HOBART
FAST FACTS
Hobart is the capital city of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. At 42.9 degrees south latitude, it is one of the most geographically remote state capitals in the world, alongside cities in New Zealand, Argentina and Chile.
The city is nestled in and around the space between kunanyi/Mt Wellington and the River Derwent. At 1,271 metres, kunanyi/Mt Wellington - ‘the mountain’ - shapes Hobart’s weather, is a source of water for the city and links it to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, in the southwest of the island.
HOBART LITERARY SCENE
A city of storytelling: past, present and into the future
Lutruwita/Tasmania has a strong arts and culture presence, especially around nipaluna/Hobart. Over time, an authentic Tasmanian voice has developed in our literature and storytelling. The Tasmanian Aboriginal community drew on their knowledge, history, resilience and creativity to retrieve and revive their language, palawa kani, a composite of Lutruwita's original Aboriginal languages. This has seen this island's First People’s interpreting their own stories in their own language.
Today, nipaluna/Hobart is home to a multitude of award-winning and best-selling authors who have been recognised both nationally and internationally, winning awards such as the Vogel Award, Stella Prize, Commonwealth Writers Prize, Prime Minister's Literary Awards, and the Booker Prize. From self-published authors to Richard Flanagan, winner of the Booker Prize, Hobartians have taken this special place to readers on every continent.
Hobart is a city of storytellers, and its UNESCO City of Literature status will allow nipaluna/Hobart to broadcast this internationally, facilitating cultural exchange and enhancing the city's reputation as a cultural destination
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
We aim to make our city:
• a centre of literary excellence in which creators thrive through a vibrant ecosystem of support.
• celebrate and enable wide participation in creativity, storytelling, reading and writing.
• support literacy and lifelong learning for people of all ages, abilities, backgrounds and means.
• more accessible to Palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal people) stories, enabling greater truth-telling and cultural exchange.
• support stories that reflect this place and its connection to the natural systems that nourish us.
CURRENT KEY INITIATIVES
• Create a Writing Hub at the State Library with drop-in writing and workshop spaces.
• The newly opened Town Hall library in the Henry Hunter Reading Room featuring exclusive Tasmanian works.
• Events including Tasmania Reads Week, Tasmanian Writers Festival and the Storygig youth fiction festival.
KEY PROJECTS
VOICES OF THE SOUTHERN OCEAN
To mark and foster Hobart's new identity as a UNESCO City of Literature, we are asking writers from Cities of Literature, also located in Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources signatory nations, to write 250 words responding to the Southern Ocean and/or its denizens, in any form or genre: for example, personal reflections, short poems, flash fiction, or nonfiction observations.
These responses will be included in a small anthology called ‘Voices of the Southern Ocean’. It will be available in hardback – as a paperback book to be gifted to CCAMLR delegates at their annual conference in Hobart in October, contributors and participating Cities of Literature, as well as housed for posterity in the City’s new library collection. It will also be available online.
THE LITTLE TASMANIAN
As part of our goal to encourage literacy, Brand Tasmania released a baby book which is distributed to every baby born in Tasmania. The little Tasmania bag which includes a onesie, library card, literacy magnet and The Little Tasmanian baby book.