ABOVE: Author Ben Walters, minus the chook will be at the Kyogle Writers Festival. Photo: Contributed
Close to Home? More than 60 authors and poets will discuss, dissect and be inspired by this year’s theme for the Kyogle Writers Festival.
The program and tickets for the festival on the weekend of 13-15 May 13-15 are online.
After last year’s first and successful festival, Kyogle is doing it again. And tickets are There is a mixture of free, community based and affordable events in the program so no one misses out.
The program includes Mullumbimby-based cooking writer Belinda Jeffery, acclaimed novelist Melissa Lucashenko, Delia Falconer, Jessie Cole, Mandy Beaumont and Michael Burge, nature writers Harry Saddler and Ben Walter and creative nonfiction author Patti Mills.
Poets include Richard Tipping, Gavin Yuan Gao, Stuart Cook, Ellen van Neerven and Chris Mansell.
Indigenous chef and SBS personality, Bundjalung man Mark Olive, aka The Black Olive will speak on cooking and culture on the Friday evening before the Festival’s official opening under the big marquee in Stratheden St.
Festival creative director Paul Shields said he hoped that people would come and enjoy the ideas, perspectives and insights that the festival writers offer.
Panels of authors will explore topics such as our relationships with nature, LGBTQI+ identities and notions of home, Indigenous writing, home cooking, and creativity after the fires.
“If you are keen to hone your writing skills, workshops are being offered on writing creative nonfiction/memoir, historical fiction and the sensual world as well as podcasting,” Paul said.
A free session aimed at secondary students called The Power of Words, will feature youth climate action leader, Jean Hinchliffe, paramedic, author and filmmaker Ben Gilmour and creative writing teacher Melaina Faranda.
Festival ambassador Mirandi Riwoe said it would be a privilege “to share my love of reading and writing in the beautiful setting of Kyogle. Although it might be a small town, Kyogle sure packs a punch with the calibre of writers it attracts.”
On the Thursday evening prior to the Festival, a family fund-raiser movie night screening The Princess Bride at Kyogle Cinemas. Money raised will be donated to Arts Northern Rivers Flood Appeal.
The Festival is proudly supported by CreateNSW, Festivals Australia, Kyogle Council, Foundation for Rural Regional Renewal, Southern Cross University, Queensland University Press, ACON, Raised Ink and the Business Hive, Kyogle.
For more festival information go here.
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