THE South Coast Writers Centre will present the True Story Festival at Coledale this month, showcasing some of Australia’s best creative non-fiction writers.

The festival, including writers Rick Morton, Bruce Pascoe, Rosie Batty and Gina Chick, will be held from 15 to17 November in the Coledale Community Hall.

Single session tickets are now on sale for Saturday 16 November and Sunday 17 November, and are selling fast.

Friday November 15: Festival workshops with historian Jo Oliver and memoirist Ailsa Piper. Limited places remaining. Friday night features a special screening of the Charmian Clift documentary Life Burns High, with director Rachel Lane, co-producer Sue Milliken and definitive Clift biographer Nadia Wheatley. 

Saturday November 16: Talks begin with a specially commissioned opening address from Walkley-Award winning writer and reporter Rick Morton on his new book Mean Streak, reflecting on the painful truths he learned while investigating and exposing Robodebt. Ailsa Piper discusses ritual, belonging and the joys of dictionary definitions in her new memoir For Life, with author of Eulogy Dr Jackie Bailey. Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie and rock journalist Glen Humphries take to the festival stage to explore the elusive qualities that make some lyrics resonate to express bigger truths about who we are.

Saturday evening: Sit down with First Nations writer and author of Dark Emu Bruce Pascoe in a candid conversation with Margaret Throsby about what it took to rebuild a life, a marriage, and how custodianship of land renewed his sense of purpose.

Sunday November 17: Family violence prevention campaigner and 2015 Australian of the Year Rosie Batty shares her remarkable capacity for optimism with Jeremy Lasek. For a change of gear, the worlds of the sacred and the profane collide in Michael Visontay’s Noble Fragments—part detective story, part memoir. Dr Jodi Edwards returns to True Story to share her academic research into the relationship of coastal First Nations people to the whale population that migrates past our beaches. Closing out the festival for 2024, Gina Chick offers a high-octane hit of inspiration exploring what it takes to thrive beyond the wilderness with festival Artistic Director Caroline Baum. 

Cost: single session $30, passes $80-$165

For tickets and the full festival program: southcoastwriters.org/true-story-festival

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