Hepburn Shire’s favourite winter festival, Words in Winter, returns this year on the last weekend in winter, August 23 to 25. The festival has been running for over 20 years.
Over 50 artists are coming to Daylesford and Hepburn Springs including Bruce Pascoe and Alison J Barton. The program includes a mix of LGBTQIA+, First Nations, local, and visiting writers who will explore the theme “Connection of the Heart.” when Words in Winter Festival returns this 23-25 August!
Bruce Pascoe will be a special guest at the annual Words in Winter Gala to be held at the Palais-Hepburn on Saturday 24 August!
Bruce is a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man, and currently lives on his farm in Gippsland, Victoria. He has published 36 books, including Dark Emu which won the NSW Premier’s Award for Literature in 2016, and Young Dark Emu which won the both the Booksellers Association Prize and the CBCA Non-fiction award in 2020. In 2018 Bruce was awarded the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.
Alison J Barton, a Wiradjuri poet writing in Naarm (Melbourne), who will discuss nineteenth-century archives and the mistruths they tell about Indigenous people. Her award-winning work has been published in Australian and international poetry and literary journals, and last year she won a Mascara/Varuna House First Nations Residency and the Varuna House Tony Birch Masterclass. She was also a recipient of the 2023 Varuna House First Nations Fellowship and will be a co-judge of the Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize.
Over 30 events are planned, including poetry readings, children’s events, workshops, and author’s talks.
Ticketed events, including the Words in Winter Gala, will go on sale the first week of winter – Saturday 1 June 2024. Tickets for most events in the festival are free. Tickets will be available from the Words in Winter website: www.wordsinwinter.com
This article is based on a media release from Words in Winter.
