THE Gawler and Adelaide Plains Festival of Words is set to return for another year with its biggest program yet.
Organised by the Adelaide Plains Poets group, the event celebrates words in all mediums, from podcasts to written poetry.
A bumper program will see the event extended for five days for the first time, with the event to be launched by Gawler mayor Karen Redman at the P/A Hotel on Wednesday, July 24, and will run
through to Sunday, July 28.
Venues across Gawler and Mallala will host events including an introduction to podcasting, a traditional indigenous Australian yarning circle, a pop-up book shop and a ‘poet’s at the pub event’.
Event organiser Jennette Menhennett said the poet’s group had attempted to make the festival accessible to everyone.
“It’s a pretty niche event, but it’s catering to a lot of different audiences,” she said.
“We’ve got some very passionate writers in this area, our writing group gets around 10-12 people in a session, there are people who have been around for years and years.
“We call it the ‘Festival of Words’ because it’s not just writing, it’s podcasting and spoken word poetry also.”
New York Times best-selling author Sean Williams will headline the festival, with the science fiction author of more than 35 novels to hold a workshop on writing for young people at the Gawler Civic Centre on Saturday, July 27.
Fellow organiser Carolyn Cordon said another highlight would be ‘the Train Ride’, where poets will attend the Gawler Community Gallery, view the town’s art and hop on the train to Adelaide and write poetry based on what they saw.
“It’s about putting something on for the community that’s interesting for people to be involved with,” she said.
“We announce the winners of our poetry competition on the last day of the festival, and some of those people are coming into Gawler for the first time.
“When you’re a writer, you’re sitting there on your own doing the writing, no matter what it is, you’re there by yourself.
“It’s great to reach out and find there’s an entire world who wants to read your work out there, but they don’t know where it is.”
All workshops and activities must be booked, with a full festival program able available at www.festivalofwords.info.