Our Festival Story
The Sorrento Writers Festival is a not-for-profit cultural and community organisation festival that brings year-round literary events, discussions and talks to Sorrento and the wider Mornington Peninsula community.
We have a long-term commitment to improve literacy, enhance learning and provide a safe, stimulating and mutually-respectful environment in which to discuss ideas. We want more children reading books. We want them to experience the joys of storytelling and the potential of their imaginations. We want older folk to be excited and engaged.
The Festival celebrates its deep First Nations history, its European settler influence, and its contemporary role as one of Victoria’s most beautiful coastal villages.
The second Sorrento Writers Festival starts Thursday April 25 at 1pm and runs across four days until Sunday April 28, 2024. We hope you will join us.
Our Goals
The Sorrento Writers Festival mission is to bring writers and readers together. Our aim is to provide safe environments in which to have important and respectful conversations. Our long term goal is to improve reading and literacy among children on the Mornington Peninsula, to ignite their imaginations and prompt inquiry. The students at Sorrento’s two schools – St.Joseph’s and Sorrento Primary School – are important members of our Community and so once again, children’s authors and illustrators will visit their classrooms as part of our Festival.
Our ambition is to raise funds to support a variety of local literacy and reading initiatives such as the Mornington Peninsula Foundation, the Portsea Camp, the Sorrento Primary School and St.Joseph’s School libraries, and via our own Sorrento Library which one day, we hope to establish.
Our Team
The Sorrento Writers Festival Incorporated is a registered not-for-profit charity. The entity is run by a Committee of Management with the assistance of financial advisory firm, the Kearney Group. We are fiscally responsible, we believe in good governance, regular reporting back to stakeholders, and although we plan within our means, we dream big. And we give back to the community; the Festival will be an employer of casual staff, volunteers and interns keen to gain experience in the events-books-culture-hospitality spaces. Our goal is to become a best-practice community cultural organisatio
and one that engenders pride and respect.
Our Patrons:
- Kate Baillieu
- Diane Balnaves
- The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG
- Professor Marcia Langton AO
- Lady Marigold Southey AC
- David Williamson AO
Our Committee of Management:
President: Peter Inge OAM
Festival Director: Corrie Perkin
Treasurer: Narelle Cormack
Our Foundation Friends
We thank our Friends of the Festival – a group of remarkable women who bring their time, support, wisdom, families, friends and contacts, and diverse talents to help our Festival grow.
- Helen Blythe
- Tania Brougham
- Dene Buxton
- Mary Clark
- Chris Clough
- Caroline Cornish
- Pia Di
- Mattina Marg Downey
- Paige Fitzroy
- Rosemary Geer
- Celia Hirsh
- Jane Hiscock
- Trudy Johnson
- Julie Kantor
- Jane Kinsman
- Anna Koren
- Georgie Lynch
- Jane McCubbin
- Susie Nathan
- Sophie Patten
- Kate Spelemeiden
- Melinda Williams
- Caroline Wilson
- Mandy Yencken
- Anita Ziemer
Our Sub-Committees
Communications
Rose Donohoe (Chair), Will Carter, Lib Hutton, Corrie Perkin
Finance
Narelle Cormack (Chair), Peter Inge, Nicholas Martin, Corrie Perkin
Fundraising
Peter Inge (Chair), Nicholas Martin, Corrie Perkin, Fiona Poletti
Operations
Mandy Rethus (Chair), Coco Carter, Laura Macdonald, Corrie Perkin, Isabel Pinkster, Melinda Williams
Program
Corrie Perkin (Chair), Francesca Carter, Rose Donohoe, Laura Macdonald, Mandy Reties
Our Operations Team
Festival Founder, Director and CEO
Corrie Perkin
Operations and Programming
Laura Macdonald
Festival Coordinator
Isabel Pinkster
Partnerships and Stakeholders
Fiona Poletti
Volunteers
Melinda Williams
IT, data, website and box office
ArtFuel by I-Nex
Bookkeeper
Leng Na
Media and PR
Project Hutton
Graphic designer
Jasmin Tulk
Printed program
Steve Perkin, Kate Slattery, Janelle Ward (with thanks to Festival Friends Pia Di Mattina, Sophie Patten and Anita Ziemer)
Legal advice
Peter Inge and Richard Janko
