Newcastle Writers Festival program

The full program for the Newcastle Writers Festival, to be held here in Newcastle, NSW, from 5 to 7 April, has now been published in The Newcastle Herald. It will be available online on Monday, so I’ll link to it then.

There is a wide range of writing represented, so just what you consider a highlight will depend on your interests. However, the key events from my viewpoint are:

“Nightmare Australia: Writing horror” – Kirstyn McDermott and Jason Nahrung, hosted by Jenny Blackford. Saturday 6 April, 3.15-4.15 pm.

“Dreaming Australia: A celebration of home-grown speculative fiction” – Jack Dann, Janeen Webb, and Margo Lanagan, hosted by Russell Blackford, Sunday 7 April, 1.30-2.30 pm.

“The Great Divide: A discussion about church and state” – Russell Blackford, Jane Caro, and David Marr, hosted by Jill Emberson, Sunday 7 April, 2.45-3.45 pm. (This is probably the session of most interest to readers of this blog.)

Looks like I’ll be busy that Sunday afternoon, but I’m looking forward to this very much. Many popular and/or important and/or distinguished (let’s throw around adjectives!) Australian writers will be there – quite a few of them either resident in Newcastle or with strong local connections. Just to mention a few other authors who’ll be appearing at the festival: Margo Lanagan, James Bradley, Robert Drewe, Barry Maitland, Stuart Littlemore, Kerri Sackville… well, and many, many others. The Newcastle Writers Festival should be a fantastic event. I don’t know how many Novocastrians follow this blog, but would any who do please spread the word. Thanks!