The Ubud Writers & Readers Festival is set to return to Perth this year, hitting The Rechabite in Northbridge from Friday, October 21 to Sunday, October 23 (get more info and tickets here). This year’s flavour-packed program features writers from Indonesia, Singapore and the Ukraine, who will join Australian and WA creatives for the packed three-day festival made possible through an exclusive partnership between Writing WA and the world-renowned Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, which has run for almost 20 years. BRAYDEN EDWARDS caught up with Writing WA CEO Sharon Flindell to find out more.
What is the history of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, and how has it come to be known on an international level?
The festival was conceived and founded by Janet DeNeefe in 2004 as a healing project in response to the first Bali bombing. Now in its 19th year, UWRF is known as one of the best writers’ festivals in the world with hundreds of writers and other creatives converging in Ubud from all parts of the globe for an extraordinary few days’ of words and ideas.
How about this partnership, and bringing it to Perth for the second year running? How did that come to be?
Writing WA’s relationship with Janet and the Festival began about twelve years ago and has been ongoing since then. Initially we were supporting WA writers to participate in the festival and over the years we’ve sponsored more than 30 to take part. We’ve also occasionally been able to host Indonesian writers at regional festivals here in WA. So from these beginnings, working together to share writers and literary culture from our two countries, it was natural to take the step to creating UWRF Perth Festival and bringing a little bit of the Ubud Festival magic to audiences here in Perth.
A lot of Australians have visited Bali and Ubud is up there with the most popular destinations. But for those that haven’t been to Ubud, how would you describe the place?
It’s really a very lush, beautiful place to immerse yourself in and experience Indonesian arts and culture. I’ve only visited Ubud during festival time, so I’d also have to describe it as a little bit ‘hectic,’ there’s just so much going on – so many sessions and events to choose from, so many warungs to eat in, so many conversations to have, and so much to take in and savour in the environment.
WA is famous across the world for its music, but how about its literature? How would you describe the ‘flavour’ of the writing scene in WA?
The WA writing sector is exceptionally vibrant and diverse, having continued to build on a tradition begun by our original storytellers, the First Nations people of WA. Some of Australia’s biggest literary names today are from WA: Kim Scott, Joan London, Sally Morgan, Gail Jones, Shaun Tan, John Kinsella and four-time Miles Franklin winner Tim Winton.
Nationally and internationally authors such as Dervla McTiernan, David Whish-Wilson, Natasha Lester, Holden Sheppard and Sisonke Msimang are also ensuring the WA writing scene continues to punch well above its weight. It’s an exciting time to be a writer in WA and the future looks exceptionally bright.
Reading and writing, and how they can be experienced, can take so many different shapes these days with the growth of technology and the internet in particular. Does this festival embrace the fact that people can experience literature in new and diverse ways?
The first UWRF Perth festival took place last year when WA’s borders were still closed. It followed a smaller event that we presented in the previous year called Kembali 20. During those years it was obviously a challenge to find ways to unite people and maintain conversations and relationships across borders. We were able to achieve that by creating interactive hybrid events, bringing audiences and speakers together in our venue with speakers joining remotely and audiences watching in real time via streaming.
So, from the very beginning UWRF Perth has embraced technology as an ‘enabler’ of our event. That said, we’re also very happy to be able to return to an ‘in person’ format this year and really looking forward to welcoming our visiting authors from Indonesia, Singapore, Ukraine and from across Australia.
What are you looking forward to most in this year’s program?
The chance to connect with some extraordinary writers and thinkers and to engage in some really immersive and robust conversations about things that matter.
I’m also very much looking forward to the A Taste of Paon literary lunch on Saturday, October 22. We’re honoured to be hosting Wayan Kresna Yasa, the Global Executive Chef and Culinary Director for Potato Head family in Bali. Chef Wayan will be joining us to prepare a three-course meal with dishes selected from Paon, his recently released cookbook. This is a truly unique opportunity for West Australians to sample Chef Wayan’s internationally celebrated cuisine. And for food lovers who’d like first-hand insight into Chef Wayan’s techniques, he’ll also be giving a cooking demonstration on Sunday, October 23.
And for those interested more generally in Writing WA, are there other events like this held throughout the year? And anything coming up we should keep an eye out for?
Writing WA has as big program of events each year. We’ve recently wrapped up this year’s Quantum Words Perth Festival, which is a festival that has a science focus. Following UWRF Perth, our next big event will be in February when we’ll be partnering with LitFestBergen. After that we’ll be working towards our big, state-wide celebration of WA writers and books for Love to Read Local Week in June.
