Year 8 Literature Festival 2026

Thank you to everyone who took part in another fantastic edition of the Year 8 Literature Festival!

At the end of Term 3 we were honoured to welcome an amazing group of creatives, writers, artists and poets to St Bernard's College to run engaging workshops with our Year 8s.

The day began with a memorable keynote speech from award-winning author and friend of St Bernard’s, Mark Smith, who delivered a sharp and engaging presentation that was the perfect ‘Storytelling 101’ for our students.

The rest of the day was dedicated to workshops with our guest speakers, an awesome lineup of Australian creatives which included:

• Emilie Zoey Baker - award-winning Australian poet and spoken-word performer who has toured nationally and internationally performing and writing.
   
• Gabriel Bergmoser - Melbourne-based author, playwright, and writer of the young adult series Boone Shepard, he is currently adapting several of his works as feature films.
   
• Michael Camilleri - Melbourne artist who creates books, comics and visual theatre, and has worked in animation, stage design and props, storyboards and advertising.
   
• Kenny Chan - an experienced artist and animator who teaches Manga, the iconic Japanese style of comic drawing.
   
• Alyssa Huynh - accomplished writer, influential anti-racism advocate and author of Safe Space, an introspective account of her experiences with racism and community in Australia.
   
• David Lawrence - comedian, writer and children’s author, his novels use humour and heart to help kids navigate bullying, racism and other challenges of life.
   
• Marc McBride - award-winning illustrator of over 200 book covers, Marc is best known as the illustrator of the iconic Deltora Quest series.
   
• Joel McKerrow - one of Australia's most successful performance poets, Joel has taught students around the world to tap into their imagination and express it through story and poetry.
   
• Will Small - spoken-word poet and three-time Australian Poetry Slam National Finalist, Will is a fierce advocate for creativity and human expression and is experienced in theatre, film and education.

With such a diverse panel, our Year 8s learned about a wide range of topics, including narrative arcs, illustration techniques, the fundamentals of comedy writing, comic character design, and ways to structure a poem—just to name a few!

A heartfelt thank-you to our guest speakers for generously sharing your time and advice and inspiring creativity, and well done to our passionate Library and English staff for putting together a great event, encouraging our young men to read more widely and develop their creative writing skills.