Emerging Writers' Festival

Evelyn Araluen(The Rot, Dropbear)

The 2025 Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers: A Celebration

The Wheeler Centre, Performance Space (Level 2, ground level)
176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000

Sept 12, 6:00pm

Join Overland to celebrate the winners of the 2025 Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers. Overland’s Editor-in-Chief, Evelyn Araluen, will announce the winning writer and runner-up on the night on the night.

The Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers is supported by Trinity College.

Tickets available here.

Sara Haddad(The Sunbird)

National Writers Conference: Emerging in Print

The Wheeler Centre, Performance Space (Level 2, ground level)
176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000

13 Sept, 11:30am

Treat yourself to a collection of 2025’s newest debut works and settle in for an illuminating discussion as these first-time authors talk craft and experiences with traditional publishers. Bright, brooding, personal and political, hear this eclectic panel share their unique paths to publication.

Tickets available here.

The Next Big Thing: EWF 2025 Edition

The Moat
176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000 (Underneath the Wheeler Centre entrance)

15 Sept, 6:30pm

Join a vibrant evening of readings and celebration as The Wheeler Centre and Emerging Writers’ Festival join forces to spotlight five of Australia’s up-and-coming literary stars.

Crybaby is a collection of micro memoirs by Mabel Gibson. Sara Haddad’s The Sunbird is a timely and modern parable about Palestine. In Spite of You is Patrick Lenton’s wickedly funny queer romcom. Andrea Thompson’s Geraldine chronicles one woman’s journey to change a world that wants to change her. Poet Aylin Mulayim reads their work from Voiceworks #134 Vice.

Tickets available here.

Jazz Money(how to make a basket, mark the dawn, The Frog's First Song)

Youth Workshop: Poetic Obsessions

Online, via Zoom

17 Sept, 6:00pm (AEST)

How do we write poetry that is fully shaped by the crucible of our experiences – our histories, our futures, our obsessions? Where can we take our writing, and where can our writing take us?

As part of Red Room Poetry’s Youth Ambassadors program, this workshop is designed especially for poets under 25 who are looking to ground their creative practice in the stories and landscapes that surround them.

Led by Wiradjuri poet and artist Jazz Money, this session invites you to explore how poetry can reveal the world around us in exciting and surprising ways, and offer openings to consider the living histories and stories of the places we write from.

Tickets available here.

Thomas Vowles (Our New Gods)

Genrequeer

Studio Take Care, Big Room
1 Pitt Street, Brunswick, 3056
Sept 14, 6:30pm

From an AFL romcom to Naarm’s underbelly, Darcy Green (After the Siren) and Thomas Vowles (Our New Gods) are two debut authors with books defying and redefining expectations of queerness in contemporary fiction. In conversation with online lit sensation Charlee Brooks (Grandpa’s Book Club), they’ll unpack what happens when traditional tropes are subverted in the romcom and thriller genres, and what it takes to publish and craft authentic, heartfelt novels.

In partnership with Melbourne Writers Festival 

Tickets available here.

Samantha Byres (Dead Ends)

Embracing the Cringe

Hope Street Radio
35 Johnston St, Collingwood VIC 3066
Sept16, 8:00pm

Embracing the cringe often alludes to you doing you: being yourself, overcoming shame, and finding humour in such growing pains. As a writer, embracing the parts of yourself that you don’t like within your writing can alleviate writerly anxiety, and is an essential step in becoming better at what you do.

Take inspiration from this group of writers, who are willing to share writing from the past that makes them cringe—all so you can see that everyone has to start somewhere.

Tickets available here.