16-25 October 2026
Queenscliffe Literary Festival
For more than 10 years, we've brought Australia's finest writers, thinkers, and storytellers to the Bellarine Peninsula. What began as a single weekend of events has grown into a rich, year-round program that engages our community in every season.
Each year, the Queenscliffe Literary Festival delivers:
- A Schools Program that reaches over 500 young people across every childcare, kindergarten and primary school in the Borough of Queenscliffe, connecting kids with authors and poets who bring stories to life
- Pop-up events that take literature out into the community throughout the year
- The Penned Micro-Fiction Writing Competition, nurturing short-form storytelling from all across the country
- A Program Launch that kicks off in style and engages local businesses, organisations, and partners
- A full two-weekend festival in October, featuring award-winning Australian authors, thinkers and performers in sessions that spark conversation and delight audiences of all ages
We believe that great literature shouldn't be reserved for big cities. Stories have the power to build empathy, spark curiosity, and bring a community together, and that's exactly what we do, in one of Victoria's most beloved coastal towns. In Queenscliffe, we are proud to be one of the municipality’s premier cultural events.
We are a volunteer-run, not-for-profit festival, and every year we grow, reaching more readers, students, and community members, to share more stories and ideas that, in an increasingly disconnected and fragile world, need to be told.
Our trivia fundraiser events with Brian Nankervis are back!
Join Queensliffe Literary Festival with inimitable host Brian Nankervis for two incredible trivia events on Saturday 25 July (evening) and Sunday 26 July (lunchtime), raising funds for the festival's year-round events and initiatives.
WHEN: Saturday 25 July from 6:30pm and Sunday 26 July from 12pm.
WHERE: Queenscliff Town Hall, 50 Learmonth Street.
BYO: Snacks/supper, gold coins for games, and your credit card for the bar and to enter our fabulous raffle.
DON'T BYO: Drinks—the bar will be extremely well-stocked, and all proceeds go to QLF.
TICKETS: $480 for a table of eight; $60 per head to be seated on a mystery table, where you'll meet your teammates on the night and go for broke!
Tickets and all other information via Trybooking here: trybooking.com/events/landing/1603605
2025 festival
QLF's 2025 festival featured award-winning writers, thinkers and experts, and included for the first time an international author.
The list of outstanding Australian authors who attended our festival included Marcia Langton, Peter Greste, Bob Brown , Virginia Trioli, Alice Zaslavsky, Brian Nankervis and Melissa Leong, as well as 2025 Miles Franklin-winner Siang Lu and two previous Stella Prize-winners, poet Evelyn Araluen and novelist Heather Rose.
QLF hosted our first-ever international guest in Egyptian-Canadian journalist Omar El Akkad, in conversation with Australian journalist Antoinette Lattouf about global flashpoints including Black Lives Matter and the genocide in Gaza.
Footy fans enjoyed Geelong Cats champion Zach Tuohy and ABC broadcaster Catherine Murphy in conversation about their book The Way of the Irish.
Mystery afficianados attended sessions with Sydney author Jane Caro and local crime writers Mark Smith, Christine Keighery and Tanya Scott, and true crime lovers relished a conversation about podcasting with veteran crime reporter Andrew Rule and ABC investigative journalist Rachael Brown, in which they unpacked our fascination with the true crime genre, and mushroom murders.
At our 2025 festival we also -
- marked Jane Austen’s 250th birthday with a lively panel discussion, afternoon tea and sparkling wine, and a Regency dance lesson;
- hosted a play-reading of a new work about Germaine Greer ;
- offered budding writers a half-day workshop with award-winning romance writer Marion Lennox;
- celebrated real life and stories with a special Better Off Said event created by Marieke Hardy and Emilie Zoey Baker and featuring Antoinette Lattouf, Hannie Rayson, Brian Nankervis, Andrew Rule and Shokoofeh Azar, with music by Sarah Carroll; and
- featured discussions on Indigenous art, memoir, gardening, politics, America, journalism, the wellness movement, food and more!
QLF 2025 was a brilliant, captivating and highly engaging celebration of community and culture. We look forward to creating another vibrant and enriching festival for 2026!
