It was billed as a “vibrant gathering of readers, writers, and creative thinkers” who would spark “ideas, conversation, and inspiration”. 

So what happened last weekend to turn the Bendigo Writers Festival from an idyllic ideas-fest into an event that exemplified “an authoritarian abuse of power”, as the festival’s founder put it?

Today, senior culture writer Kerrie O’Brien on the slow-moving car crash of a cultural event that left dozens of writers stunned, and appalled.