Melbourne Writers Festival has revealed a sneak peek into a few of the international speakers who will be presenting at the festival. The first cab off the rank is Kim Gordon, who co-founded Sonic Youth in New York in 1981. Gordon also wrote the bestselling rock memoir Girl in a Band and is a visual artist and a music writer.
"Kim Gordon revolutionised alternative music and changed perceptions about women in music," says MWF artistic director Marieke Hardy.
Also coming to Melbourne for the festival is Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt. Lipstadt was famously sued by David Irving for calling him a Holocaust denier (Irving has written that Adolf Hitler did not know about the murder of Jews and that Jews were not gassed in Auschwitz). Lipstadt won the case. Her latest book is Antisemitism: Here and Now.
The third speaker revealed by the festival is Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson. He hosts the podcast 'Pod Save the People', in the Crooked Media family (known for 'Pod Save America' and 'Pod Save the World'). He is the author of On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope.
Melbourne Writers Festival will run from August 30 to September 8, and tickets for these three speakers will go on sale June 24. The full program will be released July 10.