Wendy Askew (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Tamar Valley in Tasmania's north is home to a successful wine-growing area and a multitude of agribusinesses, but this fertile region is also where the Tamar Valley Writers Festival is based. Promoted as an event to inspire, the Tamar Valley Writers Festival recently hosted, from 14 to 17 October, authors, poets, playwrights, journalists, comedians, songwriters, filmmakers, editors and storytellers from Tasmania and across Australia. A carefully curated program of conversations, panels, tours, workshops and performances were assembled around the theme 'The good life'.

Some in the chamber may remember a BBC series called The Good Life featuring Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers about a couple embracing self-sufficiency, while others might be more familiar with social researcher Hugh Mackay's book in which he challenges readers to consider what makes life worth living. However, the Tamar Valley Writers Festival theme is somewhere in between. Attendees were encouraged to look beyond the multitude of cancelled events that punctuated the COVID-19 pandemic and embrace hope for a community built around a love of words, stories and ideas.

The festival was produced by a team of dedicated volunteers, sharing their passion for reading, writing and thinking with like-minded people. This event started in 2014 as the Festival of Golden Words in Beaconsfield, referencing the town's goldmine. Now the festival has evolved, spanning multiple locations on both sides of the Tamar and challenging people to think about exciting, difficult and provocative topics while also encouraging emerging writers and thinkers via its short story competition and the collaborative one-day workshop program with the University of Tasmania.

The Tamar Valley Writers Festival is another opportunity for northern Tasmania to show just how amazing this part of our state is. This event provided a welcome taste of the good life and showed a strong appetite for community events post pandemic.