Whitsundays Writers

27/08/2026

Introducing the 2026 Friends of the Festival 📚

Helping us deliver the festival this year are:
📚 Kapow Interactive
📚 Amanda Camm MP
📚 Pinnacles Airlie Beach
📚 Heart Hotel & Gallery
📚 Airlie Apartments

Counting down the days to Festival day now! We're excited to see our authors and attendees on 13th September 🤩

25/08/2026

Seemed the best way to let you know that the 2026 Whitsundays Writers Festival is almost sold out. If you're hoping to come along, make sure you book your ticket soon!

🎟 Tickets available here: https://www.whitsundayswriters.com/2026-programme-speakers/

24/08/2026

I love a book quote that makes its way into everyday speech! Here's some I use and where the originally appeared 📚 What others do you use?

"He's not Robinson Crusoe" from Defoe's 1719 novel.
"Down the rabbit hole" — Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865.
"The road less travelled" — Frost, 1916.
"Ignorance is bliss" — Thomas Gray, 1742.
"The best-laid plans of mice and men…" — Robert Burns, To a Mouse, 1785

I'm realising as I write this that there's possibly a few generations who have never heard of these 😱 seems unbelievable to the person still rinsing and repeating words from the 1700s!

19/08/2026

📚 Stories by the Sea is a free community event on Sunday 13th September, 3pm - 4:30pm and Whitsunday Marine Club.

📚 We'd love Whitsundays and Mackay based bookclubs and writing groups to get in touch with us as we're putting together a one-stop-list for people to use when they're searching for a book club or writing group.

📚 We'd also love it if you shared the Stories by the Sea event with your readers/members/audience. An afternoon with other people who love books and reading... Heaven!
More info here: https://www.whitsundayswriters.com/2026-programme-speakers/

📩 Message us or email us on [email protected]

Airlie Beach Book Club, Beach Book Boutique - Airlie Beach, Bowen Tourism & Business Bright Patch Cafe Healthy Haven Kitten Vintage Mackay Little Vintage Cafe Mackay Regional Council Libraries Proserpine Museum The Bookish Burrow

18/08/2026

🌴 She spent her childhood holidays here. Now she's coming back to headline.

Townsville author Rachel Armstrong - Author chose the Whitsundays as the setting for her debut novel long before she was invited to deliver the 2026 From the Heart Keynote — which makes this year's festival something of a homecoming.

Her argument is a simple one: regional Australia isn't the backdrop to our stories, it's the reason they work.

"A capital city can be anywhere. A cattle station in the dry, a jetty at low tide, a pub on the only road into town — these places carry their own weather, their own silence, their own history. Readers remember how a place felt long after they've forgotten the plot that unfolded in it."

Rachel joins a day of panel discussions, the Whitsundays Literary Heart Awards, and Stories by the Sea — our free community celebration with 20+ regional authors, live music, book swaps, kids' activities and a barbecue.

📍 Whitsunday Marine Club, Cannonvale
🗓️ Sunday 13 September 2026
🎟️ Tickets and full programme here: https://www.whitsundayswriters.com/2026-programme-speakers/

Read the full story here: https://www.whitsundayswriters.com/news/regional-stories-matter-why-australias-best-stories-often-begin-beyond-the-cities/

17/08/2026

Community Bank Cannonvale-Proserpine has come on board as our Festival Partner for 2026 and 2027.

A local bank that is big on service AND gives back to community organisations, sounds too good to be true. We're lucky to have this bank model here in the Whitsundays.

We're grateful to have Community Bank Cannonvale-Proserpine onboard for two years.

15/08/2026

By our count, today marks FOUR WEEKS until Festival 🥳 We're excited.

Our panels are filled with brilliant and creative authors, the stage is set for our From the Heart keynote by Rachel Armstrong - Author and we have 21 (yep, had to use fingers and toes to count them all) authors joining us for Stories by the Sea 🌊

If you haven't booked a ticket yet, this is your sign 🎟🎟🎟🎟🎟🎟 and once they're gone, they're gone! We can't release more, there's no bundle held aside for after we sell out. This is not a drill!

Get your ticket here: https://www.whitsundayswriters.com/events/2026-tickets/

15/08/2026

Two of our longlisted authors celebrated 👏

U3A Creative Writers

It was celebration time this week champagne all round , at Creative Writers.
Three of our talented group have achieved success at national and regional writing competitions held recently.

DI GRECH:
Longlisted for the 2026 National Geographical Society of Queensland Geography Writing Competition (theme 'Changing Environments in Queensland) short story to 500 words.

JANET HUMPHRIES:
Shortlisted for the 2026 National Geographical Society of Queensland Geography Writing Competition (theme 'Changing Environments in Queensland) short story to 500 words.
Longlisted 2026 Open Age Whitsundays Literary Heart Award Short Story Competition

JOHN GLANVILLE:
Longlisted for 2026 Whitsundays Heart Award Poetry Prize

11/08/2026

🖋️ TEN POEMS. FOUR STATES.

From 74 entries and a longlist of 28, ten poems are now finalists for the 2026 Whitsundays Literary Heart Award Poetry Prize.

Poets from every state and territory entered. What made the final cut spans intimate personal work, sharp observations of place and memory, humour, meditations on nature and relationships, and poems that push at the edges of form.

Winners announced at the Whitsundays Writers Festival on Sunday 13th September.

The 2026 Poetry Prize Shortlist is:
🖊Caught You Red-Handed, Himara Jayasundara (SA)
🖊For One Who Has No Stone To Say, Greg Lewis (Qld)
🖊Night Flight, Anne Casey (NSW)
🖊Possession, Jo Skinner (Qld)
🖊She’s a Beauty, Melinda Jane (SA)
🖊Special, Scott Jackson (NSW)
🖊Spitfire, Richard Pellatt (Qld)
🖊Subsea, Andrea Louise Thomas (Vic)
🖊The Furthest Tent, Scott Jackson (NSW)
🖊Thin, Scott Jackson (NSW)