By Christine Yunn-Yu Sun
This year’s Queenscliffe Literary Festival, from Friday 18 to Sunday 27 October, will bring some of Australia’s best authors and thinkers to seaside Queenscliffe on Wadawurrung Country.
Now in its 10th year, the festival is designed to showcase an awesome range of emerging and established authors, artists, musicians and artisans to communities across the Bellarine Peninsula.
“The purpose is to curate a lively and intelligent season of events that stimulates discussion and to provide opportunities for engagement and participation,” the event website said.
“The program aims to be inclusive, accessible, thought-provoking and diverse. It celebrates Australian literature across fiction, non-fiction, poetry, music and art.”
Four of the Australian literary greats hosted by the festival this year are Tim Winton, Alexis Wright, Pip Williams, and Candice Fox.
Other well-known authors include Bruce Pascoe, Tony Birch, Rosie Batty, Louise Milligan, Clare Wright, Jock Serong, Jeff Sparrow, and Melanie Cheng – just to name a few.
One eye-catching session is “You’re Cancelled!”, where industrial relations lawyer Josh Bornstein will explain the real victims of “cancel culture”.
Another interesting event is “Shipwrecks and Sea Myths”, where authors Shivaun Plozza, Michael Earp and Andrea Rowe will discuss writing stories about pirates and ocean adventures for young and diverse readers.
Particularly exciting is the guided Queenscliff Literary Walk, which sheds light on those locations that feature in a variety of books and films. The leisure stroll begins and ends at the historic Queenscliff Library, a local landmark since 1888.
And there is the innovative concept of #QLFBookSwap, where Queenscliffe residents can leave a book they enjoyed (but are prepared to part with) by their letterbox and then take a walk around town to find another new read from someone else. It is a curious morph from the idea of the Little Free Library.
Note the difference between “Queenscliff” and “Queenscliffe”.
The former refers to the township of Queenscliff, while the latter refers to the Borough of Queenscliffe municipality.
More information about the Queenscliffe Literary Festival can be found here: queenscliffeliteraryfestival.com.au/
