The Clunes Booktown Festival

For The Love Of Books

The Clunes Booktown Festival returns this May with headline authors Richard Flanagan, Eddie Ayres, Jaclyn Moriarty, Josephine Wilson and David Ritter and many other guest speakers joining the historic country town in north-west Victoria for a festival of the book filled with ideas and arts.

The popular two-day event on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 May will feature a series of panel discussions and Q&A style talks with leading Australian authors.

The Festival features Australia's largest book shop, with the whole of the main street given over to bookstores, with festival-goers able to browse rare and collectible books, go inside heritage buildings, listen to live music while sampling local food and wine, watch street performers, visit exhibitions, and immerse themselves in stories.

Tim Nolan, Chair of Creative Clunes, said the special annual event is all about celebrating books and great conversations.

'This year we are thrilled to be hosting the International Organisation of Booktowns biannual Conference and to be celebrating twelve years of the Clunes Booktown Festival. Not only does this festival celebrate the love of books, and everything about them, but it also shines a light on regional Victoria generally, and specifically on Clunes: a small rural town in country Victoria renowned across the globe as a hub of ideas and the arts," said Mr Nolan.

The must-see, must-hear line up of guest authors and writers include Richard Flanagan (First Person, The Sound of One Hand Clapping); Eddie Ayres (Danger Music); Jaclyn Moriarty (The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone); Josephine Wilson (winner of the Miles Franklin Award for Extinctions); David Ritter (Greenpeace CEO and author of The Coal Truth: The Fight to Stop Adani, Defeat the Big Polluters and Reclaim Our Democracy); Emma Viskic (Resurrection Bay; And Fire Came Down); Abdi Aden (Shining: The Story of a Lucky Man);  Glenda Guest (A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline); Mark Brandi (Wimmera), Nevo Zisin (Finding Nevo: How I Confused Everyone); and Anna Snoekstra (Little Secrets) and many more.

Located approximately 90 minutes from Melbourne by car, the small country town of Clunes is a member of the International Organisation of Booktowns, the only one in Australia. A Booktown is a small, regional, community-focused town with a concentration of booksellers – mainly secondhand or antiquarian bookshops.

Clunes Booktown Festival is on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 May at Clunes, Victoria. For further information and to purchase a tickets for just $10 visit clunesbooktown.com.au.