By Sharon Bonthuys
The eighth annual Dubbo Writers’ Festival brought authors, readers and bibliophiles of all ages together for a weekend of all things writing earlier this month.
Organised by the Dubbo-based Outback Writers’ Centre, the annual festival featured a range of events staged at the Macquarie Regional Library and Western Plains Cultural Centre from September 8-10.
Outback Writers’ Centre president, Val Clark, who spent many months organising the festival with her committee of volunteers, said she thought the event was a great success.
“I think it’s the best festival we’ve had [since we started] in 2014, and we’ve gone from strength to strength,” said Ms Clark, herself the author of several novels, the most recent of which, ‘Found’, was launched just prior to the festival on September 2.
Writers attending the weekend ranged in age from 17 through to late 80s, Ms Clark said, including the youngest attendee, aspiring author Nicholas Croker, 17, and author Carol Mortimer, 86, who promoted her memoir ‘Blue Horizons’ at the author showcase on September 8. Some attendees came from as far away as Lightning Ridge, Canberra, Mudgee, and Tea Gardens to attend the festival.
Other Dubbo and district authors who displayed books at the free author showcase included family history author Sharon Scherrer, poets DG Lloyd and Geoff Smith (Narromine), young adult author Val Clark,self-help author Kerrie Phipps, children’s authors Pat Clarke and Sharon Bonthuys (Narromine), and thriller author Peter Volkofsky.
“It was fabulous, the scope, range and interests of the people who came to the [events including] the workshops,” said Ms Clark.
“The quality of our industry professionals was really good. It was great to have an agent on board.I felt that writers were able to build their skills, their understanding of publishing and to connect with people who could help them take their work up to the next level.”
The Dubbo Writers’ Festival differs from other such festivals in that it is planned and staged by writers for writers. The festival focuses heavily on skills development for writers and those who want to write, and provides activities for free or at relatively low cost. It provides an opportunity for regional authors, including many from Dubbo and surrounding communities, to showcase their work for free and engage with readers about the writing and publishing process.
The festival also engages well-credentialled industry professionals to provide guest talks, workshops, story consultations and other skills development activities. This year’s industry professionals featured at the festival included award-winning crime novelist Candice Fox, literary agent Rochelle Fernandez from the Alex Adsett Literary Agency, and Lynda Nix, editor and publisher at Lacuna Publishing.
One of the challenges of organising a festival like this is funding. It costs money to engage professional speakers, hire rooms and arrange for the resources needed for a weekend event. The Outback Writers’ Centre received no external funding from any granting agency or government body, but was still able to plan and run an event with a range of free and low-cost activities.
Another challenge included having the Dubbo Writers Festival on the same weekend as the popular DREAM Lanterns event, the flagship event of the 2023 Dream Festival. This impacted attendances at some of the writing events and the dinner, but Ms Clark pointed out the Dream Festival was arranged by the Dubbo Regional Council around the availability of festival participants.
“Despite having it on the same weekend as the Dubbo DREAM Festival, I felt we had really good attendance at all the events,” Ms Clark said.
Candice Fox provided two well attended, low-cost workshops on heroes and villains, and also spoke ‘in conversation’ with Dubbo screen industry identity, writer, producer and ‘fixer’, Kellie Jennar on the opening night of the festival, September 8.
On September 10, all three industry professionals provided low-cost, one-on-one story consultations to writers seeking to submit to publishers – a valuable exercise bringing writers together with experts able to provide advice and guidance.
A spirited free ‘Festival Cup’ writing competition held in conjunction with the 2023 Festival Dinner on September 9 attracted several entries which were judged by award-winning Dubbo author James McKenzie Watson, who received the 2021 Penguin Literary Prize for his novel ‘Denizen’, which was subsequently published in 2022 by Penguin Random House Australia.
Nisaba Merrieweather won the Festival Cup, which was presented to her at the dinner by the previous cup winner, Lee Robinson.
On September 10, Ms Fox, Ms Fernandez and Ms Nix formed a panel to provide free feedback to aspiring authors from the Outback Writers’ Centre membership on work destined for submission to publishers. ‘Surviving Submission Spur’ looked at the first pages of local writers’ work, providing valuable feedback on what kept them reading, or not, as the case may be. Work assessed by the panel included memoir, historical fiction, and fantasy.
“It was very exciting that Jen Molyneux’s work made it right through the ‘Surviving Submission Spur’ and ticked one of the boxes of what we’re about – helping people to get their work submission-ready,” Ms Clark said.
Volunteers were central to the running of the event, and Ms Clark expressed her appreciation to her organising committee and those who volunteered on the day. She had special praise for the year 11 International Baccalaureate (IB) students from the Central West Leadership Academy who provided support at the skills development sessions held at the Western Plains Cultural Centre across the weekend.
“It took a lot of pressure off us, particularly the organisers,” said a grateful Ms Clark.
The students helped festival volunteer Martin Clark organise the room set ups and provided catering support.
One of the students, Finn Randell, said they were giving their time as their IB qualification required them to complete 50 hours of community service.
“A teacher in charge of volunteering at school told us about the festival. We thought it was an interesting way to give our time to the community,” he said.
Another student, Carrigan Baker, said she was an avid reader which was another reason to consider volunteering at the festival.
After a well-deserved rest, Ms Clark and her team will start the process of reviewing the 2023 event in detail and planning next year’s Dubbo Writers’ Festival.
