WELCOME TO BOOKTOWN
FROM THE MAYOR
OF HEPBURN SHIRE ACTING VICE CHANCELLOR
FEDERATION UNIVERSITY THE EMPTY CHAIR
BY PEN MELBOURNE
I’m very happy to officially
welcome you to the Hepburn Shire
for the 2017 Clunes Booktown
event. Booktown is one of our
shire’s major events that attracts
thousands of visitors from across
Australia. The festival has grown
to become an internationally
recognised Booktown, and a place
to celebrate ideas and the arts. Welcome to the 2017 Clunes
Booktown Festival! 2017 marks
the fourth year Federation
University Australia (FedUni)
has been a proud partner of the
Festival. PEN International was founded in
1921 to promote literature and
freedom of expression. This global
community of writers spans more
than 100 countries and campaigns
on behalf of persecuted and
silenced writers. The PEN
Melbourne Centre brings writers
together across cultures to explore
ideas that promote freedom
of expression and conduct
public conversations about how
literature influences and fosters
cross-cultural exchange, with a
specific focus on women writers,
Indigenous Australian writers,
writers in prison and the Asia and
Pacific region. The PEN Empty
Chair is acknowledged at literary
events to represent a writer who
is not present because they
have been imprisoned, detained,
disappeared, threatened or killed,
simply for speaking their mind.
More information is available at
www.penmelbourne.org
Far from reading becoming a dying
pastime, events like Booktown
underline the extraordinary value
that literature and non-fiction
have in an increasingly hyper-
speed world of social media and
alternative facts.
I hope you enjoy the many
things on offer during the 2017
Booktown event, including the
author talks, entertainment,
workshops, and of course
the books, some of which are
collectable and rare. This is a
festival of books that attracts the
young and old. I look forward to
seeing some of you during the
2017 Booktown festivities.
Cr Sebastian Klein
Mayor of Hepburn Shire
and Coliban Ward Councillor
02 CLUNES BOOKTOWN FESTIVAL 2017
Being a major sponsor of the
Booktown Festival demonstrates
FedUni’s deep commitment to
regional engagement and the
weekend provides an opportunity
for us to showcase our creative
arts and research programs.
We hope you will enjoy the street
performances by the University’s
Music Theatre and Acting students
and get involved in the discussion
panels and creative writing
workshops facilitated by University
staff.
FROM THE CHAIR
We know that it’s the combination
of the love of books and love of
small towns, and this small town in
particular, that drives the success of
the Booktown Festival each year.
People say they like Clunes for
its food and drink, community-
feel, historic streetscape, natural
surrounds, and the opportunity to
try new things, be supported and be
themselves. That’s the first love.
about the importance of women
writing about women, the challenges
of writing indigenous-white
relationships, the future of YA writing
and readers, and the landscapes
in which we locate and define
masculinity.
I’m also excited about some of
the new steps we’ve taken this
year: Hannah Kent delivering a
talk tailored to school-students,
giving them a chance to get insight
With over 50 booksellers, makers
into one of their VCE texts; the
and exhibitors, we’re celebrating
Magazine in a Weekend is a brilliant
everything about the book. We
step towards supporting emerging
love that sharing the lived and
writers; the rare book selection
imagined experience can be a
powerful catalyst for insight, change, in The Bluestone will be a gem;
the kids area is changing; and
reconciliation and reconnection.
continuing the festival into Saturday
The solo sessions showcase an
night, keeping the celebration in the
outstanding line-up of writers,
community space, is really special.
thinkers and subjects. I’m proud
Each year hundreds of volunteer
to be presenting panel sessions
CONTENTS
Professor Andy Smith
Acting Vice Chancellor
Federation University Australia
Clunes Booktown Festival 2017 is
a fragrance free event.
04 Rare Books
06 Traders of Books
11 Literary Lunch
12 Saturday Schedule
14 Sunday Schedule
16 Panel Discussions
18 Town Map
hours go into making the festival
happen. Please take a moment
to thank those apron-wearing
heroes during the weekend. Also
a huge thank you to all our festival
partners and sponsors, especially
to our major sponsors Creative
Victoria, Hepburn Shire Council
and Federation University, and our
friends across the International
Organisation of Booktowns.
Without losing its connected,
stop-for-a-chat, small-town
nature, Clunes has delivered some
remarkable projects. Booktown is
just one of them. So come for the
festival (and enjoy it!) and then
come back again soon.
Have a great weekend.
Tim Nolan
Chair – Creative Clunes
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
OF COUNTRY
20 Magazine in a Weekend
22 Author Profile
27 Entertainment
30 Upcoming Events
31 Train Timetable
34 About Us
35 Acknowledgements
We acknowledge that we
are on traditional lands of
the Dja Dja Wurrung.
We offer our respect to the
Elders of these traditional
lands, and through them
to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples past
and present.
WWW.CLUNESBOOKTOWN.COM.AU 03