The cellar
The festival's origin story is told in much the same way across accounts. In the early 1990s the restaurateur Stefano de Pieri, his wife Donata Carazza and friends gathered in the cellar of their Mildura restaurant to hear the poet Philip Hodgins read work by Les Murray and Robert Gray. The response persuaded Hodgins to invite poets to visit the town and read in person.
Sources disagree on the exact year the gatherings became a festival. One guide gives 1994, others simply say the early 1990s. A 2025 article in Sunraysia Daily marked thirty years of the festival's relationship with Mildura. Paul and Tina Kane, friends of the de Pieris with literary connections of their own, are credited as important early supporters.
Words, food and wine
The festival settled into a pattern of four days each July, with Australian and international writers and a strong emphasis on the table. Published descriptions of the event join words, food and wine as a single offering, and Australian Book Review was reporting on it by 2001.
Two awards grew from it. The Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal honoured an outstanding Australian writer each year, and from 2015 the Mildura Indigenous Writers Award gave a prize to First Nations poets and short fiction writers.
A change of structure
For many years the festival was delivered under Arts Mildura. Sunraysia Daily reported that 2025 would be the last edition delivered in that partnership. Books+Publishing reported in January 2026 that the festival had separated and been registered as a standalone charity, with Finley Japp succeeding co-founder Donata Carazza as director.
The festival's own channels are the place to find its current activities. This page is a history only and has no connection with it.
Further reading
- Sunraysia Daily, 'Festival looks back on 30 years' and 'Writers Festival pens new chapter', 2025
- Books+Publishing, 'Mildura Writers Festival director, board changes', January 2026
- Australian Book Review, report on the 2001 festival by Paul Kane