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A writer’s festival is about books. Isn’t it?
Not if you were at the Whitsunday Marine Club on Sunday, where the 2026 Whitsundays Writers Festival opened with a 30-minute violin performance from local solicitor, Giulian Grasso, and closed with Mackay business identity, John Glanville, singing and reading poetry to a room that felt more like family than an audience.
In between: live art was created and auctioned, vouchers were won, raffles drawn, the region’s own literary prizes handed out … and yes, there were plenty of books.
More than 100 attendees packed the Marine Club for a day of information, laughter, and refreshments, all in service of one simple challenge: go home and write your own story.
Festival President, Richard Evans, opened with a tribute to feminist icon Gloria Steinem, who died earlier this month.
“Please tell your own story,” he said, quoting Steinem.
“This is how we know each other and how we build a more respectful and compassionate world.”
It was a fitting opening for a festival with a story of its own. Richard traced the festival’s journey from its beginnings on Daydream Island in 2010 through the 2017 death of founder Gloria Burley, noting her memorial service was held in the very room the festival now called home for 2026 Festival.
Townsville’s Rachel Armstrong, the multi-award-winning romance author, delivered the From the Heart keynote, sharing her own writing journey. Her advice: be passionate about what you want to achieve, and never give up. And for anyone still weighing up whether to start, stop thinking about writing, and just do it.
That message ran through the Whitsundays Literary Heart Awards, presented during the day. Three shortlisted Under 18 writers received their certificates, while Mackay’s Janet Humphreys took out the runner-up prize in the Open Age Short Story category. “No small feat”, she said, among more than 90 entries from across the country. Local poet Suzy Gordon read the winning and runner-up poems aloud to the room, giving the words a life beyond the page.
Two panels tackled whether the rest of us can, and should, write our own stories. Is There a Book in You? offered a clear answer. Everyone has a story worth telling, and the only thing standing between an idea and a finished page is starting. A second panel, on where ideas come from, landed on the same lesson: inspiration can strike anywhere, so don’t let it go to waste.
The day closed with the festival’s free community celebration, Stories by the Sea. Local authors displayed their titles, Whitsunday Regional Council Libraries ran children’s activities, and a community book swap sent families home with something new to read. Four Street Libraries crafted by the Airlie Beach Men’s Shed went under silent auction, with bidders competing to bring a piece of the festival home to their own street.
Mayor Ry Collins and Councillor Clay Bauman dropped by, alongside a well-fed crowd enjoying the sausage sizzle and delicious treats from make your own cake cart. The most talked-about moment belonged to Creative Connections Whitsunday (CCW), whose five local artists spent four hours painting a Whitsundays landscape live before the crowd voted for their favourite.
The winner, Jahla Thompson, was awarded $200 of framing courtesy of Kenyon Framing. CCW president Glenda Brown said she was taken aback by how closely the crowd followed the artists’ progress, “it was a great event,” she said.
Richard closed by looking ahead to 2027, flagging a Festival of Ideas, a Love Letter to Queensland event, a Stanza Bonanza poetry reading, and a Big Book Club High Tea romance readers edition, with sessions on AI and crime writing under consideration. He returned to Steinem’s words to send the crowd home.
“Please tell your story,” he said. “This is the most important thing we can do for each other. To know each other through our words and our stories.”
For a community that turned out in force to hear that message, on a Sunday, by the water, it’s hard to argue the Whitsundays isn’t already listening.
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