Local teens engage in cultural festival

St Ursula's College Students Grace Gleeson, Ashleigh Cooley and Hilary Bourke enjoy Voices on the Range at USQ

Around 1500 teenagers from across the Toowoomba region gathered at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) on Friday, 30 May 2008 for the Voices on the Range (VOTR) Youth Cultural Festival.

Friday was the final day of the Festival which started on Tuesday, 27 May with Authors in Schools, Authors in the Garden and the Festival Launch at the Empire Theatre.

VOTR coordinator Rohan Davis said despite the drizzly weather, the school students seemed to be enjoying the day at the University.

'There's plenty of noise, crowds of kids, the authors have enjoyed themselves, everyone seems to be having a good time,' Mr Davis said.

'Today we've got about 1500 students, in the pre-festival events we had about 6000 students.

'Students have come from Milmerran, Pittsworth and Lockyer High and there is a wide cross-section from schools in town.'

St Ursula's College students Ashleigh Cooley and Hilary Bourke said they enjoyed the day.

'It's been great to hear from the authors,' Ashleigh said. 'We learnt how to generate ideas from James Moloney.'

'We've learnt about effective ways to write stories and how to write biographies and short stories,' Hilary said.

Author James Moloney said he was pleased with the enthusiasm of the students who attended.

'The students have been wonderful, very responsive,' Mr Moloney said.

'I just finished a session with Fairholme girls, they were great. They laughed at my jokes and asked incisive questions. They had read some of my other books and asked questions about those too.'

Despite endless other options for entertainment, sitting down with a book appears to still be a popular pastime for teens, Mr Moloney said.

'Its great to see teens enthusiastic about enjoying books and reading particularly when reading is in competition with all of the other pursuits teens can get up to.'

Mr Moloney said to encourage teens to continue reading, production of electronic books will probably increase.

'It's a way to appeal to teenagers and the y-generation as they look for the electronic approach to everything.

'They can download a book off the net sitting on the train so instead of listening to music they can listen to a book.

'It may not be that long before narrated books can be downloaded the same way music is,' he said.

Media contact: Jane Urquhart USQ Media +61 7 4631 2559