Program packed for Booktown

TICKETS are on sale for Clunes’s annual Booktown Festival featuring literary icons Helen Garner and Kate Grenville, landscape architect Costa Georgiadis and the host of the ABC’s Back Roads, Heather Ewart.

The festival will celebrate its 19th year in 2025, providing an immersive experience for book lovers and new readers.

Festival director Suzi Cordell said this year’s program explores diverse storytelling, with author talks about the media, writing about music, sustainability and the breakout of cozy crime and romance genres.

“Along with author talks and workshops, more than 100 book stalls will offer up tens of thousands of second-hand, new and collectable books,” Ms Cordell said.

“The jam-packed weekend will also feature an historical walking tour of Clunes, a poetry slam, an immersive kids’ village, and the return of Clunes’s legendary hay bale maze.

“Film buffs will be in for a special treat too, with a screening of the dystopian classic Mad Max in Clunes’s historic central garage, now known as The Tin Shed, where part of the film was actually shot.”

Other feature events include Garner discussing her latest book The Season, Grenville’s talk about her new memoir Unsettled: A Journey Through Time and Place, and Ewart sharing stories about her travels around Australia.

Costa Georgiadis will be talking about sustainability in a changing climate with co-founder of Milkwood Kirsten Bradley, and co-founder of permaculture David Holmgren.

There will also be sessions about First Nations languages, Australian history, neurodiversity and media moguls.

The festival will take place on Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 March. Entry will be $10 for both days, with locals and children admitted free. Author talks cost $25 and workshops cost $30. More information can be found on the Clunes Booktown website.