“THERE are too many gatekeepers and not enough locksmiths opening doors,” director of the Canberra Writers Festival Beejay Silcox says as she surveys the current writing scene in Australia. 

After the last few years of pandemic gloom, she’s aiming for what she calls a “joyful restart”.

Silcox, a prominent writer and critic, a judge for the 2023 Stella Prize and this year’s Calibre Essay Prize, sees herself as very much part of the locksmithing trade as she plans to open up hitherto unexplored vistas of Australian writing rarely taken seriously before.

“I apply a broad brush. I look at all kinds of writing,” she says.

With this in mind, she’ll be in conversation with the creator of “Bluey”, Joe Brumm, on August 19, but there’s a caution to parents of children that “The Joyful Genius of Bluey” is a “craft focused conversation” and the famous blue-heeler won’t actually be there.

As well, there are masterclasses such as “Speechwriting” with Lucinda Holdforth, “Fandom to Feature-writing: Sports Writing”, with “The Guardian’s” sport correspondent Kieran Pender and “Write Me A Song” with Canberra troubadour Fred Smith, who also appears in conversation with Karen Middleton and performs songs from his new album, “The Sparrows of Kabul”. 

Writers will be at the centre of every event Silcox expects and, effectively answering the accusation that the festival has ignored local writers, she adds, “there’ll be more than 120 writers and thinkers, almost half of them coming from Canberra and the region”.

“This is my city, so the festival will be my love letter to Canberra,” she says. “I want to reflect the city back to itself.” 

By spreading the event around town to the National Museum, Marie Reay Teaching Centre, Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, National Press Club and Muse Café, she has a good chance of doing that. 

While the official ongoing festival theme is always “Power Politics Passion”, she has applied herself “differently” to the theme.

“There’s a tendency to conflate Canberra with the place up on The Hill, so I have also applied a broad brush to the question of politics and power. There will be no political memoirs. There will be no military memoirs. There’ll be humane discussions which will prove that this city is not beholden to the whims of Parliament House.”

Two such thoughtful discussions will be “Time For A Reckoning”, with Stan Grant in conversation with Louise Milligan, and “Flawed Hero” Chris Masters in conversation with Laura Tingle. But certainly, politics and world affairs are there, and there’ll be “Whither The Liberal Party?” with Barrie Cassidy, Niki Savva, Dave Sharma and Amy Remeikis, “Putin’s War”, with Peter Tesch, Mark Edele and Gorana Grgic, and “After The Fall” with Virginia Haussegger, Ahmad Shuja Jamal, William Maley and ambassador of Afghanistan Wahidullah Waissi.

“I’ve made a point of having Canberrans, I live in the city, I write in the city… only part of it is to do with political boffins and we have so many beautiful writers,” Silcox says. 

For instance, she got wind that Jono Lineen, one of the lead curators in the development of the National Antarctic Heritage Collection at the National Museum, was also a bestselling author, so she’s got an Antarctic focus, “Ice Dreaming” with Kaya Wilson, Lineen and Dennis Glover. 

Not to disappoint literary fans, there’ll be writing royals, such as Kate Grenville in conversation with Nicole Abadee and Thomas Keneally in conversation with Stephen Romei.

A fun part is the inaugural “Canberra’s Biggest Book Club,” focusing on “Bad Art Mother”, by Edwina Preston, who will appear at Muse Café as living proof that one can be a mother and an artist at the same time. 

As for the charge that poetry has been neglected, there will, Silcox says, be 12 different events devoted to that literary form.

It’s a pretty diverse program, with a celebration of the first edition of “First Nations Classics” involving writers Debra Dank, Evelyn Araluen, Ellen van Neerven and Yasmin Smith, a serious look at sustainability, “Seizing the Moment” with Polly Hemming, Alan Finkel, Joëlle Gergis and Murrawah Johnson and, bringing the festival squarely into the 21st century, “Frankenstein’s Monster: Grappling with AI,” with Michelle Ryan, Tracey Spicer and Clinton Fernandes.

Canberra Writers Festival, August 16-20.