May 19th, 2025Ballarat poetess takes to soapbox for heritage fest

The Ballarat Heritage festival offers a rare chance to be inspired by literature over lunchtime on Lydiard Street with The Ballarat Poetess.

Performing as part of the festival’s diverse program of live entertainment and events, The Ballarat Poetess (aka Megan J Riedl) will be taking to the Lydiard Street soapbox on 24 & 25 May at 11:30am and again at 1:30pm to regale her audiences with … spoken word poetry with a historic twist.

In an impossible collaboration spanning 175 years, Megan J Riedl steps into her power – and onto her soapbox – as the voice of the city.

Award-winning spoken word poet Megan J Riedl will showcase how impactful moments of social change can be marked by the carefully crafted voice of The Ballarat Poetess.

The performance will feature the embodiment of her predecessor Ellen Young’s written poems about gold-rush era Ballarat and original spoken word poetry by Megan J Riedl.

Writing at the heart of the political upheaval in Ballarat in the 1880s, Ellen Young’s works were “controversial, political, feminist and questioning the status quo”.

Megan’s writing combines the personal with the political, and she leads by example in standing up, showing up and speaking up, sharing the messy, human experiences that often go unspoken.

A professional wordsmith, prolific creative, super solo mum and autistic woman, Megan J Riedl is an award-winning spoken word poet and feels out loud in a range of mediums including collage, zines, theatre and podcasting.