Pub Talk is an interview series where we chat to some of Australia’s most experienced and influential publishers, editors, agents and arts workers about the industry and the many pathways to publication for new writers.
Australia has an increased presence in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Both Melbourne and Hobart have received the prestigious City of Literature designation (and there are rumours of a third Australian city getting a nod). But how can writers make the most of these global connections? We spoke to David Ryding, director of the Melbourne City of Literature office, to find out more about art as cultural diplomacy and the promotion of our national literature both at home and abroad.
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Image: Supplied.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
There’s a bit of mystery around the Melbourne City of Literature office. Why do you think that is?
People don’t quite understand the distinction between Melbourne being a UNESCO City of Literature as a whole and the work of our office. The designation doesn’t echo around the city the way it should.
In Australia, people have the attitude: What are you giving us? They think we’re a funding body. What we do is a bit different. The office is deliberately small. Just me, and our office administrator Panda Wong. We don’t program. The role of our office is to connect the sector and elevate it through cultural diplomacy. The arts are so competitive, and we’re so used taking up space from each other rather than helping each other. We aim to connect Melbourne to the benefits of being a part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, both at home and internationally.
What kind of things do you do?
Originally, the office was created to do the reporting, represent the city at member meetings, be a help desk and have a weekly newsletter. And I pitched a more supportive office, one that engages a bit more with writers, publishers, booksellers… When I became director, my strategic planning was really just asking the question: What can I do to help?
We quickly realised that just giving money wasn’t the best thing to do. We don’t want to compete with other organisations, and it gets biased towards the people who are good at writing grants. Now we do things like our Walking the City of Literature map and our Reading the City of Literature website, which showcases writing from around the city. We also have other initiatives that connect Melbourne to the world and get the world to look at us. Things like the Virtual Writer in Residence program and the Green House writers’ room that are in partnership with other cities.
Left: Walking the City of Literature map. Source: @marymartinbooks. Right: The Reading the City of Literature website.
Melbourne became a UNESCO City of Literature in 2008, the second city chosen after Edinburgh. Why do you think Melbourne received this early honour?
I’m not sure. (Laughs.) The Victorian government said they would build a centre for writing and ideas—which they did. The other convincing argument was that over seventy per cent of Melburnians read. But I thought it was a brave jump to put us in.
Maybe we were just so different to the European cities they were seeing. We’re a lot bigger—5.2 million people and growing. Edinburgh has just over 500,000. It’s a very Eurocentric model that works best for smaller cities that have another city half an hour away. So, Edinburgh made a lot of sense. I can’t think of a more ‘City of Literature’ city. I got to be there last year for the 20th anniversary of their designation. It’s got the history, but it’s also very now. The conference was held at the Storytelling Centre, a building that has been specially built so you don’t have to use a microphone—people can just use their voice. And that just blew my mind.
When it comes to Melbourne, I think UNESCO just wanted an Australian city. (Laughs.) And in 2023 they let Hobart in, and I’m pretty sure there will be another Australian city in the next designation.
What can readers look for in Hobart?
They have so much good stuff down there in Hobart. If you go down to Salamanca markets, they have stalls of authors selling their books. That doesn’t happen elsewhere. They have great bookshops and Island magazine and famous writers—they have an energy there. There’s an ownership of their artistic energy in a way that is unlike any other city.
They think we’re a funding body. What we do is a bit different.
But Hobart has got a key challenge, which is essential—and that’s literacy. The sector is so underfunded, and Tasmania has the lowest literacy in the country. The designation will help. Paris and New York are literary cities but not Cities of Literature—they don’t need it. UNESCO believes that change in the world is going to come from cities, not states or governments. It’s about using the designation to address challenges that cities are facing.
The Wheeler Centre was a central part of Melbourne’s application. Since its launch in 2010, do you think the hub has achieved its aims?
I think it has. Things happen here. We’ve got the things you need. We’ve got community. It’s interesting because you’ve got a programming organisation that is a landlord for other programming organisations, which is sitting next door to the State Library, the biggest literary organisation in Australia. All this programming has changed the cultural awareness of Melbourne’s audiences. The level of discussion in Melbourne is really good.
And we’ve got things that happen nowhere else in the world. In this building alone—there’s nothing like Voiceworks out in the world, nothing like Emerging Writers’ Festival. There are a few things vaguely like Writeability, but none that offer the same level of authorship and dignity for the participants. We have Blak & Bright, one of the few First Nations literary festivals in the world—I’ve found only two others.
Image: The Wheeler Centre.
Is there anything you hope to see more of in future?
Is it good as it could be? Will we ever come out of the lockdown years? It’s hard to comment on the effectiveness of the Wheeler Centre without discussing Covid. I don’t know that a lot of organisations in this building would have survived without it.
I look back at 2019, when this place was full, and The Moat was busy. Now people are working remotely and so on. The location is not yet back to what it was. Maybe we’ll always have some element of working from home. And in turn, why would people come in? People’s connection to going to literary events has changed. People cancel more often. We’re losing community. We’re losing random networking, chance encounters… But all this is an ongoing conversation, and the Wheeler Centre is definitely driving that.
The Age once reported that you’re not a fan of the word ‘literature’.
That was ten years ago! You know, I got flamed for that.
I’m sure you did. (Laughs.) They quoted you as saying, ‘You can be reading anything, it doesn’t have to be the latest literary masterpiece’. Why is important to you to counter elitism?
The Wheeler Centre did a focus group on and one of the comments said, why are we are city of literature? It’s elitist. But it’s just the word they use. It sounds better than ‘cities of writing’.
It’s very interesting that we are working with an art form that requires a very hard life skill. When I tell people my job, the first thing people say is ‘I don’t read very much’. Yeah, but you still read. We are a broad church. For example, we have writers’ rooms starting in February for comic writers from all over the world.
It’s hard to comment on the effectiveness of the Wheeler Centre without discussing Covid.
I think it’s important that we don’t make our circles small. We’ve got to increase participation. The percentage of people reading in Australia is going down. I’m really interested in not working in a bubble, and that’s what I was trying to say.
In the last ten years, a lot has changed about Australia and its literary output—
But is it enough? It’s still not enough. We’ve got to be honest. We still look to the UK and the US. When we are published overseas, it’s all troubled cop in outback Australia. We’re not showing the real Australia. When something comes out like The Lebs [by Michael Mohammed Ahmad] or Anam [by André Dao], we are starting to see in publishing the Australia that we are now. And that’s part of my role—to support when we are reflecting Melbourne and not cliches of kangaroos and gum trees. We’re not a tourist agency.
Writing Australia, a new offshoot of Creative Australia, will be taking shape in 2025. What are your thoughts on this government investment in literature?
I want us to be a part of a world conversation, and I hope Writing Australia will lead us there. For example, if you Google Australian poets, you get a Wikipedia page. That doesn’t seem right to me when we have an Australian Poetry [scene] like we do.
I hope Writing Australia has a role in connecting us to the world—and not just the publishing world. For example, I think we’re having that cultural diplomacy moment with Bluey, but I don’t think we’re using it properly. But I’m also keen that we continue seeing literature invested in. This government has started including art in international diplomacy—there’s a lot of support coming through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade at the moment. I hope that Writing Australia can see things like Anam and Liminal and First Nations books are cultural diplomacy and not just industry.
Last year, censorship in literary spaces became a hot topic of discussion. What role do you think cultural institutions have in upholding freedom of speech for artists?
Our funding of Australian art is very conservative, but Australian artists are not conservative. Literature is probably the most conservative art form, but Melbourne is the least conservative place. So, there are a lot of contradictions and tensions with that. I think it’s important for literary organisations maintain a balanced discourse, while maintaining the right for writers to say what they believe. My deep belief is that writing and opinion and viewpoints should be protected. I get that some organisations have curatorial decisions to make too.
Maria Tumarkin wrote that Australian literary festivals pride themselves as festivals of ideas, but they’re not because we haven’t created stages that are safe enough to hold space for writers with irreconcilable views and politics. I’m not sure many festivals in the world are created to be a safe space.
I want us to be a part of a world conversation, and I hope Writing Australia will lead us there.
We have to support our writers. How do we support without endorsement? It’s a tricky question. We’re getting very bad at communicating with one another. I think that has something to do with social media and online communication. Polarised politics, the Trump-era, the breaking down of newspapers as areas of fact—and it’s also happening at the same time as literacy is decreasing. We’re losing the ability for nuance and debate, and that’s pretty scary.
Working with cities around the world, you must see the effect of geopolitics play out in your job?
Right now, the network is very aware that we have cities that are at war with each other. Russia has invaded Ukraine. Beirut became a City of Literature in 2019, and then right away the city got bombed and lost all its funding. The question we are asking ourselves is how we support writers beyond politics without saying it’s just too complicated?
South Korea is an interesting example of somewhere where a national literature is having popular international reach. Have you learned anything from the Cities of Literature in Korea? What are they doing well?
Bucheon is a really good partner—one of our main partners. They’re having a moment, and they’re loving it. They’re really engaged, and they have a healthy investment in the arts. They have a whole museum dedicated to comic books!
Because we have so little money, we’re always expecting a quick and big return, while places like South Korea invest in long-term strategy. They are putting a lot of money into their international footprint—and we just don’t do it enough. Other countries have arts agencies that are looking outwards. Australia doesn’t have an agency like Germany’s Goethe-Institut. And we need one. That’s what ANA [A New Approach, Australia’s national arts and culture think tank] is saying we need. I hope that’s what Writing Australia does.
Left: Vietnamese American author Viet Thanh Nguyen at Bucheon’s Diaspora Literary Awards ceremony in 2023. Source: Bucheon City of Literature Facebook page. Right: Bucheon’s Korea Manhwa Museum. Source: Creative Commons.
As a multicultural country, we also already have links to these countries through diaspora communities.
Yes, and the sector’s understanding of these communities is poor. If we’re looking at Korea, the moment it’s having has also been helped by diaspora writers and readers too.
I think we’re largely playing to the readership we think we have, rather than the readership we could have. One I think about is the Indian diaspora. 350,000-plus people in Victoria. Where is their programming? Where is their reading? I don’t think we’re giving these communities enough chance to engage because we don’t have the money to give it a real chance. So where can the publishing industry take a chance? I think this is where international connections should come into play. Let’s take a chance to build an audience in India, in Indonesia, in Singapore…
How do you help writers connect with opportunities overseas?
We’re doing a deep dive this year to see how we can connect people with overseas that isn’t just money. We’re asking ourselves how we can use the fact that we have fifty-three partner cities that value Melbourne writers, and how can we create those links without it just being noise.
I’m always open for people to contact us for help in this way. If you’ve got a travel fund grant, ask us how we can help you. You can email us with any questions. I work with writers all the time on budgets, advice on grants… We’ll help everyone: writers, booksellers, publishers. The primary role of a City of Literature office is to support the City of Literature. We have a wealth of information and we have the network to draw from. Though I’ll be clear—we can’t do the work. Sometimes writers are disappointed we won’t write the grants for them! But we can help.
This also ties in with how we support local writers. The industry is facing a lot of challenges, which creates barriers to entry.
Yes, the industry is gatekept partly because it’s so at risk of failure. It’s expensive and very competitive. I think it’s hard to start and maintain a career.
What challenges are you seeing affecting writers?
I think the cost of living is a huge problem. One of the most common ways to be able to write a book is to do a PhD, which is beyond most people. This is why we always commission as many writers as we can. We’ve commissioned over four hundred writers over the life of the office.
The industry is gatekept partly because it’s so at risk of failure.
I’m also see a lot of people leaving the arts industry, and a lot of people deterred from entering. It’s an absolute privilege to volunteer to participate, which not a lot of people are going to have. We are not going to have a literary world that looks like Australia in the 21st-century because there are so many barriers. What is the diversity in bookselling, what’s the diversity in publishing, what’s the diversity in marketing… I think that’s a real issue. Because we’re a sector that relies on volunteers and we’ve got to change that.
Lots of early writers are keen to get involved, get funded, get published. What advice would you give to someone starting out?
I had the opportunity to get involved with the Next Chapter participants last year, which is an excellent Wheeler Centre program that supports writers in the development of their work. Reflecting on that, I think the idea of ‘early career writers’ is a particular Australian thing. You don’t see that overseas. People are just writers. So just be a writer. You’ve just got to own it. I don’t think you should just write for love—I think everyone should be paid—but you’ve really got to want to write. Command the best for yourself in your craft and in your business. And find your people. Create your own opportunities.
I think of something like Debris magazine—there are so many great small publications like this in Melbourne. Glom Press. So many people making their gigs. For a young writer, if you believe you are creating your best work, have confidence that someone is reading it. Like [publisher] Aviva Tuffield—I know she reads everything that goes out.
Left: Glom Press titles. Right: Debris Issue 4.
How can people living in regional areas get more involved?
The City of Literature concept is state-wide because it is funded by Creative Victoria. It confuses people—some people think it’s only relevant to the CBD. All our callouts are for writers throughout the state. We also have a lot of conversations with regional organisations and festivals. Again, it’s about opening communication lines and connecting the sector.
The publishing industry is in a state of flux, too. What are you seeing on the ground?
It’s a tough time. Henry [Rosenbloom] at Scribe once said that every independent publisher is trading insolvent, waiting for the one book, and it’s really true. So, we’re seeing lots of changes to the industry.
I also worry about rising print costs. Writers Victoria are dropping their print magazine. Rising publishing and posting costs are going to result in more losses. When we totally lose writing as a physical object, I worry that it just becomes content.
What are you excited about in 2025?
I’m excited for Veronica Sullivan’s Melbourne Writers Festival. I’m a big fan. I think she’s going to do interesting things. Likewise, I’m keen to see what Gene Smith does with the Wheeler Centre after he’s been away for two years working at two of the most interesting international literary festivals.
I’m also excited to see what the new Emerging Writers’ Festival director will do. That organisation is in the core of my soul. I wouldn’t be where I am if I hadn’t once been the director. I had a very lucky time doing that.
Are there any Melbourne City of Literature opportunities that writers should look out for in 2025?
We have exciting programs coming up this year. One of them that I can talk about is a program called ‘Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday’ that is linking First Nations writers from here with First Nations writers in Dunedin, Seattle, Québec City and Lillehammer. We’ll be working with Blak & Bright on that.
Writers should join our newsletter for our opportunities as they come up. We also post international residencies, and they aren’t selected by us. The participants are always selected by City of Literature offices overseas. And if there is anyone who is doing an event, post it on our events calendar!
