The festival opens Friday June 3 and runs over the weekend with live readings, conversations, panels, and book launches across three venues - Wollongong Town Hall, Library, and Art Gallery. It will host a mix of free events and ticketed.

Caro will be part of the opening night of the festival at Wollongong Town Hall and will also be part of a discussion about her book The Mother on the Saturday - covering toxic relationships, coercive control, motherhood, and feminist politics.

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Director of the South Coast Writers Centre, and key festival organiser, said she was excited to kick-off with a bang with Caro and three other "amazing women" - Christine Sykes, Kathryn Heyman and Caroline Baum.

"They'll be in conversation about politics, women's issues and transformations in your life," Dr Nicholson said.

While the program boasts many female authors there are still plenty of men with a variety of topics to be covered such as crime writing with Andy Muir and Hayley Scrivenor or ex-Greens senator Scott Ludlam discussing the realities of climate change with Jonica Newby with Robyn Williams.

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Meanwhile, Dr Nicholson said poetry was enjoying a resurgence in popularity with two events lined up.

A satellite event will see Anne-Marie Te Whiu as part of the Enough Said Poetry Slam at The Forge in Gwynneville on the Thursday preceding the festival, while the mezzanine of the Town Hall will host a pop-up bar on the Saturday to accompany poetry readings by SCWC members.

"What I think is interesting about writing is things go in and out of popularity," Dr Nicholson said.

"Different genres will become the next big thing ... poetry and poetry slams have been around for a significant amount of time but there's a thing going on at the moment where they're getting a resurgence of popularity."

She said while poetry may not be for everyone, people should ditch the high school perception that it's "really dreary and boring".

The Kiama Pavillion will also host two satellite events on Friday May 27 - creative networking drinks with Bem Le Hunte and Kate Forsyth; plus Professor Bem Le Hunte discussing the science and magic on creativity and creative practice with bestselling author Dr Kate Forsyth.

Guest speakers across the weekend include:

Jane Caro, Scott Ludlam, Jonica Newby, Vivian Pham, Zaheda Ghani, James Elazzi, Catherine Rey, Caroline Baum, Hayley Scrivenor, Dinuka McKenzie, Helena Fox, Judi Morison, Larissa Behrendt, Aunty Barbara Nicholson, Kathryn Heyman, Christine Sykes, Claire Zorn, Andy Muir, Robyn Williams, Jackie Bailey, Roanna Gonsalves and Meredith Jaffe.

For the full program, visit: https://southcoastwriters.org/program-sessions

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