Melbourne Writers Festival marks 40 years with Visions & Revisions

Running from Thursday, May 7 to Monday, May 10, this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) features a lineup of more than 150 artists from across Australia and around the world brought together under the theme Visions & Revisions.

Celebrating its 40^th anniversary this year MWF 2026 promises events ranging from “intimate conversations in cosy bar corners to blockbuster events at Melbourne Town Hall”.

Among the latter, at 8.30pm on May 7, is the conversation between former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Virginia Trioli about global leadership in times of crisis.

The opening night event at the Athenaeum will feature original readings and performances responding to the festival theme by writers Omar Musa and Don Watson, American poet Ariana Reines and composer Sophia Brous along with the announcement of The Age Book of the Year Awards.

Big-name international guests include Canadian Booker prize-winning Life of Pi author Yann Martel, British 2025 Booker Prize winner David Szalay, feminist Irish-Indian poet Nikita Gill and best-selling North American speculative fiction novelist R. F. Kuang.

Kuang, who has sold out two events, will appear in an extra session on May 10 at the Athenaeum.

Other writers flying in are Ukrainian-Canadian Maria Reva, Scotsman Michael Pedersen, American Susan Choi, Japanese Genki Kawamura and E Mieko Kawakami, Palestinian Tareq Baconi and the UK’s Nikita Gill.

Among the many Australians appearing are Anita Heiss, Daniel James and Evelyn Araluen – who are First Nations curators of the festival – Andy Jackson, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Toni Jordan, Alice Pung, Romy Ash, Sam Elkin, Lally Katz and First Dog on the Moon.

Novel or standout events, some of them now sold out, include an assessment of the political moment hosted by former Insiders host Barrie Cassidy; esteemed cook Stephanie Alexander’s release of her updated kitchen bible,

The Cook’s Companion; a meeting of Australian crime writers Dervla McTiernan and Benjamin Stevenson; a discussion by the authors of new anthology Crip Stories about their perspectives on disability; and a song cycle by Sophia Brous created from the writing of poet Dorothy Porter, to be performed with composer Paul Grabowsky and introduced by Andrea Goldsmith.

There will be events focused on the rise of independent media (Osman Faruqi, Antoinette Lattouf, Amy Remeikis), artificial intelligence (Toby Walsh), sex and pleasure (Madison Griffiths and Kayla Jade) and defiance and resilience (Antoinette Lattouf and Grace Tame).

Environmentalist Bob Brown, musician Robert Forster and humourist Sean Micallef will be among those sharing their views in various events.

A closing night address will be delivered by activist, historian and author Tony Birch on the ethics of reading and writing, and the responsibility that comes with creative freedom.

For more information: mwf.com.au