THE Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival, being held June 11-13, has the go ahead this year and organisers are thrilled to announce their first authors.

The festival announcement will be welcome news to audience members who missed out on the event in 2020 in what would have been its tenth year.

The six authors first announced are Favel Parrett, Bob Brown, Kate Forsyth, Julian Burnside, Jess Hill and John Marsden.

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In 2011, Favel Parrett’s career was launched with her debut novel Past The Shallows.

A heart-breaking novel, it was sold internationally, shortlisted in the prestigious Miles Franklin Award and won the Dobbie Literary Award.

Favel won the ABIA Newcomer of the Year Award in 2012.

Her next novel, When The Night Comes, was also critically acclaimed and further consolidated Favel’s reputation with booksellers and readers.

Favel’s short stories have been published in various journals including Island, Griffith Review and Frankie Magazine.

There Was Still Love is Favel’s eagerly awaited third novel and it was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and won Book of the Year at the 2020 Indie Book Awards.

Bob Brown is an acclaimed author, photographer and lifelong activist and rose to prominence when he led the campaign to save the Franklin River in the 1980s.

After 10 years in the Tasmanian Parliament, Bob was elected to the Senate in 1996 where he served for 16 years.

He was leader of the Australian Greens from 2005 to 2012, when he retired from the parliament to establish the Bob Brown Foundation.

Kate Forsyth is an internationally published poet, novelist and essayist.

Her historical novels for adults include The Blue Rose, and Bitter Greens, which won the 2015 American Library Association Award for Best Historical Fiction.

Kate’s work has been translated into twenty languages.

Julian Burnside is a Melbourne barrister, human rights and refugee advocate, and author.

He has acted in many contentious cases, such as the MUA Waterfront dispute and the Cash-for-Comment enquiry.

Julian stood as a candidate for the Greens in the 2019 federal election.

Jess Hill is a Walkley-award winning investigative journalist and author who’s been reporting exclusively on domestic abuse since 2014.

Her first book, See What You Made Me Do, about domestic abuse in Australia, was awarded the 2020 Stella Prize and the Bookseller’s Choice Award.

Prior to this, she was a Middle East correspondent, and producer/reporter with ABC radio and TV.

John Marsden has written more than 40 books, including Tomorrow When the War Began, So Much to Tell You and The Art of Growing Up.

He has sold over five million books worldwide, and has won every major award in Australia for young people’s fiction.

South of Darkness, written for adults, won the Christina Stead Award for Best Novel of 2015.

The Festival will have a new location this year at the Bellingen Showground, complete with food and coffee vans, live music, book sales, signing, and much more. Keep your eyes out for more author and speaker announcements and buy tickets online at the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival from March 22.

By Sandra MOON