The spirit of Melbourne’s vintage trams will come to life as more than 80 authors take part in 50 events over two days in the biggest Williamstown Literary Festival in 11 years.
Big names at the festival will include Eva Cox, Shaun Micallef, Greg Fleet, Jane Sullivan, Rafael Epstein, Leigh Hobbs, Helen Razer, Bernard Salt, Sally Rippin and Clare Wright.
The program also has many children’s events, including an interactive session celebrating Melbourne’s older trams.
Williamstown’s Adrian W. Masterman-Smith is art director of the Sam The Tram series, written and illustrated by local author Lowen Clarke, which is being adapted for screen.
Sam The Tram is an animated character,” Masterman-Smith said. “His friends live in Melbourne and they have a very beautiful world composed of all the best buildings from Melbourne, all beautifully drawn and coloured.
“At the moment, we are just completing an animation in the Cinema4D program, which is the same one used for Shrek and Happy Feet.
“We’ve just completed putting the sound- track to it … eventually we’re going to be seeing a series of 13 animations that we’re going to be taking to a number of fairs around the world to sell.”
Children aged three to seven will be able to don tram costumes and enter Sam’s world on June 1 from 9am-10am in the Williamstown Town Hall supper room.
“We’ve made some wonderful costumes … what we’re going to do in the workshop is give the children those tram costumes and we’re going to have them get out there and dance round the town hall – we’re going to do the tramba!,” Masterman-Smith said.
“The kids love it because normally they’re used to stories coming in from New York, from LA, from London.
“And now we have a Melbourne-based character with Melbourne landmarks, and the kids relate to that. It also then encourages them to feel, you know what, perhaps I can write a story, too.”
For more information about the festival, phone 9932 4074 or visit www.willylitfest.org.au
