Writers Festival Season coming soon

We will look at different travel and holiday ideas from time to time.  Today’s post is about books and writers festivals.

Themed holidays are quite the thing these days.  Whether it is sports, cooking or exercise-related, arts-focused, environmentally sustainable, volunteering-focused, educational, architectural, food-focused, wildlife-centred or any number of other categories, there are plentiful opportunities to add colour and interest to your pleasure journeys – or add value to your business ones!

We will look at different travel and holiday ideas from time to time.  Today’s post is about books and writers festivals.

Being Sydney-siders, we are looking forward to the Sydney Writer’s Festival next month but the good news is that there is almost certainly a literary festival coming soon to a city near you too.

This literary festivals website (for Australia and New Zealand) is a useful resource though it isn’t entirely up to date.  We’ve done some research and the list of festivals here is as up to date as we could make it at the time of writing. We have listed them according to the month of the year.

Alas, we have already missed a few good ones that happened earlier in the year:

• Perth Writers Festival was back in February  (but check out the Margaret River Festival in May – see below)
• Adelaide Writers Week was back in February/March
• Newcastle Writers Festival was March 20-22, 2015 (will be 1-3 April in 2016)

 April 2015

• Jane Austen Festival – Canberra – 10-12 April, 2015

May 2015

• Dandenong Ranges ‘Autumn Authors’ Festival events throughout May with some big names http://www.autumnauthors.com/
• Savannah: Writers up North – Townsville, North Queensland  Thursday 21st to Sunday 24th May, 2015.  Featuring: Peter FitzSimons , Judy Nunn, Bruce Venables, David Malouf, Inga Simpson, Hugh Lunn, Barbara Hannay
• Sydney Writers Festival: May 18-24 2015 http://www.swf.org.au/   Highlights:  http://www.swf.org.au/highlights
  Southern Highlands day special program here.
• Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival WA  May 29-31, 2015   http://www.artsmargaretriver.com/events/literature/
• Emerging Writers Festival – 26 May – 5 June Melbourne    http://www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au/

 June 2015

• Woodend Winter Arts Festival 2015 5-8 June 2015
• Williamstown Literary Festival 13-14 June 2015 – http://willylitfest.org.au/

July 2015

• Southern Highlands Writers Festival 10-12 July 2015 https://www.shwf.com.au/
• Noosa Long Weekend Festival 14-26 July 2015 (high profile authors and media people) http://www.noosalongweekend.com/

August 2015 

• Byron Bay Writers’ Festival (19^th) 1 – 3 August. Features writers from overseas and across Australia’s length and breadth, many of the participants hail from the Northern Rivers region.   North Beach, Byron Bay, Northern NSW  http://www.byronbaywritersfestival.com.au/v2/index.php
• Bendigo Writers Festival – 7-9 August 2015 http://www.bendigowritersfestival.com.au/
• Melbourne Writer’s Festival Thursday 20 to Sunday 30 August 2015.  http://www.mwf.com.au/mwf-2015/
• Salisbury Writers Festival, SA 21 – 30 August 2015 – http://www.salisbury.sa.gov.au/Our_City/Arts_and_Culture/Salisbury_Writers_Festival
• Queensland Poetry Festival 28-30 August 2015 http://www.queenslandpoetryfestival.com/site/
• Sydney Jewish Writers Festival August 29-30 2015

September 2015

• Brisbane Writers Festival: Wed 2 to Sun 6 September, program to be confirmed soon: http://bwf.org.au/
• Write Around the Murray – Albury, NSW – Wednesday 9 – Sunday 13 September, 2015  http://www.writearoundthemurray.org.au/

 TBA:

• Northern Territory Writers Festival – Eye of the Storm in Alice Springs this year – date to be confirmed (postponed from Anzac day)   – The NT Writers’ Centre presents a major writers’ festival annually, alternating between WordStorm in Darwin and Eye of the Storm in Alice Springs or other regional centre.  http://ntwriters.com.au/festivals/eye-of-the-storm/

 November 2015

• Toowoomba Writers Festival – November 14, 2015 http://toowoombawritersfestival.com/

Do you know of any others we should be listing here?  Send an email to us:  editor@frankandearnest.net.au