February 9th, 2026Clunes Booktown celebrates 20 years

Clunes Booktown Festival will mark its 20th anniversary on March 21-22 with a stellar program on the theme of defiance and hope.
More than 15,000 people are expected to join the festival, creating a bustling hub of readers, authors, booksellers and music-lovers of all ages.
Festival creative director Suzi Cordell says the event will include more than 130 book stalls, a Kids Village, writers’ workshops, panels on crime writing, speculative fiction, romance, First Nations storytelling, playwriting and historical fiction, as well as free music and entertainment across the weekend.
“The weekend will be packed with activities including Historical Walking Tours of Clunes, a First Nations Night Sky Dreaming event, the annual Poetry Slam, free Kids Village events with the creators of bestselling children’s series Real Pigeons and Oceanforged plus the iconic Hay Bale Maze,” Suzi said.
“We’re so excited to be celebrating our 20th anniversary and what this event means for a small regional town like Clunes. We want to pay tribute to the festival founders, who have brought so many iconic Australian authors to our town over the years including Helen Garner, Kate Grenville and the late John Marsden, as well as former Prime Ministers, journalists and – most importantly – almost a quarter of a million book lovers.”
Events include:
Lifelong environmental activist and former Greens leader Bob Brown talking with broadcaster Hilary Harper about his new book Defiance;
Hear Me Roar: Fearless Female Characters in Crime with podcaster and author Vikki Petraitis (The Stolen, The Unbelieved), Ned Kelly award-winner Christian White (The Wife and the Widow, The Ledge), Fiona Hardy (Unbury the Dead) and Jacqui Horwood;
How to Live and Die with screenwriter and playwright Marieke Hardy (From The Heart: Women of Letters, You’ll be Sorry When I’m Dead), Hannah Gould (How to Die in the 21st Century) and Antonia Pont (Plain Life);
Miles Franklin winner Sofie Laguna (The Underworld, The Choke, The Eye of the Sheep) discussing Myth and Coming of Age with literary journalist and novelist Jane Sullivan;
Real Pigeons creators Andrew McDonald and Ben Wood sharing the latest on their crime-fighting birds, and Oceanforged author Amelia Mellor helping young readers invent magical creatures in the Kids Village;
Historical fiction authors Toni Jordan (Tenderfoot, Addition), Marion Taffe (By Her Hand) and Jock Serong (Cherrywood, The Settlement), discussing characters fighting the tide;
First Time Lucky will explore the new wave of romance writing with Emma Mugglestone (In The Long Run), Holly Brunnbauer (What Did I Miss?), AFL and queer romance devotee Darcy Green (After The Siren) and multicultural romcom author Cynthia Timoti (How to Find a Guy In Five Weddings);
Join writer and academic Dennis Altman, human rights lawyer Paula Gerber and biographer Jill Blee for a discussion on the struggle for equal rights in Defiantly Queer; and
Explore The Poetics of Hope with Maxine Beneba Clarke (Beautiful Changelings, The Hate Race); Wiradjuri writer and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry winner Jeanine Leane, and arts journalist and poet Thuy On (Essence). There will also be workshops on short-story writing, self-publishing, and writing oral history.
For the full program head to www.clunesbooktown.org.au
Festival entry is $15 (covering both Saturday and Sunday), and is free for locals and children under 16 years of age. Author talks are $25, with ticket discounts for multiple events. Workshop tickets are $30 each.

The Local is a proud media partner of Clunes Booktown.