THE Bellingen Readers & Writers Festival has announced that for unexpected and unavoidable health reasons, both Professor Peter Doherty and Hannah Bent will both join the festival via livestream rather than in person as previously planned.

With some sessions booking out to capacity, there’s an extensive selection of author interview sessions available to choose from.

“Variety is the name of the game at the Bellingen Readers & Writers Festival,” said Adam Norris, Festival Programmer.

In fact, Adam is part of the variety as interviewer in conversation with Charlotte McConaghy whose latest novel ‘Once There Were Wolves’, described as half murder mystery and half literary fiction, was an instant New York Times bestseller.

Set in the wild Scottish Highlands, it follows the reintroduction of grey wolves into this remote, dramatic landscape.
But when a farmer is found dead, suspicion begins to mount and loyalties are torn asunder.

Suspenseful and thought-provoking, Adam will chat with Charlotte about this lyrical, mysterious read.

Elsewhere, Mark Mordue interviews Kaya Wilson about his memoir, ‘As Beautiful As Any Other’.

The book shares the personal account of when Kaya, a tsunami scientist, came out to his parents as transgender, a year after a near-death surfing accident and just weeks before his father’s death, opening up a startling family history of concealed queerness and shame.

Kaya Wilson’s non-fiction writing blends essay and memoir to explore universal themes of identity, gender and origin.

Themed as ‘Road Warriors’, authors Emily Bitto, Kate Mildenhall and Sophie Overett are all in the appealing genre of literature telling the tale of a character striking out into the world, following the road less travelled through cities, woods, mountains, time.

These journeys of self-discovery often tell us more about the world at large than we’d like to know, and in the pages of Emily’s ‘Wild Abandon’ and Kate’s ‘The Mother Fault’ we discover two unforgettable characters travelling landscapes that are as familiar as they are threatening.

Writing on the subject of trauma, Bellingen Readers & Writers Festival welcomes authors Marion Frith, Sofie Laguna, and Michael Burge.

Across vastly different lives we find very moving, and sometimes harrowing stories that speak to the ways we reshape our lives in the aftermath of violence and disruption.

“Join these powerful voices in conversation on writing both the darkness, and the light,” said Adam.

Marion Frith is a former journalist, communications specialist and speechwriter.

She has worked for major Australian newspapers and the ABC, in Canberra, Sydney and London.

As a journalist she was based for many years in the Canberra Press Gallery and as a speechwriter wrote for senior Cabinet ministers.

Every dollar she has ever earned in a long career has been through writing.

‘But finally, she decided to abandon the pursuit of facts…and spin…and turned instead to pure fiction, and the joy of making it all up.”

Marion will discuss this genre change and her first novel, ‘Here in the after’.

Sofie Laguna’s most recent novel for adults, ‘Infinite Splendours’, won the 2021 Colin Roderick Literary Award, and already she has released a new novel for children, ‘The Song of Lewis Carmichael’.

Michael Burge is an author and journalist who lives at Deepwater in New England, NSW with his husband and their dogs.

He is deputy editor of Guardian Australia’s Rural Network, and has written, edited, directed and broadcast for Fairfax Media, United News and Media and Margo Kingston’s NoFibs.

His non-fiction debut, ‘Questionable Deeds: Making a stand for equal love’, lifted the lid on familial and institutional homophobia in Australia during the marriage equality campaign.

Michael is director of the annual High Country Writers Festival in Glen Innes.

Tank Water is his first novel.

Bellingen Readers & Writers Festival runs from June 10-12.

There’s more news still to be announced – keep an eye out at https://www.bellingenwritersfestival.com.au/.

By Andrea FERRARI