Mansfield Readers & Writers Purpose, Vision, Mission and Values
People in the Victorian High Country hold diverse interests—we love sports, horses and the outdoors—but we are also deeply invested in the arts. Mansfield Readers & Writers supports our book lovers with a biennial readers and writers festival and an annual writing competition, High Country Words.
Our Mission: to hold world class writing festivals in regional Victoria.
Our Vision: To foster, mentor and encourage a love of Australian literature.
Our Values: Include. Inspire. Create. Sustain.
Our Purposes are to:
- establish the Victorian High Country as a locus of creativity and the arts
- open accessibility to literary events for regional readers and writers
- bring visitors from urban and other regional areas to the High Country
- highlight the importance of representation of regional areas in Australian literature and how people read and write about the intersections between urban, regional and rural living
- celebrate storytelling
- encourage reading for learning and pleasure
- present literary events that support all forms of literacy
- support Australian authors, publishers and booksellers
Our Committee
We are proud to introduce our team, elected at a committee meeting 23 April, 2024, and re-elected at our AGM 24 October, 2024, who are all involved in the literary world, and love reading and writing.
President: Dani Netherclift
Dani has her PhD in Creative Writing, and has published her first book, Vessel: The Shape of Absent Bodies, a lyric essay.
Vice President: Andrea Barton.
Andrea writes the Jade Riley Mysteries: The Godfather of Dance and A Killer Among Friends are out now.
Secretary: Belinda Crawford.
Belinda writes science fiction and fantasy and now has over 20 books in print.
Treasurer: Charlotte Lindsay.
Charlotte owns the delightful Ink Bookshop in the heart of Mansfield.
History
On 10 July 2022, Mansfield Readers and Writers became an incorporated association: Mansfield Readers and Writers Inc.
The first Mansfield Readers and Writers Festival was held in 2023, an enormous effort backed by the committee, volunteers, sponsors, authors, facilitators and attendees. Here is our tribute to all those involved: 2023 Festival thank you. We had a wonderful program presenting these authors.
Mansfield Readers and Writers has also run two short story competitions. The shortlisted stories were presented in anthologies:
Privacy Policy
Mansfield Readers and Writers Inc is committed to providing quality services to you and our privacy policy outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect of how we manage your Personal Information.
Access and Inclusion
We are committed to ensuring that everyone can enjoy the programs we offer. We work hard to remove barriers and increase access to our events. Read more about access and inclusion.
Rules of the Association
Our rules are based on the Model Rules. Download a copy of the association’s rules.