication of Through Old Eyes, a book about his life and poetry.
Funded by Inner West Council, more than 30+ writers, poets, journalists and artists will be appearing across 12 panels inside two venues (Gumbramorrra Hall and the Greek Theatre) at the centre in Marrickville. An additional 10 solo speakers and performers of music and spoken word will cut into the day with short, sharp ‘hotspots’ of thought and energy.
Some of the other guests on the day include… sports commentator and social justice activist Craig Foster; graphic novelist Safdar Ahmed, journalists Mridula Amin and Michael West; poets Felicity Plunkett and Ethan Bell; philosopher and author Chris Fleming; painter and performance artist Locust Jones.; musician DC Cross; and Warren Roberts of YARN Australia.
Panels will cover subjects such a memoir and ethics; the state of the media today; the connections between food and culture; the rising significance of politics in sport; Indonesian literature in translation; and our relationship to drugs and how we talk about them. Poetry friends in Belfast have also sent them a video all the way from Northern Ireland.
Slideshows, animation, music, performance, conversation, debate, poetry… It’s an innovative new writers’ festival that is not to be missed.
