Yamba comes of age with visitors

IN the not too distant past, avid readers in Yamba would have to go much further afield to buy a new book.

The town now boasts two bookshops, as many book clubs and now a literary event, attracting one of Australia’s most prominent authors, two-time Walkley Award winner and literary editor Robert Drewe, scheduled for August.

Yamba’s Festival of Comedy, Music & Arts has just announced the Northern Rivers author will join Maclean’s Peter Watt, Katherine Howell and Virginia Higgins for the event in what Yamba Writers Group’s Elizabeth Kime describes as “Yamba’s coming of age”.

“For a long time the arts have been Yamba’s poor cousin,” Kime said, although admitted that only recently Yamba book club hosted a visit by local historical novelist Shirley Walker.

“I think it is a brilliant idea of the festival to host this event and it will be great to have this on our doorsteps.

“I would have travelled to Brisbane to meet Robert Drewe.”

And Kime believes that, likewise, this event will attract bookworms from all over the region.

“Many of us have been going out of Yamba for writers festivals for years,” she said.

A two-hour sunset cruise and dinner with the authors aboard the Iluka ferry will kick off the literary event on Friday, August 20.

“It’s what you call a captive audience,” internationally acclaimed historical fiction writer Peter Watt laughed.

On the following day, the four authors will host an hour talk about their chosen genre at the Pacific Hotel.

Watt, who has hosted Maclean’s Meet the Authors to raise money for the Maclean Hospital and “has called in a few favours” from authors to get the event running said this year they are testing the waters of how festival-goers respond to a literary aspect.

He said if it works, there’s no reason for Yamba not to hold its own writers festival in the future.

Joining Drewe and Watt is Australian award-winning crime fiction writer and author of Frantic, Cold Justice and The Darkest Hour, Katherine Howell and Coffs Harbour fantasy fiction author of the trilogy Fairytale, Myth and Truth, Virginia Higgins.

Meet the authors

Friday, August 20, sunset cruise and dinner on the Clarence River, departing Yamba at 5pm.

Tickets $50 and can be purchased at the Yamba Book Warehouse at Yamba Fair or at www.weloveyamba.com as of next week.

Saturday, August 21, author’s individual talk at the Pacific Hotel, Yamba.

Tickets $10 -$15.