The popular winter writers’ festival, Words in Winter, returns after pandemic interruptions  on the last weekend in August.

Alex Miller

The festival program, which runs from Friday, August 26 to Sunday, August 28, will be headlined by Alex Miller. Alex is twice winner of Australia’s premier literary prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, first in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and again in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country. He is an overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, in 1993 for The Ancestor Game. His fifth novel Conditions of Faith won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the 2001 NSW Premier’s Awards. In 2011 he won this award for the second time with his novel Lovesong. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a recipient of the Centenary Medal for an outstanding contribution to Australian cultural life.

Alex Miller will be in conversation with Jane Sullivan at Bellinzona on Saturday, August 27 from 1:00 to 2:00 pm. They will discuss his highly praised new book, the non-fiction work, Max. The book is Miller’s first full length work of non-fiction, an astonishing and moving tribute to friendship, a meditation on memory itself, and a reminder to the reader that history belongs to humanity.

The festival will kick off ith the traditional open mic poetry and Cicada Story Slam at 6:00 pm on Friday evening at the Radius Art Gallery in Hepburn Springs.

The program includes Dennis Altman in conversation with Carmel Bird, Mahmood Fazal & Osman Faruqi, and local artist and human extraordinaire, Petrus Spronk. Other guests include Ross Gillett, Eloise Grills, Mark Dickenson’s writing workshop, Beverly Risstrom’s fireside funeral chats! The finale will be announcement of the Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize.

Events are planned in Hepburn, Daylesford, Trentham, Creswick and Maryborlough. See the Words in Winter website for a complete program. Visit the Facebook and Instagram pages for program updates and tickets.

The Festival is sponsored by the Community Bank Daylesford District.