The Melbourne Writers Festival revealed its full program this month, with several Indigenous creatives set to star.

Popping up in venues across the CBD from May 8-11, the annual event sees a host of writers, bestselling authors and leading thinkers converge for four days. With this year's theme of Magical Thinking, the 2025 line-up brings together literary stars to explore the power of storytelling as a transformative force.

In her first program at the helm, Melbourne Writers Festival director Veronica Sullivan has curated a celebration of literature for all tastes and persuasion, from works in translation and non-fiction game-changers to commercial blockbusters and genre sensations. First Nations curators Nardi Simpson and Daniel Browning also bring their insight and vision to a number of thoughtfully curated, self-determined events.

When it comes to what events, discussions and panels the program does include, journalist Ben Abbatangelo, author and activist Thomas Mayo, and human rights lawyer Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts explore the lessons learned, the state of Australian democracy and the ongoing fight for justice.

Five First Nations women will showcase their artistic practices in writing, poetry, music, performance and art for Blak Magic Women. Anita Heiss, Amy McQuire, Alice Skye and Turnbull-Roberts will each share their work, discussing their creative processes, inspirations, and challenges. The evening, curated and hosted by Simpson, will honour the creativity of Blak women through storytelling and community.

Co-editors Marcia Langton and Judith Ryan (65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art) and collaborators Brook Garru Andrew and Jessica Neath (marramarra: Indigenous artists making history visible) will explore the history, impact and future of First Nations and Indigenous art - curated and hosted by Browning.

Browning told Style Up the entire creative process has been incredibly smooth.

"It's a dual role - I've been asked to develop a series of events that speak to an Indigenous sensibility I suppose - and this year the festival director Veronica approached Nardi Simpson and I. We both had other careers before we started writing - Nardi as a singer-songwriter and me as an ABC journalist and radio broadcaster," he said.

"Nardi's has just released her second book, after her extraordinary debut novel 'Song of the Crocodile'. My first book 'Close to the Subject' was released in 2023. We each worked collaboratively with the festival director to create specific events, naturally targeting Blak readers exploring the work of Blak writers but also programming broader conversations that we have a stake in but perhaps aren't ever handed the microphone.

"The entire process has been incredibly smooth from my perspective. I came to the table with three strong ideas, which grew into four or five. I've been able to flesh them out and will moderate most of them, which keeps a curator on their toes! It's now fairly common for writer's festivals to engage Indigenous curators to program events.

"I first curated the First Nations content at the Brisbane Writers Festival in 2023, but it's been happening at major literary events for at least the last five years, possibly longer. I've had a decade-long engagement with the Sydney Writers' Festival as a moderator, and was for a few years a Board member of Byron Writers Festival, so I know my way around a festival program."

Browning said events have been designed to spark conversation, educate and intrigue both the public and media.

"As curators, Nardi and I have taken different approaches. The events I've curated hit some big notes in the national conversation like how we normalise relations after the depths we reached during the Referendum campaign - an abysmally low point in social discourse whichever way you look at it. I should have called that session 'Referendum is not a dirty word'," he said.

"I'm also interested in the lurch towards political and social conservatism, and how Blak activism and progressive politics can flourish in darkening times, no matter how bleak. These are conversations that sometimes happen over our heads or while we're standing there, as if we don't have a stake in them, or we aren't a polity - and that exclusion can be silencing and disengaging for many of us. In the national conversation, we have a right to speak and a right to be heard."

Unveiling her first program as MWF's festival director, Sullivan said she is looking forward to welcoming guests to four creatively jam-packed days.

"I'm thrilled to share our 2025 program. Across four packed days this May, some of Australia and the world's most brilliant and incisive writers and thinkers will gather in our City of Literature to celebrate the alchemy of storytelling, and the power of imagination to open doors we never thought possible," she said.

"At this year's Festival, audiences will encounter Booker Prize winners, inspiring memoirists, genre-defying storytellers, acute political analysts, vibrant podcasters, transcendent musicians, shimmering poets, and emerging voices whose work will shape Australian literature in years to come."

Melbourne Writers Festival's main program runs from Thursday the 8th of May to Sunday 11th of May.

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