We’re rapt to unveil the lineup for our 2025 festival, featuring award-winning writers and household names and, for the first time, an international author.

The stellar Australian list includes Craig Silvey, 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 will host its first-ever international guest in Egyptian-American journalist Omar El Akkad, who’ll be talking with Australian journalist Antoinette Lattouf about global flashpoints including Black Lives Matter and the genocide in Gaza.

Sports sessions include Geelong Cats champion Zach Tuohy and ABC broadcaster Catherine Murphy discussing their book The Way of the Irish, and ten-time World Title-winning Muay Thai fighter and boxer John Wayne Parr talking about his brutal, brilliant career and his memoir.

Mystery fans will enjoy sessions with Sydney author Jane Caro and local crime writers Mark Smith, Christine Keighery and Tanya Scott, and true crime lovers will relish a conversation about podcasting with veteran crime reporter Andrew Rule and ABC investigative journalist Rachael Brown, in which they’ll unpack our fascination with the mushroom murders.

We’ll also—

• hold our first-ever family event, with bestselling Runtauthor Craig Silvey;
• mark Jane Austen’s 250th birthday with a delightful panel discussion, afternoon tea and sparkling wine, and a Regency dancing lesson; 
• host a play-reading of a new work about Germaine Greer; 
• offer budding writers a half-day workshop with award-winning romance writer Marion Lennox;
• celebrate 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 and Shokoofeh Azar; and
• feature discussions on Indigenous art, memoir, gardening, politics, America, journalism, the wellness movement, foodand more!

QLF 2025 is going to be a brilliant celebration of community and culture. Get your tickets now!

Was literacy this much fun when you were in school?

Queenscliffe Literary Festival’s eleventh annual Schools Program has just wrapped up and it was a smashing success.

Across two weeks in May, authors visited every kindergarten and school in the Borough of Queenscliffe. 

CBCA Award-winner Andrea Rowe captivated preschoolers with her beautiful beachy picture books; Beth and Byll Stephen from the Teeny Tiny Stevies had Foundation—Year 2 students up and dancing between readings from their six picture books; Felice Arena, author of the bestselling Specky Magee books, literally had Year 3-4s rolling in the aisles and taking speccies; and CBCA-shortlisted novelist Huda Hayek encountered some year 5-6s so polite they didn’t want to acknowledge her red nose let alone her hijab!

The kids had a ball: here is some of their feedback.

‘I like that it was funny and I learnt about things.’

‘It was super fun.’

‘It was too good.’

‘I would tell my parents that today I had the best school day ever and tell them about it.’

‘I wood tell my parents that I had a grat time.’

Thanks to these excellent authors for visiting Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale; thanks to the schools and kindergartens for their enthusiasm and support (and their AV skills!); thanks to the kids for sharing their love of books with us all; and thanks to the QLF volunteers—Viv, Colette, Marg, Ginny and especially Linden, who put it all together.

Queenscliffe Literary Festival’s Schools Program is supported by the Borough of Queenscliffe and receives donations as people buy tickets for the adult festival program. We are very grateful for the community support for this excellent program, which reaches every preschool and school student in the Borough each year.