AUSTRALIAN authors Graeme Simsion, Julie Janson and Gabrielle Lord are among those who will headline the 2015 Batemans Bay Writers Festival.
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The festival, held on the June long weekend at the Coachhouse Marina Resort, was officially launched by Eurobodalla mayor Lindsay Brown on Friday night.
Cr Brown said festival-goers could expect to be inspired, entertained and educated at the event, which he described as “an enjoyable cultural and literary experience”.
“I encourage everyone to attend in June, bring some friends, and share the experience of the expanded and improved 2015 festival,” Cr Brown said.
“The inaugural festival last year was a resounding success. Author talks and fun workshops ensured that all of the sessions were sold out.
“We are anticipating another sell-out for 2015.”
The festival’s events and program coordinator Marion Roubos-Bennett said author Graeme Simsion’s debut novel, The Rosie Project, had been sold in more than 30 countries and was on Bill Gates’ six books for summer reading list.
Simsion’s sequel, The Rosie Effect, is equally clever and surprising, she said.
“Graeme won the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript with The Rosie Project, and the novel was the Australian Book Industry Association Book of the Year for 2014,” Ms Roubos-Bennett said.
“To have an author of such international renown is an amazing coup for the festival.”
Indigenous author and playwright Julie Janson, is another stellar addition to the festival line-up.
“Her works include The Crocodile Hotel, an epic story about a young Aboriginal single mother, and a contemporary theatre work The Eyes of Marege, shortlisted for the prestigious Patrick White Award,” Ms Roubos-Bennett said.
“They’ll join one of Australia’s foremost crime fiction writers, Gabrielle Lord, to headline our program.”
Other authors include Jeff Apter, James Bradley, Anne Buist, Paul Brunton, Mark Henshaw, Linda Jaivin, Hannie Rayson and Susan Wyndham.
Ms Roubos-Bennett said that in response to feedback last year, more workshops would be featured in the program, including memoir writing, creative researching and interviewing; a poetry workshop and Wright for Delight, a creative writing workshop with local writer and comic performer Harry Laing.
“I’m also pleased that the festival will see the launch of the Eurobodalla Fellowship of Australian Authors anthology, Flights of Fancy,” she said.
For more information visit www.batemansbaywritersfestival.com