Mountain Writers Festival 2026 Program Launch
Description
Stories contain worlds. They can be friends, teachers, confidants - and provide necessary sustenance. Join us for a glass of local wine or a beer from Holgate Brewhouse and an evening of special performances from local festival guests, as they give their answers to the question “what sustains you?”
Enjoy readings from award-winning author, academic and teacher Ilka Tampke, poet, essayist and creative writing teacher Andy Jackson and music by guitarist and composer Robbie Melville.
Sink into an evening of storytelling and enjoy a glass of local wine or a beer from Holgate Brewhouse as we unveil this year’s program, complete with early access to festival tickets and a limited edition tote bag, to celebrate the coming festival. We hope you'll join us to celebrate the 2026 program!
Hosted by Festival Director Izzy Roberts-Orr.
Lineup
Andy Jackson
Andy Jackson is a poet and essayist. His 2021 collection Human Looking won the ALS Gold Medal and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry. Andy is a co-editor of Raging Grace: Australian Writers Speak Out on Disability (Puncher & Wattman 2024), an anthology of collaborative poems and essays. He has featured at literary events and arts festivals across Australia, on ABC's Radio National and the 7.30 Report, and at the Final Ceremonial Sitting of the Disability Royal Commission. His new poetry collection is Askew (Giramondo 2026), a new crip lyric for our unsettled times. Andy is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne, and he writes and rests on Dja Dja Wurrung country.
Ilka Tampke
Ilka Tampke is an award-winning author of three novels, academic and teacher. Her first novel, Skin, was published in eight countries and nominated for the Voss Literary Prize and the Aurealis Awards in 2015. Songwoman was published in five countries and won the Small Press Network Book of the Year Award in 2019. She teaches creative writing at La Trobe University and the Faber Academy, and is currently completing a PhD in forest poetics at La Trobe University. Ilka was a Glenfern Fellow in 2012 and the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre Writer in Residence in 2019. She has taught workshops and presented at many festivals and organisations around Australia. Her latest novel is How to Love the World, published in May 2026.
Robbie Melville
Robbie Melville is an award-winning Australian composer and guitarist whose work spans jazz, contemporary classical, folk and improvised music. His compositions have received numerous awards, including the 2021 Johnny Dennis Music Award and first place in the 2018 International Songwriting Competition for Junkyard. His albums include work with quintet cleverhorse, trio Antelodic and his quartet, as well as the solo album Tangled Trails, an imagined soundtrack to the 1921 silent film of the same name. He has composed for film and media in Australia and internationally, and with drummer Ronny Ferella, is co-founder of The Magic Lantern Sessions, which creates live improvised scores for silent films. His current multidisciplinary project The Village Square brings together original music for guitar and cello, a novel with wood engravings by David Frazer, an audiobook narrated by Richard Piper, and a live performance.
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
