Literary festival still turning pages

THE STAGE was set, curtains ready to be drawn and talent in the wings when a pandemic shut down this year’s Queenscliffe Literary Festival (QLF).
Festival president Pauline Nunan said the program, running across three weekends in May (8-24), featured a high calibre of authors and despite the event’s cancellation, the festival carried on with their writing competition.
“While the literary festival itself had to be cancelled, the micro-fiction competition had already attracted quite a deal of interest, so the QLF committee decided to proceed.
“The challenge was set for the entrants to write a story in exactly 50 words; Dani Netherclift from Grovedale, Joe Novella from Mornington and Christine Gordon of Carlton were announced the winners.”
Ms Nunan said the winning writers each received a book pack from the QLF’s 2020 Truth or Dare program, with the competition attracting widespread interest from across Victoria.
“There were entries of many varied genres showing that the micro-fiction challenge can be used by any writer. We received 55 entries from 42 writers, ensuring the competition will be on again for next year’s festival.”
After dealing with the initial disappointment of the QLF cancellation, Ms Nunan said the team has well and truly set their sights on next year’s event.
“The launch night with renowned Australian journalist Tony Jones on March 5 was such a success, everyone was looking forward to the festival so we were obviously disappointed.
“We’ve got a great committee and programmer and I’m confident we’ll be back, running bigger and better next year. We’re really grateful that the majority of our sponsors have stuck with us and have left their sponsorship money with us.”
The QLF has been running a Facebook Book Club during the pandemic, reviewing a book each week that would have featured at the festival.
If you would like to read the micro-fiction entrants pieces or follow the book club, go to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and search “QLF”, or head to queenscliffeliteraryfestival.com.au.