Museum of Australian Democracy director Jane Smith has hailed the third hosting of the Melbourne Writers Festival as a rousing success.
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Ms Smith said the festival, held at MADE on Saturday, was blessed with a significant influx of attendances.
“It was a great success and we had record numbers,” Ms Smith said.
“A lot of people are fascinated by the contemporary issues.”
- Jane Smith
“We sold over 400 tickets for the day.”
By her estimate, Ms Smith said there was about a 70 per cent increase in ticket sales to the previous edition.
Focusing on historical perspectives, the festival featured authors Graeme Davison, Leah Kaminsky, Maria Katsonis, Maria Tumarkin, Billie Tumarkin, Emily Bitto, Clare Wright, Murong Xuecun, Ginger Briggs and Eleanor Catton, alongside The Courier journalist Matt Dixon.
Seven seminars and workshops were held across the day, with a broad range of topics in genetics and genealogy, memoir writing, family history, the impact of internet and institutional care all addressed.
The event was capped off with a keynote session titled Storytelling Gold with authors Eleanor Catton and Clare Wright – who will discuss their works on the Australian and New Zealand gold rushes.
Ms Smith said the numbers were a reflection of growing interest in Australian democracy.
“We had a lot of people coming in for the coffee and papers session,” she said.
“A lot of people are fascinated by the contemporary issues.”
Ms Smith said Stella Prize winners Emily Bitto and Clare Wright drew massive crowds to their Historic Truths session.
Ms Smith said in the lead up to the festival she hoped the series would provoke informed discussion in the community, and her wish was fulfilled when Ginger Meggs’ story of one boy’s life as a ward of the state in Melbourne struck a cord with local onlookers.
“That raised a whole lot of really pertinent issues, given we’ve got the Royal Commission into treatment of children in Ballarat,” she said.
“Democracy is an organic thing (and) we very much are a place where people can talk about all issues in the world and engage on contemporary matters.”
Maria Katsonis’ memoir writing workshop, alongside Graeme Davison’s discovering family history session, also proved exceedingly popular.
ABC Ballarat was present in support of the event.