Adventure Ahoy

17 September 2015 by Courier Mail

SEVERAL years ago, Gloria Burley was forced to sit outside a jam-packed talk at the Sydney Writers Festival that she had wanted to see. Perched under a speaker, listening to the author’s voice issue forth from a black box and looking out over Sydney Harbour, she thought to herself: “Why not?” If people flocked to the freezing cold southern states for literary festivals, why wouldn’t they head for warmer climes like the Whitsundays during winter, she reasoned.

And so the Whitsunday Writers Festival was born.

A love of travel and learning about interesting people and places has driven Ms Burley for much of her life, and that fascination – the desire to know more – forms a central pillar of the Whitsunday Writers Festival.

Deborah Friend reckons she must have written millions of words since she started her communications consultancy business in 2008, and she never gets bored of it.

“It’s not just about writing, it’s about reading and a love of words,” she explained.

And when Rachael Smith was younger, she wrote an as-yet unpublished 90,000-word novel on her travels around Europe.

“I’ve just always wanted to write. I just love it,” she said.

Together, the three women are responsible for organising this year’s festival, which kicks off tomorrow from 8.30am at Abell Point Marina and runs until Sunday afternoon.

For a festival that started six years ago on Daydream Island, Ms Burley said she was “very happy” to now be associated with Abell Point Marina.

“Because it’s very much in line with the way it started – that is, somewhere really nice, with great views, good food, and we will always have really good speakers – I’ll make sure of that,” she said.