The Queenscliffe Literary Festival (QLF) has announced this week its new program director and the festival’s rescheduling for 2024.
Elizabeth McCarthy will succeed Jane Finemore as QLF’s new program director, while the festival itself will be pushed back to October in 2024.
Ms McCarthy, who has spent most of the last 20 years as a radio producer and presenter, hosts literary events for the Wheeler Centre and Melbourne Writers Festival and produces live events for RMIT Culture.
She has also served as a judge for the Stella Prize and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and regularly appears on ABC evening radio discussing books with host David Astle.
Ms McCarthy said she was thrilled to be appointed program director for QLF.
“(QLF) is a unique, deeply engaging and vivacious festival that I have long admired for being passionately committed to storytelling and ideas and for attracting outstanding storytellers for its books and arts-loving audiences to enjoy each year,” she said.
“With 2024 being QLF’s 10th anniversary, I’ll be creating festival events that commemorate this wonderful milestone and also exploring new ways that storytelling and writing can be experienced and celebrated.
“I am deeply grateful to festival committee members for warmly welcoming me and for mapping out the future of QLF with such a clear vision.”
The committee said its decision to reschedule the festival from May to 18-27 October in 2024 was due to the packed arts and literature festival calendar in the first half of the year.
QLF also announced two summer in-conversation events. Writer and commentator Clementine Ford will discuss her new book I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage on January 10, while chef and author Jo Barrett will talk about her book about sustainable cooking on January 15.
