20 years of Clunes Booktown

For two decades, the goldfields town of Clunes has been celebrating storytelling with its annual Booktown Festival. This past weekend, the festival filled the main street with over 100 stalls and more than 60 booksellers, with rare collectables, secondhand gems and brand new publications on display. 

📚 The history: Clunes Booktown Festival started in 2007, with the inaugural event attracting more than 6,000 visitors. It has since blossomed into an annual, two-day festival held every year. 

• In 2012, the festival gained membership into the International Organisation of Booktowns. This makes it the only certified booktown in the country. They are defined as “a small rural town or village in which second-hand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated”. 

Fun fact: Clunes is a town well acquainted with the creative arts, with parts of the original Mad Max and Ned Kelly filmed in the town. 

✒️2026 a big year for books: Writers Workshops, author talks, and interactive kids activities define the event each year. In 2026, the festival curated a diverse line-up of seminars, information sessions, and panels on: 

• Ties that Bleed: Family, Secrets and the Australian Gothic 

• The Poetics of Hope 

• Speculative Fiction - Reimaging the World 

• First Nations Oral Storytelling 

• Romance Fiction - First Time Lucky 

There were also plenty of wandering street performers, live music, and local food to invigorate the weekend. Check out a few snaps the Brolga got this past Saturday: