Lech Blaine’s stranger-than-fiction memoir, Australian Gospel, won the non-fiction award. The story of his family’s battle with the biological parents of Lech’s three fostered siblings, Christian fanatics who spent decades trying to get their children back, was praised as “an enriching experience”.

The non-fiction judges – author, reviewer and mission director of Caritas Australia, Michael McGirr, and author and director Lorin Clarke – said Blaine is “an exceptionally gifted storyteller, alive to all the nuances of character and the circumstances that shape the lives of people”.

Blaine said he always knew it was a remarkable story. “But it’s another thing to find readers who could reaffirm that I wasn’t completely crazy for thinking that this is something that would connect with people.”

The book took him almost a decade to write, using his late mother Lenore’s archives and 40 years’ of personal diaries. In his moving acceptance speech, he dedicated the award to her.

Australian Gospel wouldn’t exist, he said, without the sacrifices of his parents. “It definitely wouldn’t exist without the love of reading and writing that Mum passed on to me,” he said.

“She’s the real winner. I wish my humble mum could see how she has become a hero to total strangers.”

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The 2025 Melbourne Writers Festival continues until Sunday. Talks from Indigenous academic Marcia Langton, federal election pollster Kos Samaras and television personality Sarah Wilson are already sold out.

Music legend Jimmy Barnes’ Saturday talk with Rockwiz’s Brian Nankervis at the Athenaeum Theatre is close to selling out, while on the same day Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland will discuss their new book, Broken Brains.

Indigenous voices feature prominently in this year’s program. Musician Alice Skye, human rights advocate Thomas Mayo and human rights lawyer and writer Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts are also part of the program.