CAIRNS TROPICAL WRITERS
FESTIVAL 2016 SUCCESS
Magda Szubanski packed the
signature literary dinner on
Saturday night, enthralling the
crowd with a generous 1.5 hours
of storytelling about her family
background and her life based
on her award-winning memoir,
Reckoning.
On Sunday, she extended that
with new insights for the day
crowd in conversation with
Suellen Maunder of JUTE Theatre
Company.
Stan Grant, as a Waradjuri man
and internationally renowned
journalist who has filed from over
70 countries, drew a standing
ovation for his powerful address,
The headliners Magda Szubanski and
Stan Grant proved to be the biggest
crowd-pleasers at the fifth biennial Cairns
Tropical Writers Festival in August.
Writing about indigenous Affairs
to influence All Australians.
On the Friday night, there were
several local books launched,
including Heather Farmer’s
The Longest Decade: a Literary
Memoir of the 1940s, Claine
Keily’s poetry book Somewhere
Milk and Sugar, and Philip
Newey’s Christian de Palma: Man
of Letters.
“The 2016 festival was twice
the size of previous years, with
over 80 presenters and nearly
60 sessions,“ said festival
programmer Eve Stafford.
“We also had funding from
three tiers of government and a
record number of new sponsors,
including Oasis Magazine.”
“There was a strong identity
stream with Indigenous authors,
and local authors from culturally
diverse backgrounds discussing
their stories of migration and
settlement,” she said.
“Other drawcards were visiting
authors from all over the country,
including Kári Gíslason whose
Icelandic Sagas and the Vikings
session proved a hit.”
“We are trying to grow to festival
in two directions at once by the
end of the decade - nationally
and internationally, as well as
keeping it firmly grounded in our
own region and sense of place,”
she added.
Oct|Nov 2016 |
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