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.
We're launching our 2026 program with Louise Milligan and Sally Rugg!
Join us to launch our incredible program for 2026 on Saturday 5 September at an event featuring Louise Milligan, multi-award-winning investigative journalist and author, in conversation with political writer and campaigner Sally Rugg.
Milligan's journalism, particularly her coverage of historical, institutional child abuse and the experience of women in the criminal justice system and parliament, has broken national and international news, sparked government inquiries, and led to profound cultural change and law reform.
Her latest novel is Shellybanks (Allen & Unwin, 2026), a story of buried secrets, unimaginable trauma, and how the love of family can pull you through to a brighter future. Milligan was born in Ireland, and raised in Australia, and it is the many aunts, uncles, and cousins of her chaotic and colourful family who inspired so much of this latest novel.
6:00pm - Doors opens/bar opens
6.30pm - Event commences
7.45pm - Book signing
8:00pm - Event ends
Tickets available via Trybooking:
Full - $30 + booking fee + processing fee
Concession - $22 + booking fee + processing fee
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!
