Small but perfectly formed – a new trend in writers festivals

When it comes to literary festivals, small is beautiful. Not that I’m tired of the big ones. But a small-scale regional festival often galvanises proud and passionate readers who want to introduce visiting writers to their community. This month alone there are at least 10 small festivals, including the Port Fairy Literary Weekend, Albury’s Write Around the Murray, and events at Goulburn, Dubbo and the Northern Beaches.

The one I’ve just attended for the first time is Dunkeld Writers Festival. Just over three hours from Melbourne, this quaint little town on the volcanic plain under the shadow of the Grampian peaks put on a splendid weekend for us writers. We were wined, dined and spoiled rotten with local produce and we stayed at the Royal Mail Hotel, the kind of place where you might find a wallaby peering through the window.

What did readers get in return? Their own share of the wining and dining and a weekend of panels with a strong bent towards local history and landscape. Professors Barry Judd and Richard Broome told us about their project to record Indigenous versions of Western District history, including the dark days of guerrilla skirmishes and massacres.

Their session was held in honour of one of the more enlightened early settlers, James Dawson, who recorded the language and activities of First Nations people. On display were some of the artist Eugene von Guérard’s stunning views of the Grampian range, and historian Dr Ruth Pullin told us stories about von Guérard’s friendship with Dawson. One of his protégés was a teenage Indigenous boy known as Johnny Dawson, a talented young artist who drew a lively sketch of the exotic creatures he encountered on a visit to a circus.

But this festival wasn’t just about local memories. Readers could enjoy an in-person resurrection of ABC TV’s Book Club, with Marieke Hardy and Jason Steger talking about the controversial ending to Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting (no spoilers) and strong opinions from a well-read audience.

There were sessions on crime fiction, where we learned Katherine Kovacic’s research on ways to murder a victim included coconuts falling on heads and a dangerous bottle of Grampians olive oil. J. P. Pomare mused on the difference between ethical and moral justice and remembered how he tried to gatecrash his way into a New Zealand prison for research. And Steven Carroll told us how he’d managed to get Heidegger and existentialism and a detective who’d never made an arrest into his accidental crime novel.

Two sports-writing panels provided plenty of anecdotes about the joys of local footy and the temperamental stars of the big league.

I was aghast to discover in a panel on cookbooks that beloved pioneer foodie Mrs Beeton had plagiarised most of her recipes from other cooks. Baker and cookbook author Natalie Paull confessed her fear of eclairs, and cookbook shop owner Tim White told us about an old recipe for a lethal cocktail, Blow My Skull, that the governor of Tasmania used to test job applicants. If they could survive the cocktail, they got the job.

Janesullivan.sullivan9@gmail.com; Jane Sullivan was a guest of Dunkeld Writers Festival. Her latest novel is Murder in Punch Lane (Echo).