The successful 2024 edition of the Kiama Readers’ Festival 2024 attracted almost a thousand book lovers, who braved the wild weather to hear from a wealth of talented authors.

A gala dinner with newspaper columnist, social commentator and novelist, Jane Caro was one of the highlights. Foxground journalist and author Diana Plater had the “great privilege” of interviewing Caro to discuss the Walkley Award winner’s wide and varied writing career. Caro discussed her book The Mother, a work of fiction exploring the devastating impact of coercive control and domestic violence on families. Plater also talked to Caro about historical fiction and the writing process, particularly the amount of research required.

“I also have elements of history in my books, including my non-fiction and memoir, and I find the research component absolutely fascinating,” says Plater, who is in the midst of writing her second novel – The Cedar-getter’s Granddaughter – based on the South Coast in the 1800s. “But writing a novel is a lot harder than journalism. Anyone who thinks it’s easy to dash off a novel has no idea!”

Festival organiser Perrie Croshaw admits her first foray into organising the event, as president of the Friends of Kiama Library, was “a baptism by fire” but says the festival was a great success. The gala dinner and the opening session at Burnetts on Barney, where guest speakers including local author Fiona Weir discussed permaculture, kitchen gardens and cooking from scratch, were both sold out.

“The Kiama Leagues Club did a great job serving 150 lucky patrons who secured a ticket for the gala dinner with Jane Caro on Saturday night,” says Croshaw. "We had such high demand for the gala event, we could have done two sittings at the Leagues club. In fact, we could have done two or three extra sessions at Burnetts on Barney Garden Centre as well. So many people want to come to Kiama in winter to hear their favourite authors talk.”

Along with avid readers, the Kiama community is filled with talented authors including Diana Plater and Kiama author Ryan Butta, who emceed the gala event with Caro.

Plater’s most recently published novel, Whale Rock, is based on her experience as a journalist living and working in Nicaragua in the 1980s and reporting on the aftermath of the Sandinista revolution, where a group of leftist revolutionary guerrillas and intellectuals overthrew the right-wing dictatorship in 1979. Whale Rock was awarded Gold for Popular Literary Fiction in the 2019 Global Ebook Awards. 

“Whale Rock is about hidden trauma but it is ultimately a tale of redemption and rebirth,” says Plater. “It is about the serious issues facing Australia today – immigration, the state of the media, politics, the environment and giving First Nations People, particularly members of the Stolen Generations, a voice. But it’s also about love and friendship and dancing.”

Ryan Butta will release his second non-fiction book – The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli – on July 30. Stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Butta in The Bugle, exploring the inspiring story of the first Australian soldier to be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal after his heroic actions at Gallipoli.

Butta will also be a guest later this year at the Friends of Kiama Library author talks, so keep an eye on the Kiama Library or their socials for more information.

“Our Friends of Kiama Library volunteers worked so hard to put on this festival,” says Perrie Croshaw. “If we had just a few more volunteers signing up to help us for the next festival, we could move mountains! In the future we would love to include more author talks over more days, run poetry slams, run writing workshops, get nature authors to take us on birding walks, or watch whales with other nature writers. The possibilities are limitless.”