Program and Tickets

The full program for 2024 is now online and tickets can be purchased through our website. We have a huge weekend, with over 30 authors coming to town! The beauty of our little festival is that it is possible to get to every event as they run consecutively. The only overlaps that happen are with the Library Program, which is hosting children's events, open poetry events, a couple of wonderful workshops for young people, and a YA session (for YA writers and readers). The Library program is completely free (thank you to the Bendigo Community Bank of Port Fairy). Otherwise, the program is chock-full of panel discussions on novels as well as non-fiction and on poetry. There's a conversation between ABC's Hilary Harper and the legendary Hana Assafiri of the Moroccan Soup Kitchen on the opening night, and a launch of our local celebrity, Jock Serong's latest novel as our closing event on Sunday. There is also a production by the Port Fairy Theatre Group.

Particularly look out for our Saturday night Gala dinner, which features not only the inimitable Barry Jones, but also Jim Moginie of Midnight Oil and Shane Howard of Goanna who between them will discuss their memoir writing and at the end of the night will give us a little music to finish off the evening. This dinner is our main fundraising for the festival - we're running on very little funding this year - so we'd really encourage you to book a seat at the table. Most of our authors will be at the dinner as well, so it's a wonderful chance to meet our visitors and relax with good food and thoughtful entertainment. The dinner capacity is strictly limited and we won't be able to squeeze people in at the last minute. A weekend pass package is also a terrific way to support the festival. You can choose to go to whatever you'd like out of the entire program (with or without the Gala Dinner, depending on the package you select) except for the Port Fairy Theatre Group production, which is separately ticketed. Books by our visiting authors will be available for purchase over the weekend.

Thank you for your support! It will be a memorable and fabulous weekend.