At seven years old, Sarah Mitchell already wanted to be a writer. She started attending the Festival with her mom when she was a teen. “Growing up on the Coast, I sometimes found it hard to access the kind of art and media I wanted to,” Sarah recalls. “The Festival was a symbol of what could be accessible to me.” In Grade 11, she was published in the first edition of Coastal Voices, an anthology of student works from the Sunshine Coast. “It was a huge confidence boost,” says Sarah. “When I was in high school I felt a huge push to pursue sciences instead of humanities. Getting published told me that what I wanted to do with my life wasn’t unreachable.” She went on to earn her creative writing degree at the University of Victoria, currently works for the provincial government writing letters and speeches, writes original stories for a sleep-aid app with 50 million followers, and is working on completing her first novel. She also spent a summer as the Festival’s intern. “I worked with quite a few volunteers and they are so wonderful and so dedicated,” says Sarah, who appreciated the opportunity to meet authors and get a sense of the industry. “I hope the Festival continues with passion, to be accessible, and to have a focus on diversity,” she says. “It’s a really wonderful way to read and hear some great writers.”
Sarah Mitchell
