The 2005 Age Melbourne Writers Festival

Celebrating 20 years of Melbourne’s Premier Literary Festival

August 19 to August 28, 2005

This year the Age Melbourne Writers’ Festival celebrates 20 years of bringing writers from across the world to Melbourne. From humble beginnings in 1986 the festival has grown to become Australia’s premier literary event.

A handful of writers including Robert Drewe and British author Christopher Logue took part in the inaugural festival at the Athenaeum Theatre in that first year. Over the years the festival has grown with more than 250 writers discussing all things literary in 2004.

This year’s festival will be as interesting and challenging as ever.

For 10 days Melbourne will be host to authors from across the world and around Australia. They will come from many countries including the UK, USA, Canada, Japan, Tahiti, Holland, France, Spain, China and Malaysia. Among them will be novelists Frédéric Beigbeder, Tash Aw, Ron McLarty and Larry Beinhart; crime writers Steven Booth and John Harvey; poets Arjen Duinke and Ruth Sancho; novelist, Elizabeth Knox, and Karen Joy Fowler, the author of The Jane Austen Book Club. The festival will also feature creator of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall-Smith and the Canadian literary sensation who first named generation X, Douglas Coupland.

Local authors who will be part of this special Melbourne Writers’ Festival include Kate Grenville, Sonya Hartnett, Jane Clifton, Delia Falconer, Robert Manne, Robert Drewe, Tony Wilson and Sean Condon.

The 20^th Age Melbourne Writers’ Festival will take place from August 19 to August 28, 2005 at CUB Malthouse, Melbourne Town Hall and other venues around Melbourne.

The 20^th Melbourne Writers’ Festival will also include days especially for young readers and special events around the city.