History

The Nestlé Write Around Australia competition, which ran from 1993−2005, was a national creative writing program for children in the equivalent of Years 5 and 6. Coordinated by the State Library of New South Wales and supported by state and public libraries across Australia, it sent well-known children’s book authors to metropolitan and regional centres to give workshops to children from each zone. Children wrote stories from which zone finalists were chosen. From these, two finalists were then selected for each state and territory. Each year, the stories of the 16 national finalists were published in a story collection.

Regional coordination was usually undertaken by a public library. However, in 2004 the Maldon Athenaeum was asked to take over the hosting of the competition for the Central Victorian zone when the Central Goldfields Library was unable to continue not long after the competition started. Joy Leneaux-Gale, president of the Maldon Athenaeum committee, took on the role of coordinating activities in the zone, which extended from Echuca to Gisborne to Ballarat to Kyabram.

The first task for Joy and a team of library volunteers was to find people to judge the 500-word stories soon to come flooding in from participating schools. Interested locals with a literary-bent took on the challenge of reading and selecting a long-list of the best stories. After this, Wayne Gregson (editor of the local paper, The Tarrangower Times), Viv Markham (journalist for The Tarrangower Times) and Lee Fox (children’s author) agreed to undertake the second round of judging to select the 20 zone finalists.

The visiting author for the zone was Michael Pryor, a writer of young adult fiction. Joy and a team of library volunteers organised the workshops and the catering for the author, the children and the adults who accompanied them. On July 29, Michael Pryor conducted special workshops for grade 5 and 6 students from local primary schools including Newstead, Maldon, Baringhup and St. Mary’s in Castlemaine. On 30 July, he gave a workshop for zone finalists, as well as two finalists who came from the adjoining zone – one from Ararat and another from St Arnaud. Library minutes describe the three-hour workshops as being ‘inspiring to children and adults’ and Michael Pryor himself as being ‘quite brilliant with the children and, for the adults, a fascinating person to meet’.

On Saturday 9 October, the Athenaeum hosted the awards presentation ceremony for the zone. Twenty zone finalists, family members, teachers, senior education personnel from the state, independent and Catholic systems, as well as library volunteers packed the RSL Hall at the rear of the main Athenaeum building. The two winners were announced: Briony Langdale from Strathfieldsaye Primary School Bendigo wrote the winning story in the Grade 5 category, and Lily Hays from St Thomas More Catholic School in Ballarat was the Grade 6 zone finalist. The State Coordinator, Graham Dudley, from the Department of Victorian Communities, presented the awards.  

Each Victorian zone sent their two award-winning stories to Melbourne for the selection of the two state finalists (one grade 5 and one grade 6 student). The state finalists’ presentation was held at the Naval and Military Club in Melbourne on 22 November. Joy Leneaux-Gale, as zone coordinator, along with two library volunteers, Winsome Strickland and Lyn Carey, attended the event. 

Reminiscing on the Athenaeum’s involvement with Write Around Australia in 2004, Joy Leneaux-Gale commented, ‘The whole event was truly huge and many would have thought it beyond the scope of a small library but the team spirit was wonderful, not just amongst the library volunteers but the wider Maldon community too. Hosting it increased local awareness of the library. It also raised the Maldon Athenaeum’s reputation within our umbrella organisation, the Mechanics’ Institute of Victoria, and within the Department of Victorian Communities’.

Lynda Achren 2025

References

Library minutes held in the Maldon Athenaeum Archive Collection. For use within the library only.

Nestle Write Around Australia records (biographical history) available on https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/9Nam8d0Y

Newspapers held in the Maldon Museum and Archives digitised newspapers:

The Tarrangower Times, October 8, 2004, p.3.
The Tarrangower Times, October 15, 2004, p.5.