Liz Newell

Write in the Great Southern is a regional readers’ and writers’ festival based in Albany, Western Australia.

It brings authors, poets, journalists and illustrators to various venues around the south coast for guest talks, intimate Q&As, delicious breakfasts, workshops, dinners, hand-shaking, book-signing, and the occasional dip in the ocean.

Our 2012 debut festival was a huge success. Guest authors including Kim Scott, Marieke Hardy and Elliot Perlman were lured from the Perth Writers Festival and joined us right here in the Great Southern.

But don’t believe us …

watch the video and see for yourself.

Like many worthwhile artistic endeavours, Write In the Great Southern relies heavily on one particularly potent fuel to keep it going: love.

We love reading.

We love writing.

We love talking.

We love thinking.

We love words.

We love the journey.

We love our festival.

But however plentiful love is amidst the Festival’s co-generators, we still have to pay some of those pesky bills which...

· bring authors 420km south of the most remote capital city on the planet

· make sure our audiences enjoy the comfort and intimacy of stunning settings

· make sure most sessions are accessible to all

· assure we create the best possible environment for our guest authors and so enticing more authors to visit and attend future events

While our heads were turned and busy ensuring our 2013 Write In the Great Southern experience not only lives up to, but surpasses the standard we set in 2012, the Gods of Funding forgot to smile kindly upon us.

So now we’re turning to you, beautiful people, and charging you with one extremely difficult task:

Show us you want this as much as we do.

Help us to keep thinking and the arts in the regions where it belongs.

We’ve scratched our heads over this for a long time. We’ve trimmed the budget, scrapped a few ideas – well, just shelved them until 2014 – and worked out where we can save money and where we can’t.

Here's what we need and what we need it for:

· DESIGN AND PRINTING of program and posters: This is our largest and probably most important expense to be covered. Albany-based designer extraordinaire, Donna Cameron, is currently designing and printing an alluring 24-page brochure and a poster. They will be out and available by the end of January.

· PRODUCTION: Sound, lighting and staging requirements at a writers’ festival are not onerous, but without them we - and you - miss the quality of the conversation.

· VENUE: Places to feel welcome and comfortable, leaving you with a desire just to linger a little longer.

· VOLUNTEER SERVICING: As our tireless volunteers rush around preparing everything, a few drinks and nibbles avoid hypoglycemia, and coffee keeps their eyes on the job.

· INCOME: Most importantly, our fearless leader, the inimitable Jo Smith, organises 90 per cent of what you’ll enjoy come February. At the moment, her hard work is a voluntary gift to the community. Some money to cover her basic costs of phone, printing and petrol would help calm her nerves.

If your pledges push us over our target, then we'll be able to include A FEE for the Festival's chair-people, a designer, a photographer, our web and social media guru, and the program manager.

We’ve thought long and hard about what your support and energy means to us – and then realized we can’t quantify it. So we offer you these humble incentives, right, in return for your goodwill and generosity.

We hope you like them, we hope you like us, and we hope you’ll get in touch if you can’t work out how to click the “Support Project” button or want more reasons why you should.

Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/writeinthegreatsouthern

Or email us: [email protected]

Our sincerest gratitude and warm wishes to you,

The Write in the Great Southern Team.