The Monthly interviews writer and poet Mark Mordue about the setting up of the Addi Road Writers’ Festival – Part 1 – Setting up a new festival

What was the motivation for setting up the festival?

There were a number of factors. It was 2021, during the pandemic, we’d been in Lockdown, and there was a pause in the restrictions. There was a bit of a flurry of communal activity and a window of opportunity, and I think there was a sense that writers, performers, musicians and poets wanted to come together, particularly in the inner west of the city (Sydney, Australia).That added an impetus to the decision to pull together a festival. It gave an added energy to the situation.

There was also a reaction to the Sydney Writers’ Festival which has a sort of unintentional dominance over the dialogues and agendas set for literary conversations, the framing of the awards and publicity around them, a ‘dominance’ in the sense bigger festivals propel certain writers forward and leave others behind. They’re somewhat chained to publishing and academic influences.

So there was a reaction to that, for sure. But I should say it isn’t that these mainstream festivals are inherently bad, everyone is fighting to establish cultural space. It’s more a sense that some voices were not being observed and so our festival was offering a potential platform for those voices.

See Programme at the following link – addiroad.org.au/news/get-with-the-program-addi-road-writers-festival-2021

Would you say it was a festival that was looking to create an alternative to the mainstream?

Yeah, definitely. And the more the better. I have thought a lot about the Addi Road Writers’ Festival since it was set up, it is now in its third year, and the phrase I use is “Decentralising Cultural Power”. That might be a little pretentious, but it is trying to describe a situation where too few people have control of the cultural levers. And while every now and again a change in fashion or perhaps a movement arises which allows a glimpse of other ideas and themes, most of the time lots of writers and poets get lost in the digital mist. There aren’t many avenues, especially at the lower levels, for people to create or seize a platform for themselves.

I guess I am hoping Addi Road Writers’ Festival can be a bridging entity for those ‘other voices’ which, perhaps because of the question of class, or ethnic status or whatever barriers there are, don’t get to share the stage with the more mainstream voices. Or they don’t get to share the stage with the trends in voices, which is maybe the more acute criticism

It sounds a little like the discussion around the question of cultural democracy?

Yeah, that might a discussion we are connected to. I tend to look at it a little like the moment around the rise of Punk, and the Post-Punk period. At that time there was the emergence of lots of new bands, and they needed an infrastructure and you saw the starting up of small independent record labels, like Rough Trade or Factory Records, along with new alternative venues and zines and transformed magazines and suddenly things which were marginalised could find avenues to get their thoughts and ideas, and their music, out to people.

Those record labels during that Punk period tended to create a signature roster of talent which allowed some groups or musicians to get some mainstream penetration, while maintaining a platform for many artists who wouldn’t go on to find a mainstream audience. I see our festival as connected to the ethos that was happening in that period.

Beyond what you have already suggested, were there any other reasons a different approach was needed?

One thing is that a lot of people like the box-ticking exercise of ensuring diversity through particular methods of ‘inclusion’. Unfortunately, sometimes, that it as much about funding and far too often there are a lot of choices made which just don’t genuinely offer the widest possible array of thoughts and ideas. Be real. It is often controlled by the major cultural institutions, by the publishing groups, by the mainstream media and by commercial structures. Maybe I just want something more radical or wilder or unpredictable.

I have also wondered whether there something about living in Australia, because it is a small country in many aspects – sometimes it can seems like the pool we are drawing from is very small, very limited, sometimes a little incestuous, and I don’t think it has to be.

My point of view is that a small festival like ours can offer a counterpoint, a space where not just ‘new’ writers, but anyone with a radical spirit, whether you are 18 or 80, can get a platform. There has been a false generational wall cultivated where young writers get programmed, generationally defined against older or established writers. It’s the wrong way to think on either side. You don’t want perpetual, entrenched establishment. You don’t want false dawns sold for cheap, looking good on the latest tide.

We try to create a space for marginalised writers of all types and ages, and that especially includes a space for people who look at class or class politics, or who come from a working class background, or people who are looking at aesthetic innovation, or challenging prevailing ideas, or even people who have just fallen out of favour with the bigger cultural institutions for whatever reason. This festival was and will be a festival where they will be welcomed. I truly hope we will never not welcome wild cards and stirrers and a bit of why-the-f… -not.