Clunes Booktown

Clunes Booktown Festival returns to the historic township in regional Victoria in 2023, but earlier in the year, on the last weekend of March (Saturday 25 & Sunday 26 March).

A new look Clunes Booktown will take advantage of the autumn weather with this major regional event running from dawn to dark over two days, encouraging visitors to immerse themselves in Clunes from cover to cover.

The Clunes Booktown program has been extended to look at the many and various ways we tell stories – through books, film, music, theatre, songwriting, photography and other visual arts, even the houses we make.  There will be first hand stories – this year arising out of ageing, small town crime, imagining other worlds, land management, women’s business, and more.

Clunes Booktown will continue to celebrate every aspect of the book – not just writing and reading but making, illustrating, publishing, retailing, and sharing. Along with books on display and for sale, you’ll find conversations with writers and storytellers, renowned authors, poets and wordsmiths, creating a wordy feast for weekend consumption. 

Authors and conversationalists featured in the program include Tony Birch, Aileen Morton Robinson, Jefa Greenaway, Jacinta Parsons, Ponch Hawkes, Sophie Cunningham, Miles Allinson, Emily Bitto, Emma Viskic, Vikki Petraitis, Jock Serong, Chris Flynn, Nova Wheetman, Nina Kenwood, Alice Boyle, Jan Henderson, Janice Simpson, Candice Fox, Michael Cathcart and Nathan Curnow with many more to be announced.

In addition to the author talks there will be a program of art form story crafting conversations with visual artists Simon Perry, Philip Faulks and Deborah Klein, film and TV makers Sue Maslin and Fiona Cochrane, theatre makers Bill Garner, Sue Gore and Hannie Rayson, and song-writing with David Bridie and Maylene Slater Burns.

New to the Booktown program will be an evening of live music in the old Central Garage (one of the main locations in Mad Max).  The corrugated iron icon will resound with music from Kee’ahn, The Idiomatics, The Footscray Gypsy Orchestra and there will be a David Bridie album launch to cap it off.

Daytime events will run alongside the spectacular book bazaar that will take over the main street of Clunes featuring an extraordinary range of new, second-hand, antiquarian, contemporary, rare and popular books covering every imaginable topic and theme.
Surrounding the talks, workshops and book signings will be live entertainment, street performers, plenty of activities for families and kids, and a delectable offering of food and beverages from local providores and producers.

Clunes Booktown Festival will take place on Dja Dja Wurrung country on Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 March 2023