The MWF 2019 program was announced at 7pm. I’ve been busy since then making long lists of authors, events, dates and times.

The theme this year is ‘When We Talk About Love’. I LOVE the graphics and that sparkly heart (and a friend quite rightly pointed out that they need to have this vase everywhere, at all the venues).

There are some big international names – Tayari Jones, Deborah Lipstadt, Ben Folds, Patrick deWitt and Sloane Crosley – as well as local stars.

I’ll be starting with Chloe Hooper at Old New Borrowed Blue.

I best get onto reading The Farm if I’m going to hear Joanne Ramos at Bodies For Sale, and there’s a bunch of interesting writers at Love Letter to Myself (although I’m going for the hilarious Luke McGregor).

I’ll be seeing Alice Pung and Carrie Tiffany together at two events – When We Talk About Home and The Child Within – and Enza Gandolfo and Kristina Olsson are speaking on powerful landmarks.

And because I have fond memories of the eighties, I can’t overlook Papps and a Daddo…

As always, there are some horrible clashes. I’ll be deciding between two events on September 1 – The Pleasure of Guilty or Celebrating Victorian Writers (this one will probably win, given that an ARC of Angela Savage’s new novel just came my way).

Thankfully, the book clubs are back and this year I’m counting on Sloane Crosley talking about Joan Didion.

And I haven’t even worked out how I’ll fit in talks by Richard Flanagan, Don Walker, Jennifer Down, Krissy Kneen, Sarah Krasnostein, Louise Milligan, Fiona Wright, Mark Rubbo and Clare Wright yet. It’s an excellent problem to have.

Melburnians, what has caught your eye?