When Nene Davis and her family moved to central Queensland, she felt cut off from her Brisbane writing community.
In Yeppoon, there was no easy access to workshops or literary events — so Ms Davis decided to build the community she was craving.
Five years ago, she started the biennial Capricorn Coast Writers Festival in the small coastal town.
"But it's just grown wings."
Ms Davis said the festival had brought together the town's small business community alongside its writers.
It's one of dozens of regional literary events run across Australia each year.
Robbie Egan, from peak industry body BookPeople, described festivals as "wonderful events" helping to keep bookselling alive in the age of online shopping and encouraging a new generation of writers.
"It's so easy to buy online … but a bookshop in a small town or a literary festival out of the cities is a nice connection to the art form of writing and to the readers that sometimes lack that interaction," he said.
"They're really vital because it creates a kind of momentum that you can't get in any other way.
"[Festivals are] bringing together a whole bunch of people who have an already inherent value in the act of reading … and gives us confidence that there are readers in the future."
Ms Davis, who also runs a small bookshop in Yeppoon, knows this struggle all too well.
"We get so many people coming in saying, 'Oh my goodness … it's lovely to have a bookshop in town. Please don't close,'" she said.
"That's really lovely, but you need to have money coming in as well.
"We don't really stock a lot of the big blockbuster new releases because we can't compete with the bigger stores and online."
'If you build a festival, people will come'
Much like running a bookstore, a festival can't go ahead without funding — and that, according to Ms Davis, is one of the hardest hurdles to overcome.
She said arts grants were "fiercely competitive", so the organising committee turned instead to local businesses for event sponsorship and help with venue hire.
"I think it makes the festival a real community event rather than just something that some people are putting on," she said.
"The business community here is very tight … and we will support each other."
Mr Egan, who lives in Meeniyan in regional Victoria, said there was also something unique about the support for events outside capital cities.
"Whether it's an Italian food festival, we have a garlic festival where I live … country people do stuff," he said.
"If you build a festival, people will come, and if you open a bookshop, people will come."
Ms Davis hopes the event can also showcase the Capricorn Coast and attract people back year-round.
That's something the Victorian Goldfields town of Clunes has experienced since its first book festival in 2007.
Festival helps create Australia's first booktown
The small town, about half an hour north of Ballarat, was recognised internationally in 2012 as Australia's first booktown — a small town or village with many second-hand or antiquarian bookshops and strong cultural programs.
Creative Clunes chief executive Sue Beal said the event came about because locals were searching for a way to revive the town, with many of the shopfronts along the historic main street sitting empty.
And the plan worked.
Ms Beal said new cafes and shops had opened, and once-neglected buildings were being redeveloped.
"[The festival] has increased people's knowledge of the town," she said.
"They make holiday time to come here, so it has improved the town's economic situation for the whole year."
Ms Beal said the community pride stemmed not just from the success of the event but the way the town banded together each year to get it off the ground.
A growing number of regional festivals did concern her at first, but instead of competition, it has spurred the organising committee to continue evolving the Clunes event.
This year, the focus expanded to storytelling, with screenwriters, songwriters and visual artists joining the author line-up.
"We did miles better than budgeted this year," Ms Beal said.
The Capricorn Coast Writers Festival will run from Friday, June 2, to Sunday, June 4.
