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Ponton Theatre e The Great Festival Read, Sunday 12.40pm Classrooms Av Panorama Av e e - to e Meeting point for Friday secondary workshops Mitchell Driv Read the book and come along to The Great Festival Read on Sunday to hear a panel discussion featuring Warwick Franks, Danielle Hart , Jo Reid & Victoria Erskine Many thanks to our local supporters eof the Festival Panorama Av along with audience Q&A. Charlese -Sturt to University | Books Plus DeanMitchell Mobbs Driv | Bathurst City Life | Denise & John Payne Available at Books Plus Bathurst Custom Kitchens | Chris & Cathy Bergen The Oxford Hotel | Ben & Martha Gelin | Glenn Smith FRIDAY 4 MAY = SWF Live & Local = Sydney Writers’ Festival live stream SWF LIVE & LOCAL Women in Tech: Okay Ladies Now Let’s Get Information Why do the tech and science industries remain a boys’ club after so many years? How are inroads finally being made? And who 9am-3pm Classrooms 1 & 2 Secondary Schools Creative Writing Workshops with authors JC Burke and Megan Jacobson 3pm - 4pm Ponton Theatre are the success stories bucking the trend? Aminatou Sow is a digital strategist and co-founder of Tech LadyMafia; Angela Saini 9.30am Ponton Theatre Doors open & welcome is a BBC science journalist and author of Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong; and Professor Elanor Huntington is the first female Dean of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University. SWF LIVE & LOCAL Jane Harper: Force of Nature In Conversation with Claire Nichols Jane Harper’s Force of Nature is the follow-up thriller to the runaway success of her debut, The Dry, which was sold into more SWF LIVE & LOCAL Annabel Crabb’s Bookwiz 10am-11am Ponton Theatre Which book are you ashamed of loving? Which do you reread when you’re in a reading slump? What have you always meant to than 20 countries and optioned for a film adaption by Reese Witherspoon. In conversation with ABC RN’s The Book Hub host 4.30pm – 5.30pm Ponton Theatre Claire Nichols, the bestselling Australian author talks about the book and her remarkable success. read but now suspect you never will? Annabel Crabb returns for BooKwiz, a thorough interrogation of some well-known readers, including ABC 7.30 anchor Leigh Sales, Conversations presenter Richard Fidler and RocKwiz host, Julia Zemiro. SWF LIVE & LOCAL The Future of China: Minglu Chen, Xue Yiwei and Robert E Kelly Showing of short new work: Just Another Saturday Night by Heather Burdette Xi Jinping has become China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. But with his consolidation of power, the country has 5.45pm – 6pm Ponton Theatre 11.30am – 12.30pm Ponton Theatre become more authoritarian, with increasing censorship and arrests of lawyers and activists. Join Minglu Chen, senior lecturer Central West Short Play Residency Project at the Chinese Studies Centre at the University of Sydney; Robert E. Kelly, a professor of political science at Pusan National Country Girl University; and Xue Yiwei, a prolific Chinese-born novelist, for a riveting and timely discussion. Dr. Kate Smith is a creative producer, actor, writer and performance lecturer whose theatre works have toured nationally and 12.30pm - 1.30pm Pulse Cafe Lunch. Available from Pulse Cafe internationally. Her latest creative project COUNTRY GIRL is a story gathering odyssey about country women. Who are they? 6pm - 6.30pm Classroom 1 What do they do? How do they their kicks? Is country life the life they dreamt of? Kate suspects it isn’t all scones, cream, and well SWF LIVE & LOCAL Going Rogue: North Korea crocheted knits and seeks to look underneath the preconceptions of what it means to be a COUNTRY GIRL. Come along to hear North Korea is unlike any other nation today. Its citizens are sealed off from the world and only allowed access to state-run about how you can be part of this multi-platform approach to storytelling, live and digital performance. Throughout the weekend 1.30pm – 2.30pm Ponton Theatre propaganda, and its volatile leader Kim Jong-un is considered a threat to world peace. Political science professor Robert E. Kelly, Kate will activate her ‘Story Booth’ where you can contribute your stories to this project. Korean-American author Min Jin Lee, Korea author Michael Pembroke and filmmaker and writer Anna Broinowski discuss the Poetry Slam isolated nation with Linda Jaivin. 6.30pm - 9pm Ponton Theatre Sign up on the day at the Books Plus table to perform your own work. Great prizes to be won! SWF LIVE & LOCAL Conflicting Narratives Three reporters share their perspectives on the role of storytellers in a time of ongoing conflict, terrorism and refugee 3pm – 4pm Ponton Theatre crises, in conversation with The Guardian journalist Ben Doherty is The New Yorker staff writer Alexis Okeowo, Moscow-based SUNDAY 6 MAY correspondent for The Telegraph Alec Luhn and The New Yorker staff writer Ben Taub. Children’s writing workshop with Charlotte Calder SWF LIVE & LOCAL Gareth Evans: Incorrigible Optimist in Conversation with Kerry O’Brien 9.30am – 10.30am Classroom 1 Charlotte Calder is an award winning Australian children’s and YA author based in Orange. Suitable for primary aged children While political memoirs are often dry, self-congratulating affairs, The Canberra Times has described Incorrigible Optimist as a memoir years 5 & 6. Bookings at BooksPlus 6331 5994 (limited places available). 4.30pm – 5.30pm Ponton Theatre crackling with “wit, self-deprecating humour and illuminating insights”. Gareth covers the breadth of his colourful public life as a Children’s Picture Books: What Is A Quality Picture Book and How Do We Recognise One? central figure in Australian politics and a significant voice in international policymaking for more than three decades. 9.30am – 10.30am Classroom 2 With Magrete Lamond, acclaimed publisher and Creative Director of Dirt Lane Press, and former publisher at Little Hare and New Voices: CSU Student Writers Hardie Grant Egmont Books. 4.45pm - 5.30pm Classroom 1 CSU students read and discuss their creative writing work. Facilitated by CSU lecturer Dr Russell Daylight. 9.30am Ponton Theatre Doors open Bathurst Poets 5.35pm – 6.15pm Ponton Theatre SWF LIVE & LOCAL Economic Inequality: from Wisconsin to Whyalla Readings from local poets. Facilitated by Bathurst Poets. Economic inequality is on the rise, including in Trump’s America and in Australia. Middle-class jobs are disappearing, especially in towns that relied on manufacturing. Where does this leave people in affected industries and areas, and the generation to Bathurst Writers’ & Readers’ Festival Opening and special guest Ashleigh Young in conversation with Jen Barry 10am – 11am Ponton Theatre 6.30pm – 8pm Ponton Theatre Ashleigh is a New Zealand writer, literary editor and winner of the prestigious 2017 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for follow? And what are the political implications for democracies? Join award–winning author Don Watson, Pulitzer Prize–winning Non-Fiction, awarded by Yale University, in recognition of her essay collection Can You Tolerate This? staff writer for The Washington Post Amy Goldstein and economics professor Richard Holden in a wide-ranging conversation with ABC’s Chief Economics Correspondent Emma Alberici about the challenges posed by inequality today. Great Books You Might Have Missed! SATURDAY 5 MAY 11.15am -11.45am Classroom 1 Kathryn Bancroft and Jen Barry discuss great books you may have missed in the last year and books to look out for. Independent Publishing Workshop Have you ever thought of publishing your own book? Join authors Kim Kelly and Dean Mobbs as they take you through the SWF LIVE & LOCAL Cleo Wade: Heart Talk 9.30am – 10.30am Classroom 1 Poet, artist and author Cleo Wade wants to know what has broken your heart, what has helped you heal and what wisdom you process of how they each navigated the waters of this new and exciting way of getting your words out into the world. Bookings at 11.30am – 12.30pm Ponton Theatre BooksPlus 6331 5994 (Limited places available). have gained along the way. The Heart Talk author sits down with journalist and The Motherhood editor Jamila Rizvi, Sour Heart author Jenny Zhang, and Peach novelist Emma Glass for a riveting and wide-ranging discussion about matters of the heart. 9.30am Ponton Theatre Doors open Ponton Theatre SWF LIVE & LOCAL New Power: Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms in Conversation with Professor Susan Dodds 12noon – 2pm Lunch available foyer & courtyard For millennia, power was something to be seized and jealously guarded. However, the rapid emergence of new technologies 10am – 11am Ponton Theatre is changing the game. New Power authors Jeremy Heimans (co-founder of GetUp!) and Henry Timms draw on examples from The Great Festival Read: The Lucky Galah politics, popular culture, business and social justice to explain the disruptive forces that are changing the course of our age. 12.40pm – 1.20pm Ponton Theatre Join panellists Warwick Franks, Danielle Hart, Jo Reid and Victoria Erskine to discuss The Lucky Galah by Tracy Sorensen with audience Q&A. This session will be followed by author signing. Play reading & discussion 11am – 11.30am Classroom 1 Local playwrights share their work as part of the Central West Short Play Residency Project SWF LIVE & LOCAL Tayari Jones: An American Marriage 1.30pm – 2.30pm Ponton Theatre The bestselling An American Marriage by Tayari Jones traces the lives of Roy, a black man wrongly convicted of rape, and his wife, SWF LIVE & LOCAL Peter Greste: First Casualty Celestial. Glory Edim speaks to Tayari about her stunning novel of love, racial injustice and a marriage interrupted. Foreign correspondent Peter Greste spent two decades reporting from the frontline in the world’s most dangerous countries 11.30am – 12.30pm Ponton Theatre Play reading and discussion: ‘Kangaroo’ by Miranda Gott before making headlines himself following his incarceration in an Egyptian prison. Fellow correspondent Hugh Riminton speaks to 2pm - 3pm Classroom 2 Peter about the extent to which investigative journalism is under threat in the age of terrorism and fake news. Central West Short Play Residency Project. Ponton Theatre The Hill End Table 12noon – 2pm Lunch available foyer & courtyard 2.30pm – 3pm Classroom 1 Join Lino Alvarez and Kim Deacon in conversation with BRAG Curator Sarah Gurich about ‘The Hill End Table’, a celebration of art, food and their Hill End lifestyle. Panel – Paths to Publication 12.40pm – 1.20pm Classroom 1 Three very different authors share their experiences of the publishing industry from self-publishing to international deals and SWF LIVE & LOCAL Sarah Ferguson: On Mother Following the sudden death of her mother, renowned ABC journalist Sarah Ferguson penned On Mother, a poignant and moving best-seller lists. With authors Kim Kelly, Kelly Rimmer and Tracy Sorenson. 3pm – 4pm Ponton Theatre reflection on their relationship over decades and across continents. In conversation with Louise Adler, the four-time Walkley SWF LIVE & LOCAL Resisting Unjust Authority: Masha Gessen, Alexis Okeowo, Mohammed Al Samawi Award–winning reporter reflects on the complex bonds shared between mothers and daughters. Three of the Festival’s brightest minds come together to examine our evolving relationship with power. The Future is History 1.30pm – 2.30pm Ponton Theatre author Masha Gessen, The Fox Hunt author Mohammed Al Samawi and A Moonless, Starless Sky author Alexis Okeowo consider SWF LIVE & LOCAL Emily Wilson: Translating The Odyssey Emily Wilson’s translation of the 12,110-line epic poem The Odyssey offered a fresh perspective on the rousing tale of shipwrecks, how unjust authority is wielded and resisted in the modern world, how we can free ourselves from its messages and impact, and 4.30pm – 5.30pm Ponton Theatre how these strategies are changing over time. monsters and magic. Speaking to Jennifer Byrne, Emily elaborates on her approach to translating the second-oldest text in Western literature and why it remains so vital today. Publishing My Way 2.30pm - 3.00pm Classroom 2 Hear local authors Dean Mobbs, Alexandria Nagy and Ross Crothers in conversation with CSU 5.45pm – 6pm Closing Editorial Manager & journalist Sandra Sharpham about their journeys to being published.

All sessions are FREE to attend This schedule is correct at time of publication. Check website and social media regularly for updates