The Mildura (Australia) Writers' Festival

Three Pinoy writers went to the Mildura Writers' Festival recently, and one of them, Exie Abola, wrote about it. An excerpt from "In And Out Of Oz":

“We were treated like kings,” Rofel Brion says when friends ask how our trip to Australia was. “And fed like them, too,” I add. In the middle of July 2009 three Ateneo de Manila writers—Rofel, Cyan Abad-Jugo, and myself—went to Australia to attend the Mildura Writers’ Festival. I had never heard of the place or the event, but when Marlu Vilches, dean of the School of Humanities, asked me if I would consider going, I said, “When do we leave?”

Mildura (mill-JOO-ruh) is an inland city in a mostly agricultural region more than 500 kilometers northwest of Melbourne. Known for its produce (such as dried fruit, grapes, citrus), Mildura is also a center of arts and culture. The Mildura Writers’ Festival, a celebration of Australian writers and renowned for being perhaps the most convivial and friendly literary event in that country, was going on its 15th year. Writers from all over Australia, and a few from abroad, were flown in to Mildura for the nearly week-long festival. We were the only foreigners.

Our involvement in the festival was a result of Ateneo de Manila’s linkage with La Trobe University, an education partner of the festival and one of its sponsors. We arrived in Mildura on July 16, Thursday, just in time to attend the opening of “Clandestine,” an art-installation exhibit by Neil Fettling, one of our hosts. Fettling, who teaches at La Trobe University, has been artist-in-residence in Ateneo, his work shown at the Ateneo Art Gallery in January 2007 in an exhibit titled “Noosphere.”