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Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Willy Lit Fest, Festival, Williamstown Town Hall, Williamstown VIC, Msinga.

Williamstown Literary Festival
Boon Wurrung Country
June 12 – 14, 2026

Willy Lit Fest (est 2003) brings together readers and writers for an annual celebration of story-telling, author talks, panels and writing workshops at a historic seaside setting.

21/07/2026

From jazzy tunes to Afro beats to 80s pop and Aussie rock, Vin Maskell and the Stereo Stories band lit up our festival stage with yet another unforgettable night of music 🎶 and memoir ✍️

Storytellers Maxine Beneba Clarke, Lisa Moule, Donna Jackson and Konker Malual joined festival favourites, Lucia Nardo, Andy Griffiths and Smokie Dawson, sharing captivating tales about the songs that have shaped their lives.

While Band members Martina Medica, Chris Phillips, David Barton, Laura Sheridan, Matt McGrath, Julie Merritt, David Oke and Stephen Andrew set the tone for each performance with striking chords, melodic riffs and stunning harmonies.

Truly, a night to remember 🌟

You can purchase Stereo Stories Volume 1: Lili Marlene by Lucia Nardo and Stereo Stories Volume 2: Before Too Long by Darren ‘Smokie’ Dawson from Williamstown’s Book and Paper 📚 and relive the night in the comfort of your own room.

Until next year!

29/06/2026

And that’s your winter reading sorted ❄️📚 If you attended W***y Lit Fest this year, you are eligible to enter our book giveaway! Titles include recent releases from 2026 festival guests Dave Witty, John Morrissey and Dennis Altman, plus many more fiction and non fiction gems. Here’s what you need to do:
✍️ Fill out our online feedback form and tell us what you thought of this year’s festival. Link below:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckPKMfaWwD6nKv54KRmGrzdvlvOj0Zsuui9L9QEXuPMWvvvA/viewform

That’s it! The lucky winner will be notified by email in July. Good luck, and thank you for your valuable input - it will help us shape W***y Lit Fest for years to come.

12/06/2026

Due to popular demand we have opened up balcony seating for our much anticipated and well-loved Stereo Stories event.

Grab tickets via link in bio or at the box office (before you enter the Town Hall Ballroom). Hurry, only while tickets last!

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📚 W***y Lit Fest
12-14 June 2026
willylitfest.org.au
See you there!

09/06/2026

💥 Williamstown Literary Festival starts with a bang this Friday night! 💥 Introducing our very special opening event, The Making Of The Cook’s Companion, with culinary icon Stephanie Alexander. In this unmissable event about the creation — and enduring popularity — of a classic foodie bible, Stephanie will be joined on stage by the book’s original designer and Williamstown local Sandy Cull, editor Caroline Pizzey and food writer Richard Cornish. There are still a few tickets left — snap them up quick. https://events.humanitix.com/the-making-of-the-cook-s-companion 🥬 🍅 🧅 🧀 👩‍🍳

08/06/2026

🔥🧛🏻‍♂️ If you only catch one event at W***y Lit Fest in 2026 … make sure it’s this one🧛🏻‍♂️🔥Legend of the small screen and Williamstown local Shaun Micallef joins Marieke Hardy for a chat about his new novel, the gothic-horror-vampire comedy De’Ath Takes a Holiday. Full of classic Micallef satire, De’Ath Takes a Holiday follows disillusioned blood-sucker, Comte De’Ath, as he embarks on a quest for mortality.

This special event takes place on Saturday evening, June 13, at the Williamstown Town Hall. Grab a drink, sit back, and settle in for an hour of literary laughs with a true comedy icon.

📚 MICALLEF, Shaun Patrick, LL.B.; Australian comedian; born 18 July 1962; married, three sons; ‘educated’ Sacred Heart College and University of Adelaide; admitted to bar 1984-93; threw it all away to join the circus. Television: The Micallef P(r)ogram(me), SeaChange, Micallef Tonight, Newstopia, Talkin’ ’Bout Your Generation, Mad as Hell, Eve of Destruction. Books: Smithereens (2005), Preincarnate (2010), The President’s Desk (2014), Tales from a Tall Forest(2017), The Uncollected Plays of Shaun Micallef (2018), Happily Ever Afterwards (2021), Tripping Over Myself (2022), Slivers, Shards and Skerricks (2024), Too Scared to Sleep (2024), The Impatient Glacier (2024). Leisure interests: wind farming.

📚 Marieke Hardy is a screenwriter, playwright, radio broadcaster, producer and author. She has penned regular columns for The Age, The Monthly, and Frankie magazine, and written for many television shows, including The Family Law, Seven Types of Ambiguity, Heartbreak High, and Sunny Nights. Her six-part award-winning black comedy series, Laid, premiered on the ABC and was adapted for the US in 2025. She was co-curator of international literary phenomenon Women of Letters, a regular panelist on The First Tuesday Book Club, and a recipient of the 2015 Sidney Myer Fellowship. Her adaptation of Dario Fo’s No Pay? No Way! premiered at the Sydney Opera House in 2020 and has since toured to Manchester, UK. She currently curates spoken word salon Better Off Said and her new original play, Losing Face, debuts at Melbourne Theatre Company in June.

🎟️events.humanitix.com/shaun-micallef-d-eath-takes-a-holiday

05/06/2026

This is a room made for you.

Writers and storytellers who identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Colour are invited to hear from authors who know what it is to write from a plural life—and who did it anyway.

Melissa Cranenburgh moderates a panel with Maxine Beneba Clarke and John Morrissey conversing about their writing lives, their paths into publishing, and the cultural worlds their work carries.

A facilitated writing workshop follows, with prompts drawn directly from the panel.

This event marks the public launch of the WOW BIPOC Writers Collective

📚 Melissa Cranenburgh is a Jewish–Anglo-Indian writer, editor, broadcaster and educator from Naarm/Melbourne. She worked in senior editing roles for more than a decade, presented Triple R’s book show 'Backstory' and is completing her first memoir – ‘Half-Baked Bread’ – exploring the complicated inheritance of a multi-generational mixed-race identity.

📚 Maxine Beneba Clarke is one of Australia's most celebrated poets. She is the author of over 14 books, including the bestselling memoir The Hate Race and the Victorian Premier's Award-winning poetry collection, Carrying the World.

📚 John Morrissey is a Melbourne writer of Kalkadoon descent. He was the winner of the 2020 Indigenous Writers Mentorship and runner-up for the Nakata Brophy Prize in 2018. John’s debut Firelight won an Aurealis Award and a Queensland Literary Award, and in 2024 he was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist. Bird Deity is his first novel.

📚 Jane Wong is a mixed-race writer and multidisciplinary creative raised by elders of many cultures. A former contributor to The Age and recovering ad person, she is currently working on her first novel. She is a BIPOC Committee Member at Writers Out West and the founding organiser of this event.

Presented by W***y Lit Fest and Writers Out West, Hobsons Bay.

🎟️ events.humanitix.com/our-stories-our-voices-a-workshop-for-bipoc-writert

04/06/2026

This year we have an incredible line-up of artists programmed, including journalists, essayists, scholars, poets, performers, comedians, children’s authors, crime writers and genre-bending experimentalists. From comedy legend, Shaun Micallef, to creative community leader and DJ, Konker Malual, our program is steeped in the vibrant creativity of the inner west but brings together artists from as far away as WA ✨

Explore the breathtaking array of talent set to descend on Williamstown Town Hall in a week 🙌👇

03/06/2026

An illuminating chronicle of a changing world, Dennis Altman’s collection of essays, Righting My World, offers acute observations about everything from Gay Liberation to Trump’s America. Don’t miss seeing this acclaimed intellectual and gay rights activist discuss the intersections between the personal and the political with writer, lawyer and radio host, Sam Elkin.

📕Dennis Altman AM is the son of Jewish refugees, who first came to attention with the publication of his book Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation in 1972, a seminal work of q***r theory. He is Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at LaTrobe University in Melbourne and was listed by The Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever.

📕Sam Elkin is a Footscray based writer, community lawyer and co-host of Triple R’s Q***r View Mirror. In 2025, Sam’s debut memoir Detachable P***s: A Q***r Legal Saga was shortlisted for the inaugural John Clarke Award for Humour Writing at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and for the National Biography Prize.

🎟️ events.humanitix.com/dennis-altman-righting-my-world

Address

Williamstown Town Hall, Williamstown VIC
Msinga
3016

Website

https://linktr.ee/willylitfest

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