2025 Festival Schedule
Purchase a Gold Pass ($45) as your entry to any or all FREE sessions.
You will be issued with a locally made lanyard on arrival.
Gold Pass includes only free sessions – it does not include social events which are extra.
All writers attending the festival are invited to bring some product for sale, a SMALL table and chair, to be included at the Meet the Author session.
All sessions at Waltzing Matilda Centre unless otherwise stated.
All sessions will also include the process of writing, publishing and marketing and a question time where possible.
Tuesday 24th June
Wednesday 25th June
About the book
150 years may not be a long time compared with the thousands of years that the Koa peoples have lived in the WINTON, Outback Queensland, area, but it has been a very significant 150 years for all.
The Outback Writers Festival Inc decided to produce a book of tales and history to help celebrate. A big thank-you to all contributors. 150 letters were posted out, inviting written words and photos, with the invitation to spread the word even further through the many channels we have these days. This book is the result. It is but another snapshot of Winton and its people.
All profits from the sale of this book go to the Outback Writers Festival Inc, so we thank you for purchasing a copy. 2025 sees the tenth birthday of this Festival.
The book is available from Corfield and Fitzmaurice in Winton, and from www.outbackbooks.info
Thursday 26th June
About the book
Remote Qld, circa ’70’s when wool is gold and wedgies are on the nose. Roxy Bolton, feisty defender of the wildlife enlists her father’s help to create an on-property sanctuary. At Savanna State High, she befriends Tina after a racial slur, and invites her home for a camp-over at the sanctuary. When a solitary, wizened eagle sets vigil nearby, Tina tells of ‘the watchers’, mysterious dreamtime guardian-spirits.
At the local wool-shed dance, Roxy confronts a grazier over a drunken boast of his tally of slaughtered eagles. A strange massing of eagles soon after, and their eventual disappearance leads Roxy to her new friend’s door, desperate for answers. But Tina’s mother remains tight-lipped. For Irene, indigenous elder; keeper of wedged-tail lore, Mother Nature’s curveball invokes disturbing echoes from the dreamtime.
Friday 27th June
About the book
In addition to being Australia’s most famous poet, Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson was a newspaper war correspondent during the Boer War in South Africa. He followed Australian troops and reported on their efforts for the British Empire. When he returned to Australia in 1900, he was convinced to take on a lecturing tour telling the public all about the war – which was still going on at the time.
He gave lectures in Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart, Brisbane, throughout New South Wales, Tasmania, Queensland and New Zealand. The great poet was not a great speaker but the gruelling tour helped to spread his fame and inform Australians about their troops overseas.
The new book by Gregory North, three-time Australian champion bush poet, gives an insight into this fascinating phase of Banjo’s life.
Winton’s Next Festival ..
Not part of the Outback Writers Festival, but if you’re in town you should check them out – The Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival
