2025 PROGRAM
Open Book: Becoming Yourself Under Pressure
DATE:
Saturday 21 March, 2026
LOCATION:
Henry G's
COST:
$0.00
Becoming yourself is rarely a smooth or linear process. In this Open Book session, Robbie Coburn, Amy Coomer and Matilda Meikle discuss how they approached writing young protagonists at moments of emotional intensity, grappling with grief, uncertainty, scrutiny and the pull of belonging.
Through readings from their novels, the authors reflect on the choices that shaped their stories: how voice is found under pressure, how characters respond when expectations close in, and how writing for young readers demands honesty and restraint. Together, they consider what emerges in the act of
writing itself; when identity is still forming and the ground beneath the characters, and sometimes the author, is not yet settled. This is a FREE Festival event to support young writers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
The Manly Writers' Festival acknowledges and thanks the original storytellers on the lands on which our events take place, the Gameraygal people of the Eora Nation. We acknowledge and respect their continuing connection and culture, and we pay our respects to ancestors and Elders, past and present, as well as emerging leaders.