My beloved Format Festival is happening again soon, and I am super-hyped to be going back to Adelaide for more sunshine and shenanigans.

The festival runs from 27 Feb to 14 Mar and the whole program is now available online. There is a lot of good shit happening.

I’ll be in town for the wordy side of things, as I organised the Academy of Words component of the festival, which takes place on 13 March. That and the zine fair on 14 March make the closing weekend great time to get to Adelaide if you like writers, writing, publishing, ideas, books, zines and all that kind of stuff. This is basically what’s happening:

FORMAT ACADEMY OF WORDS – 11AM to 6PM

Criticism and reviewing
Personal attacks vs regurgitating press releases… what makes a good review? What are the challenges of writing criticism in Australia? And what’s it like to be a critic… is it true they have no friends?

It’s all gone Dave Eggers: the current state of literature in Australia
Independent publishing is hip, Melbourne is the new capital of Literature, small mags are fluorishing… is this current publishing explosion all thanks to the success of McSweeney’s? Or are there other forces at play? And what does it mean for writers?

The Great Zine Explosion
They said blogs would kill zines – they were wrong. Come find out about Australia’s flourishing zine culture, talk collation and distribution, get to the bottom of Why Zines Matter and maybe even shift a few units.

Mining the Personal
They say write what you know, but how easy is it to write about yourself or draw material from your life? Do you feel exposed when people read your words, and how do you deal with the fallout? And what happens when people mistake your characters for you?

Non-paper publishing
Books are great, but what are other avenues for writers to be heard and distributed? What are the challenges of writing for digital, audio and live audiences? Is it all about the words or is it all in the delivery?

A deeper kind of anger: the problems of metal music & culture
Confused by how metal, that most intense and transgressive of musical genres, is also all too often a gathering ground for conservative politics and shallow-mindedness? Do you still think it rocks so hard? Come on down – let’s talk this shit out.

Plus
EDITORIAL AGONY AUNTS…
LITERARY ACTIVISM…
TEEN ANGST DIARY READINGS…

With special guests Paper Radio, Clementine Ford, Metal as Fuck, Sticky, Susy Pow, Dion Kagan, Leticia Supple, Maddy Phelan, Format zine shop, Estelle Tang, Myk Mykyta, Sam Wise, Bel Schenk, Caroline Hamilton, Cutwater, Paul Callaghan, Ryan Paine, Stu Hatton, John Stevens, Ianto Ware, Angela Meyer, Lisa Dempster… and more… and YOU!

LITERARY FRICTION (7.30pm)
Two teams made up of Format Festival panelists and audience members will go head-to-head to be the literary champions of the world! (Or, the room). This RockWiz-style lit-game will have all the fun of trivia, write-offs, pick the fake blurb or character, identify the opening line, who am I? questions, finish this book title, charades and much more. There will be many chances for audience participation.
Hosted by MCs Estelle Tang and Angela Meyer.

YOU CAN’T STOP THE MUSING: Disco-lecture & DJ Set (9pm)
Everybody knows disco is fun. But is it good for you? Now that Disco is back (trust us, it is), the time has come to determine, once and for all, whether it’s part of the problem or part of the solution. Triple J’s Craig Schuftan presents the case for and against in You Can’t Stop the Musing – the world’s first Disco-lecture. Expect to hear from The Silver convention, The Chic Organisation and the Frankfurt School, and don’t be surprised if you start doing that which both Theodor Adorno and the adherents of the Disco Sucks movement considered an impossibility – thinking and dancing.
Hosted by Triple J’s Craig Schuftan

Format has a new venue this year, at 15 Peel St. There will be a zine shop and tea house (with beer, I assume) in operation all during the festival, and loads of stuff happening at the venue and other places. Hope to see you there!

Photo by donkeycart.