“It’s a privilege to come in and build a team and think about what kind of culture I want to create internally and what qualities I admire and can bring into the new era. And what things I can do differently.”
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She acknowledges that it presents a creative challenge, but said she didn’t feel there were any “skeletons in the closet that were alarming”. The festival was robust and had strong systems in place: “I feel very well-supported and very excited.”
In its financial report for last calendar year to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, MWF stated it had four full-time employees and a gross income of $1.59 million, made up of $620,200 from government, donations of $243,319, and revenue “from goods and services” of $707,100. Its net surplus was $105,972, and its net assets amount to slightly more than $500,000.
In her programming, Sullivan said she would like to explore “broadening the ways we think about writing and storytelling – of course, retaining traditional books and journalism – but also thinking about oral storytelling and podcasting and other ways of consuming story”.
Sullivan is also keen to increase the presence of genre writing in the festival and consider more commercial books such as romance and romantasy that haven’t historically had a strong place in festivals, yet have huge readerships.
Miranda July is on Veronica Sullivan’s wishlist for MWF.Credit: Getty
She’d also like to increase the amount of free programming at MWF, but cautions that it’s hard to do when recovering from the financially challenging COVID years. “I think there’s scope now to start bringing in some [free events],” she said, but added that the organisation was not in a position to make the whole festival free like Adelaide Writers’ Week.
“But MWF does have a really good mix of different forms of revenue. Ticket sales are obviously very important, as is government funding, but we also have significant philanthropic support, strong partnerships and corporate sponsorships. So there’s a nice sort of diverse range of revenue streams, which is really great in terms of sustainability.”
Despite taking the helm of a big-city writers’ festival, Sullivan is a fan of smaller regional festivals, of which there are more and more.
“I think there’s a need and a demand in every community. And what’s really beautiful about a lot of these regional and smaller festivals is that they have their own distinct personality that’s very tied to their location. Western Port Writes has a lot of [Mornington] Peninsula-based writers. I think that’s really beautiful, celebrating the local community.”
Meanwhile, Sullivan is busy sending off invitations to her first festival. On her wishlist are American writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Miranda July – “she’s a really interesting thinker who’s also an artist” – and Chinese writer Liu Cixin.
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