Festivals have ‘privileged literary works' over popular, commercial fiction: Veronica Sullivan

The Age

28-04-2025

Much has been written recently about St Kilda's downturn; fewer crowds post-COVID, the empty shopfronts, the once-thriving Acland Street becoming a pedestrianised ghost street. But on the Thursday after Easter when I meet Veronica Sullivan at Acland St's legendary Cicciolina restaurant, it's far from deserted.
Sullivan, the new director of the Melbourne Writers Festival, has been a local since childhood, and Cicciolina a firm favourite for years. She grew up around Elwood and Caulfield, and while she moved closer to the city in her share-house days, she came back to St Kilda just before the pandemic.
'I've always loved it, and I was so glad I moved back then – I was living in the George apartments and it was such a good thing because I was opposite the park, I had the beach down the street, and it made me feel that now I can't live away from the water,' she says. 'Not that I go swimming that much.'
It's been hard, she says, to read the stories about the area. 'Yes, there are rough sleepers and people with mental health issues, but those are the same issues that have been in the area for decades. It got really politicised and that kind of upsets me.'
As we peruse Cicciolina's menu, the requisite parade of 'colourful' characters passes us by on Acland Street, as if on cue. We order Coffin Bay oysters to share, and both opt for entree dishes; we've already looked at the dessert menu.
Two weeks out from her first festival as its director, Sullivan concedes to some nervousness. 'I don't feel … churning anxiety, but I feel a bit nervous – but it's an excited nervousness.'
Each stage of organising Melbourne's largest literary event, which attracts authors from around the world and around 50,000 book lovers, has come with its own jitters. 'I'm like, 'oh, this is what it feels like after the program comes out', and then you're waiting to hear what people say about it,' she says. 'Now I'm at the point where, I've done most of the things I can do, and I've got to wait and hand it over to the production people.'
Sullivan has always been an avid reader, and had always wanted to work in something to do with writing and books. 'I was an only child until I was 12 – I have half-siblings who are much younger – through those important, formative years, and I was always reading in a corner. That passion that was always there from childhood really remained so throughout my life.'