Books everywhere: how a literary festival put the Victorian village of Clunes on the map

Writer Tess Brady says the Clunes book festival is in line with the community’s ‘undercurrent of books and learning’. Photograph: Steve Womersley/The Guardian

More than 17 years ago, the central Victorian town of Clunes was presented with the idea of either becoming home to its own saleyards or a dormitory suburb of Ballarat.

“We didn’t want either option to happen,” resident Tess Brady says. “We knew if we didn’t take the bull by the horns something was going to happen to us.”