Bob Brown among Booktown drawcards

ECO veteran and former Greens leader Bob Brown, Miles Franklin winner Sofie Laguna and astrophysicist Krystal De Napoli are among special guests set to feature at this year’s Clunes Booktown festival.

The festival program was launched last week with ticket sales opening to a strong response, ahead of the 21-22 March festival that transforms the village of Clunes north of Ballarat.

“This is our 20th year as an organisation and the theme we’re exploring is defiance and hope,” said Nick Bassett, chair of Creative Clunes, the organisation behind the annual event that draws thousands to the town.

“It’s a wonderful program of events and the entire town rallies around it. We get support from a lot of the community clubs and groups around town.

“We’ll have over 130 booksellers this year – a record number, live music, workshops, stimulating conversations, the poetry slam, and locals and under-16s free.”

The festival’s program manager, Angela Crocombe, said ticket sales have been pleasing organisers since last week’s program launch.

“We’re really happy with them. Bob Brown is a hot ticket at the moment and that’s probably going to sell out,” she said.

“The other one that’s doing really well is the crime panel. But we’re fielding sales across the board.”

Ms Crocombe said the 20th anniversary event will be celebrated with a special Night Sky Dreaming session featuring Krystal De Napoli, an awarded astrophysicist devoted to the advocacy of Indigenous knowledge.

“We are celebrating with a Night Sky Dreaming event and we think that is going to be really, really special,” Ms Crocombe said.

“Our kids village will also be another drawcard for families. We have some top notch kids’ authors like Real Pigeons creators Andrew McDonald and Ben Wood games, the haybale maze and lots of kids’ activities.”

The Night Sky Dreaming first knowledges astronomy sessions entitled Sky Country will be held at the Tin Shed on Saturday 21 February from 7.30pm to 9pm.

You can get more information and buy tickets on the Clunes Booktown website.