National Story Week is a time to celebrate the great art of telling stories.

In 2008 National Story Week will take place in the second week of December. This year you'll have the opportunity to be the judge and vote for your favourite shortlisted Wakakirri works from around the country during our 2008 People's Choice Awards. Watch this space!

In the meantime see below for 2007 highlights...

Thanks to Allen & Unwin, we celebrated National Story Week in 2007 with an official Launch of the live component of the festival.  At the launch (26^th July), we also announced all the winners of Story-Film, Story-Arts, Story-Writing & Country-Wakakirri competitions. The purpose of the event was to raise awareness of the festival and its positive youth and environmental outcomes.

The launch took place at Allen & Unwin HQ in Sydney.  There were screenings and readings of items along with speeches from special guests.  You can check out the highlights here.

Our festival patron, Mr Tom Calma, attended and spoke about his support of the Wakakirri Festival. Tom is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and National Race Discrimination Commissioner One of his key roles is to combat racism and promote equality for all Australians, regardless of race, colour, descent, national or ethnic origin.

During the week, schools were asked to participate by celebrating storytelling and also by contacting their local newspaper and letting them know all about the stories they created or were in the process of creating for this year's festival.