If you missed out on any sessions during the Festival, we will be organising  many similar workshops throughout the year - see www.actwriters.org.au/workshops.html.  

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Phew!  The Canberra Writers Festival is over for another year.

We had people come from as far away as Sydney and Wagga this year to attend our seminars which were focussed firmly on writers’ needs.

Keeping it on home ground enabled us to keep costs down and utilise support from our Gorman House colleagues with the loan of venues and audiovisual equipment.

I was amazed at and grateful for by the generosity of the volunteers who moved hundreds of chairs and tables and washed dozens of coffee mugs over the weekend, as well as with the tutors and festival guests, many of whom had such a great time here that they waived their appearance fees! The staff manned the phones til 7pm for the 3 nights leading up to the start,  as well as did all the catering for the festival reception and morning and afternoon teas. It was a real team effort this year, and I’m re-energised as a result.

Some  measures of success ... in the week leading up to the festival (and partly as a result of the wonderful Canberra Times coverage) staff and volunteers took over 400 phone calls, processed over 190 enrolments in the 14 seminar sessions, stuffed 160 satchels of information, posted out 100 newsletters to new members and prepared over 230 name tags.

Two seminar sessions on Getting Published and Editing for Excellence, were booked out, repeated and booked out again.

Around 50 public servants attended the Thursday and Friday non-fiction and grammar workshops; 22 writers attended the Robotham crime writing workshop; 12 attended the romance workshop; there were between 90-100 emerging and established writers in each of the twelve daytime seminar sessions; 42 at the Poets’ Lunch; 60 or more at both the Vocation Profession or Hobby evening session and the Big Damn Turboslam; 100 at the Friday night party; 90 in the Garth Nix event; and the same number at the David Malouf festival finale. 700 teabags were dunked, 500 glasses of wine consumed, hundreds of books bought from the three booksellers (and about 5 kilometres were run, as I tried to keep an eye on all four venues).

Spirited discussion took place in the Spotlight sessions on Camilla Noli and Michael Robotham and a thirteen year old, Callum McCrow, swept to victory in the Pitching Competition. The demand for Zine Fair table bookings outstripped the available space and spilled out into the sunny courtyard, adding a youthful dimension to the Gorman House markets. The Supersessions with Lesley McFadzean were also booked out and will be repeated in September.

Overall attendances at the Festival are yet to be calculated. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Those 15 writers with book proposals deemed to be of a professional quality were grateful for the chance to have a face to face meeting with Sydney literary agent Pippa Masson or UQP publisher, Kristina Shulz or the publishers at Halstead Press.

The radio and newspaper coverage of the festival program - with both ABC Radio 666 and The Canberra Times proactively chasing us for info and author interviews - was much appreciated, especially at a time when our Communications Officer was away representing me in Darwin at the Writers Centre Directors Conference!   

We thanked our sponsors in various opening and closing speeches but we want to thank them again: Festivals ACT; Brook and his staff at Olims Canberra Hotel for offering to provide 14 free bed nights for festival guests; Z4 Wines for supplying all wine for the Poets Lunch; the National Library of Australia for sharing David Malouf; Allen and Unwin for assisting with Garth Nix’s visit; ArtsACT for funding the Writers Centre staffing. Other supporters were: Paperchain Bookstore, Writers’ Bookcase and Intrigue – The Romance Bookstore for providing book sales; Mount Majura Vineyard providing wine sales;

Fay and John Duffy assisting with venue hire and setup at Gorman House, Canberra Youth Theatre for supplying a much needed second data projector, and the staff at QL2 (for forgiving us for not sweeping up the venue quite enough so that dancers could roll around on the floor!)

Then of course there were those wonderful people who saved my life at various times by running to the shop for more milk, provided a mic battery at short notice, stayed longer than they were rostered to stuff more bags and shift more chairs or brought me lasagne for dinner!


 Anne-Maree Britton
Director
ACT Writers Centre and Canberra Writers Festival

 

Feedback

 

Many thanks for inviting me to lunch on Tuesday - it was great to hear David Malouf's opinions on books even if you and I disagreed with him on THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS! - Lesley McFadzean

 

Just a quick note to say thanks to you and Hal for inviting to present last night. I really enjoyed the opportunity, and thought it went pretty well. No one walked out, they asked questions and only a couple of people dozed off! - Phillip A Jones

 

Just a line to say thanks for such a great programme over the weekend - I didn't quite manage to get to all this bits I'd intended, but what I did attend was fantastic.  Also really nice to be in touch with the Writers Centre again - it was actually my first fully child-free morning since Ari's arrival! - Jane Matthews (volunteer)

 

Thank you so much for the Writers Festival. It was brilliant (ok I know it’s not quite over yet). kind regards, - Lorese

 

I'm still impressed at how well it (zine fair) went... -  Rachel Longhurst

 

The zine fair was great fun - it has connected me up with a handful of new friends who I had a good chance meet and to talk to yesterday, so I'm very pleased that I came down from Sydney for it. :) - Michelle

 

Dear Anne-Maree. I just wanted to congratulate you on an obviously successful festival.  It had such a diverse line-up as well as a practical one and I would have loved to have stayed for the pitching competition as I think I would have thoroughly enjoyed it.  I also wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be involved.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself and, as is often the case with these type of sessions, walked away feeling that I knew more about my own book than I did before! I spoke to a number of people afterwards who are planning to recommend Still Waters to their readers' group in Canberra and, as I do go to Canberra fairly regularly, I offered to speak with their groups as well - so if you know anyone else who may be interested in the future feel free to pass on my contact details! Thanks again and I hope you enjoy your recovery from organising the Festival! – Camilla

 

Thanks! That was great! Met some fantastic people and thought once more about moving to Canberra. There's heaps of fun stuff happening. Saw a band at The Front, went to the Bus Depot markets, had some terrific conversations and sat in on a few great panels. Feel free to contact me about any events or education activities you have in future. Thanks again. - Miles Merrill

 

Thanks for the gigs at the festival. I enjoyed the poetry panel a lot. -  Mark Tredinnick

 

Congrats on the brilliant success of this yr's festival which has fully justified your faith in the whole thing. - Suzanne Edgar