2024 Margaret River Readers & Writers Festival
The program has been developed in partnership with UWAP, Fremantle Press, Magabala and WA Poets Publishing.
Proudly supported by Regional Arts WA.
Friday 17 May – 2.00 – 4.30pm
Writers Workshop Room
Saturday 18 May 2024 – 9.00am – 11.00am
Writers Workshop Room
Join emerging poet Kaya Ortiz for this exploration of poetic forms from the sonnet to sestina, ghazal to prose poem using examples from contemporary poets. This workshop will explore the infinite possibilities of experimentation and creating or adapting poetic forms in your own writing. Participants will have a chance to write new poems in a form of their choosing, or to create a new poetic form for their work.
Hosted by Kaya Ortiz
$25 Not included in Weekend or Day passes
Saturday 18 May 2024 – 11.30am – 1.30pm
Writers Workshop Room
Edith Wright writes about family history, researching stories that span three or four generations. As a proud Bardi woman, she believes we all have a responsibility to tell the truth of events of the day. In this workshop, Edith will share the tools and techniques of truth-telling within memoir writing.Workshop participants will explore truth-telling as a narrative technique within their own intergenerational stories. Edith will share tips on using primary sources such as interviews, files, church records and historical essays to construct a chronological family narrative.
Hosted by Edith Wright
$25 Not included in Weekend and Day passes
Sunday 19 May – 9.00am – 11.00am
Writers Workshop Room
Prepare to be inspired by the possibilities of time travel in your writing journey. Join author Emily Tsokos Purtill for this exploration of writing time travel into fiction across multiple eras and timelines, embracing past, present and future. Learn how to use what fascinates you to write fiction set in particular eras, how to ground those stories and connect them to other timelines, and how to bring depth and authenticity to every strand of your story. Using writing exercises and prompts, this workshop is for writers either starting on a project or looking to refine existing work.
Hosted by Emily Tsokos Purtill
$25 Not including Weekend and Day passes
Sunday 19 May 2024 – 11.30am – 1.30pm
Writers Workshop Room
Poet Emily Dickinson famously implored us to ‘tell all the truth but tell it slant’. Join lecturer and author of the book Kintsugi, Dr Marie O’Rouke for this deep-dive into questions of memory and language in narratives. Learn how to find new ways to shape past experiences on the page through a combination of writing exercises, readings and sensory prompts. This workshop will help you embrace your past self, experiences and relationships while trying your hand at innovative narrative forms
Hosted by Marie O’Rourke
$25 Not included in Weekend and Day passes
Sunday 19 May – 2.00m – 4.00pm
Writers Workshop Room
2022 Hungerford Award winner Molly Schmidt used skills from her career as a journalist to shape authentic characters in her novel Salt River Road. From consulting with Noongar Elders, to interviewing sheep farmers and skateboarders, Molly’s goal was to depict her characters as faithfully as possible. In this hands-on workshop, Molly will share creative writing and research techniques that will help you get to know your own characters better – and connect you more deeply to real people along the way.
Hosted by Molly Schmidt
$25 Not including Weekend and Day passes
Saturday 18 May 2024 – 9.30am – 11.30am
Busselton Library
2022 Dorothy Hewett Award winner Brendan Ritchie explores how writers can engage with place and the ideas, characters, and stories that can emerge as a result. Attendees will explore their own unique relationships with place and initiate writing that responds to these locations. This is a workshop focused on discovery and inspiration that may just uncover that long-lost novel waiting to surface.
Hosted by Brendan Ritchie
FREE, registration required
Proudly supported by Regional Arts WA
Saturday 18 May – 2.00pm – 4.00pm
Dunsborough Library
Betrayal, cancer, fires, bereavement, domestic violence, infertility, drought – poetry allows us to wrestle with meaning as we face suffering and loss. In this workshop, participants will use the act of writing poetry to process difficult emotions and situations. Participants will be invited to consider an instance of pain or loss in the context of the structures of belief that make up our frameworks for meaning.
Hosted by Miriam Wei Wei Lo
FREE, registration required
Proudly supported by Regional Arts WA
