The program for this year's Brisbane Writers' Festival, which runs from 17 to 21 September, has been released--with an exciting array of over 220 authors attending.

The festival line-up this year includes Life of Pi author Yann Martel on a first-time visit to Australia, and the controversial James Frey. Mahvish Khan, an interpreter at Guantanamo Bay, will be present. Alanna Mitchell will bring environmental issues to the table, and bringing forth the environmental and the political will be Gwynne Dyer. Respected and popular authors Lloyd Jones, Robert Drewe, Chris Abani, Lawrence Hill, Anita Heiss, John Birmingham, Matthew Condon, Margo Lanagan, Steven Carroll and Kate Grenville, among others, will be alongside historians and biographers/memoirists such as Simon Winchester, Richard Holmes, Li Cunxin and film director Bruce Beresford.

Social issues will be picked up by Karen Brooks, Mark Davies, and Clive Hamilton, among others. There are also a range of children's authors and poets, and a contingent of Canadian writers, who have been invited, due to cooperative efforts between the Canada Council for the Arts and the Canadian Consulate General, Sydney. These include Steven Galloway (The Cellist of Sarajevo, Text) and Ronald Wright (What is America?, Text).

Besides the main program, the festival this year offers accompanying ‘Festival Bookends'. These include conversations with Jim Sharman, Tim Flannery, Peter Costello, and David Marr. Masterclasses and workshops allow festival guests to get up close and learn from Chris Cleave, Steven Galloway, Michael Robotham, Margo Lanagan, and Debra Adelaide, as well as some of the aforementioned writers.

Attendances at last year's festival, the first to be held at the new State Library of Queensland building, swelled to 30,000 with book sales up 100% on the year before. With such a strong guest list this year, including 25 international authors from nine countries, the festival is sure to see expansion again.

For the full program see the festival website.

http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/08/09226/

This article from Thorpe Bowker's Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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