Biggest ever writers’ festival

Tim Connell writes, in the Newcastle Herald Monday March 28 2016: A PROGRAM stacked with speakers who seem on the cusp of their “moment” is partly down to timing, says…

06 Apr 2016

Tim Connell writes, in the Newcastle Herald Monday March 28 2016:

A PROGRAM stacked with speakers who seem on the cusp of their “moment” is partly down to timing, says Newcastle Writers Festival director Rosemarie Milsom, but really it hinges on their writing.

On-point guests such as indigenous broadcaster Stan Grant, political candidate Tony Windsor and Milsom’s brother, the Archibald Prize holder Nigel Milsom, have catapulted ticket sales past the total attendance for last year’s festival.

Milsom, though, is as mindful of syntax as celebrity. “If Stan Grant’s book [Talking
To My Country] was rubbish, I wouldn’t have asked him to come,” she said. “In the end it’s the writing that wins out for me.”

Download the full article.

author: Jenny Blackford