Write around the Murray Events 2011
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About 50 events took place over the festival and 3000 attendees participated. There were many highlights, from the literary lunch with crossword guru David Astle (pictured), being served 'the entire beast' by Masterchef finalist Chris Badenoch (photos of this event) and the festival dinner with author, actor and comedian Anh Do.
The festival commenced with a special Aboriginal storytelling, launching the Marvellous Storytree book, a collection of stories written and illustrated by parents and students from Koori Kindermanna.
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Festival guests listened to the harrowing but inspiring story of photojournalist Nigel Brennan and his sister Nicole Bonney. Nigel recounted his experiences being held captive in Somalia for 462 days. He showed photos he took prior to his kidnapping, and gave insight into how his life is now - with a message to live life to the fullest and tell the people you love 'I love you' everyday.
Aspiring writers have gained much from workshops with Arnold Zable, Steven Amsterdam and Fiona Wood, as well as the popular Moment with a Mentor sessions held by industry experts Jenny Darling, Zoe Dattner and Fayez Philippe Hanna.
Local aspiring artists had the opportunity to be invoved in a workshop held by Lynne Gasperov (pictured) to recycle a pre-loved book into a hardcover journal. There was also the chance to view Graphic Traffic, a projection shown on the alley at the rear of the LibraryMuseum put together by James Fallon High's photo imaging students.
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Writing talent of the region and beyond was celebrated with the presentations in the Short and Nano Story Competitions, with Beverly Lello announced the winner of the Short Story Competition's $1000 prize for 2011. To read some of the winning stories, including Beverly's winning entry The Solution, our competitions page has them available to download.
Ten minutes of Talent proved popular this year with writers given the chance to share some published and unpublished writing.
The hub of the festival was the Albury LibraryMuseum. There was a fantastic atmosphere throughout the library during the week, kicking off with the schools' program (full wrap of the schools' program here), and epitomised on Saturday morning with the sharing of poetry by Emilie Zoey Baker to a captive audience.
The LibraryMuseum was also the location of John Charalambous' book launch for Two Greeks (pictured, below). John told the story of how the book came about and did a reading for his captive audience. Read Robyne Young's review of Two Greeks to find out more about the book.
The festival finished by exploring the words of Arnold Zable in conversation with Jason Steger, Literary editor of The Age newspaper. Jason commented that there is a real community feel and ownership of the Write around the Murray Festival, with a great diversity of events.
Overall, festival participants voted it an "excellent program of events and a great festival". Festival organisers can't wait to bring you Write around the Murray in 2012. We will see you there!
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Write around the Murray 2011 Program (2011 KB)