09.00 – 10.00 Prologue. Registration and tea/coffee
10:00 – 10:15 Setting the Scene. Leslie Falkiner-Rose. Chair, Book Clubs Friday
10.15 – 10.55 Headline Act. Keynote and Q&A
Toni Jordan, novelist.
What do book clubs mean to authors?
How can authors and book clubs benefit one another
Are amateur reviewers becoming more impactful than
professional ones?
10.55 – 11.10 The Pregnant Pause. (Leg stretch/pit stop)
11.10 – 11:50 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Book Clubs.
Panel on what works and what doesn’t with running book clubs
Chair: Jennifer Hutchison, author, publisher and BCF Committee
Panel: Panellist (tbc)
Pam Kershaw, Book Club veteran and BCF Committee Member
Shay Leighton, Founder and Director, Tough Guy Book Club
11.50 – 12.10 Life in the Fast Lane.
Wrangler: Heather Horrocks, BCF Committee.
Sleuthing while speed dating with others in the audience
12.10 – 12.45 Bold Types. Best tales and tips from the trenches discovered
during Life in the Fast Lane
12.45 – 1:30 The Hunger Games. Lunch
1:30 – 2:15 Great Expectations. Keynote and Q&A
Kate Torney, CEO of the State Library of Victoria.
What libraries can do for book clubs and vice versa?
2:15 – 3:00 The Three Musketeers.
What can different types of book clubs learn from each other?
Chair: Maryanne Vagg, Reviewer, Programmer, Librarian
Panel: Annabel Pitt, Ballarat member of the Girly Book Club,
Not-So-Young Adults Book Club and the Good Book Club
Bill Collopy, Manager, Council of Adult Education Book Club
Operations
3.00 – 3.30 Of Literature and Lattes. Afternoon tea
3:30 – 4:00 The Book of Tomorrow.
Audience Discussion led by Cora Trevarthen, BCF Committee
Where to from here?
Should BCF be a one-off or a series?
Should we establish a formal Book Clubs Network?
How might network look? What would be its value?
Should we encourage more clubs?
How could we encourage more clubs?
4:00 – 4:45 Fight Club for the Mind.* The Battle for the Book Clubs.
Panellists each do a five-minute pitch for a specific book clubs.
People with Disabilities – Robyn Thompson, Journalist and BCF
Committee
Rural Fiction – Jennifer Scoullar, author of eight novels about the
land, people and wildlife that she loves.
Sharing Later Life Experience – Richard Freadman, Emeritus
Professor of English at La Trobe University and Adjunct Professor
at Swinburne University. He specialises in life writing in health care
settings, including writing later life experience, and is an international
authority on autobiography.
Online Book Clubs – Maryanne Vagg, Reviewer, programmer
and librarian who established an online book club on the
Gold Coast.
Two more panellists tbc
4.45 – 5.00 The Remains of the Day (wrap up)
Observations of the inaugural national book clubs symposium
Key takeaways for Australia’s book clubs and the book
industry.
5.00 – 6.30 Booktown Opening (same venue)
*Yes, we have stolen this line from the toughguybookclub.com website.