Tome zones in flux: why writers festivals are making themselves at home in the regions ONE of the authors attending the Corrugated Lines writers festival in Broome this month is being sponsored by the local football academy. "It has a tie-in with them," Sudha Coutinho, one of the volunteer organisers of the fledgling festival, says of the visit by Sean Gorman to talk about his books on the AFL's indigenous players. That's kind of how we do it. Coutinho and a little group of volunteers decided a couple of years ago that they would cobble together a festival program. There's no core funding, not much in the way of venues and the beautiful winter weather makes it enticing to head outdoors. But none of that stopped them. "We have this fantastic model," says Coutinho, an occupational therapist who headed to Broome 15 years ago to have a look and stayed. "We created an umbrella and said to the community, 'What do you want to put under it?"' Writers festivals are firmly established in major cities. They're big business for writers and publishers, with their popularity showing no sign of abating. When they start up in regional centres, they cannot hope to compete in attracting as many writers whose international celebrity ensures strong audience numbers. But there is cultural tourism value in a festival that has not yet been well understood or developed around Australia. And it is the commitment of volunteers that has provided the blueprint for what is potentially positive for both the community and the visitors. As Coutinho says, a festival in Broome has a very reliable and obvious point of difference, the north Australian winter being so much more clement than in the south. But it's not simply because it's warmer that people trek to the most successful regional writers festival in Byron Bay, also in August. They go for something the big city festivals can no longer hope to provide, except perhaps in small localised festivals popping up in libraries and town halls all across the suburbs. The tribal comfort that being in a thinking group can bring is part of it, but there's a bonus in the visitor's sense of being an outsider welcomed in. It's why, as well as for a good feed and self-indulgent pleasure, the vineyard restaurant in a wine-making district is so attractive. Strangers become friends, by means of sharing a glass. Ditto the regional writers festival: strangers become friends by dint of sharing a book. Broome's Corrugated Lines and Bendigo Writers Festival, also in its second year, both take place on the weekend of August 9 to 11. Both expect to cater not only for locals but also a growing number of cultural tourists. In the case of Broome, says Coutinho, they are unlikely to be visitors who have made the trip to the far northwest specifically for the festival but travellers who will welcome the opportunity to mix with the locals in such a convivial way. In Bendigo, visitors will make the writers festival part of a weekend getaway, travelling the couple of hours out of Melbourne specifically to attend the events. That was one of the small surprises that organisers -- of which I am one -- had last year, when we took a punt that this city of just more than 100,000 people was ready for its own writers festival. The primary aim was to create an event for and by the people of the city and its region. Bendigo Tourism took a punt, too, on the back of the success of several popular exhibitions at the Bendigo Art Gallery, most recently the Grace Kelly couture show. Geared up for marketing a Bendigo visit not just into Melbourne but for interstate people too, the council's tourism unit set about promoting the writers festival in a similar way. You can put an economic value on this for a city and a region, which helps when it comes to making a case with civic leaders, local business and the wider community that a cultural event is worthwhile. It is much harder to be convincing about the "cultural capital." This is why there is a need for better understanding and articulation of how a community benefits: everything from a child having access to an idea voiced by a visiting writer to the co-operative networks that are created to get it all happening. Places such as Byron Bay and Margaret River have proven that interest in writing and reading does not dry up the further you travel from Rundle Mall, Swanston Street or George Street. And there is a steady stream of cultural professionals moving to rural locations. Jen Bray, one of the volunteers who organise the Central Victorian Words in Winter festival, went bush with her family a few years back. She is a drama teacher with years of experience in theatre and performance in Melbourne. Determined to "maintain connections with culture," she joined up with the festival, now in its 12th year, and was quickly made aware of who was out there in the woods and fields. "I'm quite surprised how rich we are in culture in this area," Bray says. The festival has relied on local cafes and libraries for venues but Daylesford, historically a spa town for well-to-do escapees from Melbourne, has just benefited from the restoration of an art nouveau former picture theatre, built in 1913, which looks like becoming a base for the festival in future years. The problem is, now that the festival is in its second decade and reliably part of the region's cultural calendar, it's taken for granted that people will keep giving their time to the cause. In Bendigo, blessed with venues so suited to a writers festival, and the presence of La Trobe University which is also keen to develop Bendigo as a university city, there is more support in place. Working at the independent Bendigo Weekly, I also had a way to let the community know what was going on without having to convince a newspaper to run with the idea. It has been a more complex process to convince some of the local businesses, which are conservative by nature. On the other hand, the university, in a phase of rapid change itself, has seen it as an obvious and useful collaboration. The key has been to harness widespread support and enthusiasm, to make the connections between organisations and people who can make it happen. The will was not difficult to tap into. The resistance towards acknowledging the cultural importance of non-capital cities and towns is perhaps a legacy of the country's cultural cringe. Until the capital cities feel independently confident, without the need for competitive chest-thumping brashness, it is unlikely that the patronising benevolence towards "the regions" will be replaced by partnerships that benefit, equally, both city and country. Meanwhile, everyone from Malcolm Fraser to Lisa McCune are heading to Bendigo to join the likes of James Boyce and Alice Pung for a writers festival. It's hard not to be proud of a community that can make that happen. Byron Bay Writers Festival runs from tomorrow to Sunday; Words in Winter runs through the month with a weekend program in Daylesford from August 9; Corrugated Lines takes place in Broome, August 9-11; Bendigo Writers Festival takes place at The Capital in View Street, August 9-11. Rosemary Sorensen is the inaugural (volunteer) program director of the Bendigo Writers Festival.