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From July 26-29, Byron Bay will become the centre of the Australian
book and writing community as it hosts the 11th annual Byron Bay
Writers Festival.
Having grown from a single venue event with 40 writers and an
audience of 1000 in 1997 to a five-venue, 132-author Mecca commanding
43,800 Festival attendees in 2006, the Byron
Bay Writers Festival now attracts authors from all over Australia
and South East Asia.
Set amongst marquees in the grounds of the Byron Bay Beach Resort,
this Festival might be the most idyllic place imaginable to get
that manuscript out of your bottom drawer and on to a publisher's
desk; yet even that might not be the most alluring aspect of this
Festival. What separates Byron Bay from other writers’ festivals
is the fact that they are a literary event through and through,
celebrating Australian writing and as Festival director Jeni Caffin
explains, they “do not rely on international celebrities
to bring in the punters.”
Caffin explains that a main objective of the Festival is “to
provide writers with the time and opportunities to network with
each other and their readers,” and they are able to achieve
this largely because patrons and authors mix and mingle.
“At most Festivals the writers are presented as talking
heads and exit the site fairly rapidly. At the Byron Bay Writers
Festival, they stay and they participate. The person waiting next
to you for a coffee is likely to be an award winning journalist,
a literary icon or writer of killer stature.” For the super
keen, the Festival organizers offer a range of 17 writing workshops,
conducted by authors from the program, in the week prior to the
Festival itself, catering for emerging, experienced and hobby
writers. It is this kind of interaction that makes the Festival
such a destination for writers and readers alike. “It’s
a perfect opportunity to meet your literary legends up close and
personal… (you can) drop in and out of panels and discussions,
and because of the way we program writers from different genres
in the same panel, it often opens readers up to areas and ideas
in which they were previously uninformed. It's a perfect way to
broaden your horizons.”
So now you have decided that you want to go and you have your
three-day pass but there is that one nagging question: “what
am I going to do with the kids?” Bring ‘em! On Saturday
one of the venues features kids programming for the entire day.
“From the beginning the organizing team wished a Kids Festival
be incorporated into the Festival. This is one of the most gratifying
sights, watching the children stream into the Kids Marquee on
Festival Saturday literally hauling their parents along in their
eagerness to get seated and meet the authors.” The events
are tailored for all age groups starting from six years old all
through the teens.
 Some
other highlights for this year’s Festival include a literary
lunch featuring a conversation between ABC TV's Kerry O'Brien
and journalist Chris
Masters; the appearance of Miles Franklin award winner Alexis
Wright; and the big conversation between Jenny
Kee and Moya
Sayer-Jones. Other notable authors include Shalini
Akhil, Alice
Pung, Nury
Vittachi, Laksmi
Pamuntjak, Colin
Bowles, (published as Colin
Falconer and Mark
D’Arbanville) Alan
Close and Eva
Sallis.
For more information on the Byron Bay Writers Festival, or to
buy tickets, visit the Festival Web site at http://www.byronbaywritersfestival.com.au
or call Jetset Byron Bay at 02 6685 6262.
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