
Ballarat Blues Festival 2025
22 August – 24 August 2025 | As BMI associated events are confirmed they will be listed HERE.
The Reading Room (2pm in the Library for a start @ 2.30pm – 4pm)
JANUARY SESSION
The Dictionary of Lost Words | Pip Williams
In 1901, the word bondmaid was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it.
Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary.
Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word bondmaid flutter to the floor unclaimed. Esme seizes the word and hides it in an old wooden trunk that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world.
Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. She begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words.
Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape our experience of the world…
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This event is a BMI Community Art Project – Ballarat’s Oldest Cultural Institution
22 August – 24 August 2025 | As BMI associated events are confirmed they will be listed HERE.
My Name is Emilia del Valle Isabel Allende Abandoned at birth by her Chilean aristocrat father, Emilia comes of age in nineteenth-century San Francisco as an independent and fiercely ambitious young woman, decades ahead of her time. She will do whatever it takes to pursue her life’s passion for writing, even if it means pubishing under a man’s name. Landing a position as a journalist for the Daily Examiner, Emilia soon sets sale for Chile,where she’s tasked with covering a brewing
1 October – 31 October 2025 | As BMI associated events are confirmed they will be listed HERE.
Irma Gold. Shift In the year of the 70th anniversary of the Freedom Charter – which outlined the principles of democracy and freedom in South Africa – comes a novel set in the township where it was signed. Shift asks us to examine both the world around us…and ourselves. Arlie is a moderately successful thirty-something photographer who can’t seem to get his shit together. He can’t hold onto a girlfriend, or much else, and his relationship with his parents is complicated. His
A Message from the Chair… | Rosemary’s New Releases and Recommendations | Author Talks – Exhibition – Film – Live Comedy – Live Music | Festivals
Broke Road Matthew Spencer. From the bestselling author of Black River. This July sees the release of Broke Road. Perfect for fans of Jane Caro and Chris Hammer, this gripping mystery unravels a string of unexplained murders set against the haunting backdrop of the Hunter Valley. Broke Road was inspired by a conversation Matthew Spencer had with a forensic pathologist, exploring the complexities and chilling realities of what it would take to commit the perfect murder. A late-night phone call is never good
Your gift will be tax-deductible this financial year if you make it before June 30.
Like many organisations the BMI faces significant funding challenges.
Featuring the BMI Image Collection | Now $20
Bubbly on arrival & Featuring quality items from our Vintage Shop | $60
Australian Heritage Festival
Minerva's Secrets
25 April – Tour 1 at 7.30pm – fully booked
Tour 2 at 9.30pm – still tickets.
Coming in September…
Gabriel Bergmoser, Tracey Lee Holmes, Chrissie Bellbrae, Paula Gleeson.
2 course dinner & lots
of dancing