Program | Write around the Murray

Our 2020 program

Our 2020 theme, Past Lives/Present Tense, explores voices and stories from the past, together with contemporary storytelling, to ask questions about where we are, what we know and how to live in times of crisis and transition.

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Exhibitions

Whale bones in museum
8
Aug
Exhibitions

Capturing Nature

Capturing Nature brings to life the story of one of humankind’s greatest inventions and a Victorian obsession with immortality.
postcard Mayday Hills
31
Aug
Exhibitions

Collections from the Asylum

Collections from the Asylum presents evocative objects and artworks connected with the former Mayday Hills mental hospital in Beechworth.
vineyards
24
Aug
Exhibitions

Made in Lavington

Telling the stories of some of the many families who have made an impact on the region.
12
Aug
Exhibitions

PR I DE

Through a series of workshops with artist Ashlee Laing, LGBTIQ+ participants have developed works in reflection of their experiences and expression of their identity.
Mother and baby at Bonegilla
11
Sep
Exhibitions

Call the Midwife

Explores the history of midwives and the care of women during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum.
Two visitors examine a landscape painting in a gold frame, in a white room full of gold frame landscapes
1
Jun
Exhibitions

COLLECTION

COLLECTION celebrates the vital cultural resource during this period of instability and uncertainty, with a selection of works from the MAMA Collection.

Workshops

15
Aug
Workshops

Poetry Slam Workshop

Hone your storytelling craft and get ready for the WAM Zoom Slam in this online workshop with Andi Stewart.

Storytelling projects

Secrets of the Streets

It's possible you might be a psychogeographer, you just don't know it yet. Share an image and a story for this local psychogeography project.

Get Involved

The Neighbourhood

You are invited to participate in an online storytelling project for the local Albury Wodonga community.

Get Involved
Image of Lorraine Connelly-Northey artwork in the foyer of MAMA.

Distant Echoes

Jazz Money, Jack De Lacy and Manisha Anjali deliver digital poetic responses to the MAMA collection and festival theme, on Instagram.

Get Involved

Performances

postcard Mayday Hills
9
Sep
Performances

Collections from the Asylum Launch and Q&A

Join us for the online launch of the Collections from the Asylum exhibition, which focuses on Mayday Hills, the former Beechworth mental hospital.
11
Sep
Performances

WAM Zoom Slam

The annual WAM Slam is always a festival highlight. We can't wait to experience the Zoom slam!
Band members posing with instruments n old hall. front man with typerwriter under arm
12
Sep
Performances

Stereo Stories Live(streamed)

EVENT POSTPONED Sign up for WAM festival updates. We'll let you know when we announce a new date for this livestream event later in the year.

Author talks

Ghost species and Wolfe Island Book Covers.
30
Jul
Author talks

Future Tense

Future Tense launched the WAM 2020 online program. You can listen to the replay here.
10
Sep
Author talks

Benjamin Law

Benjamin Law is a writer, broadcaster and journalist whose latest book is the anthology 'Growing up Queer in Australia'.
11
Sep
Author talks

Fathomable

Rebecca Giggs speaks with James Bradley about whales, the environment and her new book Fathoms: the World in the Whale.
12
Sep
Author talks

Somebody’s Story

Local artists and storytellers talk about working with the stories of others, working regionally and working through Covid.
12
Sep
Author talks

Bedlam

James Dunk’s research explores how internal disorder has helped to shape the exterior world we live in.
12
Sep
Author talks

A Room Made of Leaves

What if Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of the wool baron, had written a frank and secret memoir? Kate Grenville talks to Jason Steger about what she might have thought.
12
Sep
Author talks

Past Tense. History: What is it good for?

Our cracking line-up of novelists, historians and history-makers respond to the provocation, History: What is it good for?
author portrait
13
Sep
Author talks

Body Count

Paddy Manning discusses the human toll of climate change with Jane Rawson.
13
Sep
Author talks

Criminal Types

Emma Viskic and Nick Gadd change things up with some surprising and unique angles in their crime novels.
13
Sep
Author talks

Animal Magnetism

Jane Rawson explores a confluence of themes with the authors of Mammoth, The Animals in that Country and Ghost Species.
13
Sep
Author talks

Present Tense. Our Uneasy Inheritance

Ellen van Neervan talks to Jeanine Leane about the history that bears on the present.

Discover the powerful, moving and invigorating words of the authors in the 2020 program before you hear them speak

Check out Dymocks Albury to get your (sanitised) hands on these excellent reads. Dymocks is currently offering free delivery to all addresses within the Albury Wodonga area, and a $5 flat fee for all other locations across Australia.
Get reading and see you at the Festival!
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Meet some of our presenters

James Phelan
Nova Weetman
Benjamin Law
Aimee Chan
Jeanine Leane
Laura Jean McKay
View all our presenters

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