A $13,900 grant from Creative Australia will see the Bellingen Readers & Writers Festival (BRWF) Schools Program expand into the Kempsey area in 2027, offering 10 disadvantaged local schools free author visits.
The funding will fully cover the cost of bringing four authors to Kempsey.
Schools will be selected using ICSEA and NAPLAN data from the My School website.
It caps off the program’s biggest year yet. Since launching in 2011, the Schools Program reached 3,862 primary and secondary students across 28 schools in Coffs Harbour, Bellingen, Nambucca and Kempsey in 2026.
Visiting authors included Sarah Armstrong, Pip Harry, Andrew Daddo, Amy Doak, Corey Tutt, Joel McKerrow, and Kate and Jol Temple.
Ordinarily, the program is funded through a mix of school contributions, sponsorship and Writers Festival ticket sales.
Kempsey’s expanded 2027 program will work differently: it will be fully funded by the grant, with no cost to schools at all.
Authors typically walk students through the writing process, from an initial idea to a finished book, showing how inspiration can come from anywhere: books they’ve read, their own lives, or events in the world around them.
“The students are still talking about it weeks later,” St Augustine’s Primary School reported.
Narranga Public School described an author’s visit as “inspiring students to pursue their chosen joy, pleasure and talents in life,” while Nambucca Valley Christian Community School said it gave students “the opportunity as a regional school to experience an author visit that would otherwise be unattainable.”
Kempsey Adventist School said the program “brings literature to life in a way that classroom teaching alone cannot.”
Past authors have felt the impact too.
“The schools were welcoming and excited to have an author visit,” said Jacqueline Harvey, while Amy Doak said the region’s remoteness is exactly why it matters: “A lot of those children would rarely, if ever, get the chance to have an author present at their school.”
The list of authors participating in the Creative Australia grant-funded portion of the program will be finalised by December.
By JESSICA MILLER
You can help your local paper.
Make a small once-off, or (if you can) a regular donation.
We are an independent family owned business and our newspapers are free to collect and our news stories are free online.
Help support us into the future.
