Melbourne, Ep. 1

March 24, 2023 — Our 2023 opened Down Under with a bang, as our Melbourne debut, presented by the The Wheeler Centre, was a cavalcade of literary and comedic delight that saw Nevo Zisin outduel Zoya Patel in an Arithme-Lit finale by the narrowest of margins to win Zisin the LDM Melbourne, Ep. 1 crown, and literary immortality to go with it.

Here's the full lineup from the night: 

JUDGES: 
Literary Merit: Sami Shah, multi-award winning comedian, journalist, broadcaster and author of Islamic Republic of Australia, Boy of Fire and Earth, and I, Migrant (nominated for NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the WA Premier’s Literary Award, and the Russell Prize for Humour Writing)

Performance: Vidya Rajan, writer and performer whose sketch writing for SBS's The Feed won the 2022 AWGIE award for Best Comedy Writing, and her digital interactive experience "In Search of Lost Scroll" won Best Experimental Artwork at 2022 Melbourne Fringe and was shortlisted for the International New Media Writing Prize

Intangibles: Celia Pacquola, writer, multi-award-winning stand-up comedian, and multi-AACTA-winning actor; she co-created Rosehaven with Luke McGregor for ABC-TV; has recorded three comedy specials — the most recent, Let Me Know How It All Works Out, is on Paramount+; and she appears in the series Love Me, and is writing for its second season

READERS:
Round 1:
* Nevo Zisin, queer, non-binary, Jewish author of the award-winning Finding Nevo and The Pronoun Lowdown, they're also a performer, activist and public speaker, and run workshops in schools and professional development training in workplaces around transgender identities

* Laniyuk, Larrakia, Kungarakan, Gurindji, French, writer, performer and drinker of colonial tears. Published in poetry collections Solid Air and Fire Front as well as speculative-fiction anthologies Unlimited Futures and This All Come Back Now. Catch her debut collection of work to be released later this year through Magabala Press

Round 2: 
* Zoya Patel, award-winning author of the all-new Once A Stranger and No Country Woman, co-host of The Guardian’s Book It In podcast, writer for The Guardian, Canberra Times, SBS Voices and more, and was a 2020 judge for the Stella Prize and Chair of the 2021 Stella Prize judging panel

* Alex Skovron, editor and author of seven collections of poetry including Letters from the Periphery and Towards the Equator (shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards), along with a prose novella and a book of short stories. He's done public readings in China, Serbia, India, Ireland, Macedonia, Portugal, and on Norfolk Island

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga (author of the award-nominated novel Collision Theory)

Where: The Wheeler Centre, 176 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne
When: March 24, 7pm start 
Cost: $35 full price (click to preorder now); $25 concession/students