Returning for Booktown weekend on April 30 and May 1 is the popular book bazaar in the main street with more than 50 specialist book traders selling new and secondhand books, conversations with authors, workshops, book signings, kids activities and more.

Before the pandemic struck, the annual festival attracted around 18,000 visitors to Clunes on the first weekend in May, generating around $4 million for the local economy, and it is hoped visitors numbers will be even higher this year.

"We know in the last two years that reading has increased enormously. During the pandemic people really started reading more, started buying books, book sellers went online doing great business and as there's been a huge increase in reading we expect a huge increase in people," said Sue Beal, chief executive of Creative Clunes who run the Clunes Booktown Festival.

The opening panel of the 2022 festival features the founders of the Melbourne School of Discontent - Jacqui Katona, Tony Birch and Gary Foley, while authors featured in talks and panels across the weekend include Jock Serong, JP Pomare, Eliza Hull, Don Watson, Sean O'Beirne, Chloe Hooper, Fiona Scott Norman, Arnold Zable, Jacinta Parsons and more.

Ms Beal said after having to cancel the 2020 festival and running targeted events one weekend a month over several months in 2021, there was real excitement at the festival's return to its traditional format.

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"Everybody gets excited about an event but this is so much more exciting because we are actually getting to put it on for the first time in three years," she said.

"Many of the authors and writers have written during the two years of lockdown and can now come and talk about that experience.

"The thing I love about Booktown the most is it's about the industry in the one place at the same time, all sharing the same space. We've got writers, book makers, publishers, book sellers, we've got the lot so it's very different to say a writer's festival or arts festival, it's a very specific event with the industry on board who all get their own space and share the experience."

The 2022 program is at clunesbooktown.com.au

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