Book Launch: Lara Charles, Wen Gibson and Julie Ivison

Featured titles: Joy, Regardless, Stammering Against Truth and Bird Song

Join us for the launch of three powerful debuts that celebrate everyday joy and resilience. Lara Charles shares a moving memoir about embracing the unknown and finding joy within. Wen Gibson charts a fierce journey from trauma to triumph. Julie Ivison offers a year of meditations, nature-based wisdom, and gentle reconnection. These voices remind us that healing, hope, and happiness often bloom in the quietest moments.

Book Launch: Suzanne Leal

Featured title: The Year We Escaped

For fans of Jackie French and Katrina Nannestad, The Year We Escaped is a heart-stopping and remarkable World War II story by talented author Suzanne Leal. Filled with adventure, danger and intrigue, this is the story of four unlikely friends desperate to escape from a war that keeps coming closer.

Enjoy this free book launch and then join us for The Magic of Morrigan with Jessica Townsend.

Book Launch: Juno Gemes

Featured Title: Until Justice Comes: Fifty Years of the Movement for Indigenous Rights

Be part of a powerful moment as we launch renowned photographer and social activist Juno Gemes’ latest collection on the Central Coast. A lifetime in the making, this striking body of work captures five decades of First Nations peoples’ fight for justice – bringing history to light through the lens of activism and resilience. With the Voice referendum of 2023 as a backdrop, Gemes’ images offer a compelling visual journey through the heart of The Movement. Don’t miss this inspiring session that blends art, history, and the power of storytelling.

Book Launch: Outback Jess and Tenille Dowe

Featured titles: Spotto books & Being and Belonging

Join us for the launch of these fun and engaging picture books.

Spotto

Celebrate the latest in the Spotto Travel Book Series, BIG THINGS NSW, with author and photographer, Outback Jess! These fun activity books are filled with beautiful images of wildlife, plants, locations and BIG THINGS within Australia, making car travel a whole lot of Spotto fun for families.

Being and Belonging

Join local educator, author, and illustrator Tenille Dowe for the launch of her autobiographical picture book tale of growth, resilience, and self-discovery. Tenille is devoted to inspiring others through creativity and learning. Through her work, she encourages perseverance, curiosity, and connection with the heart.

Book Launch: Casey Gray

Featured titles: Lennie’s Gift

This event will be a unique and interactive book launch where we explore the power of storytelling and creative writing to help build stronger connections between adults with disability and their support workers with author Casey Gray. Together we will read Lennie’s Gift, a ghost story in Easy Read for adults with intellectual disability, then do a writing activity designed to foster empathy through collaboration.

Book Launch: Toby Davidson

Featured titles: The Grand Reopening

The Grand Reopening, Toby Davidson’s third collection, was written during the post-pandemic return to ‘normality’, a fundamentally abnormal experience now largely consigned to the memory hole reserved for the worst of Australian history. Davidson’s works refuse this forgetting and instead portray a changed world re-encountering itself, from Sydney bars to Dublin’s streets to the ancient volcano beneath Santorini where, as ever, nature is teacher.

The Grand Reopening will be launched by Jessica Kirkness, author of The House With All The Lights On.

Book Launch: Timothy Bowden, Valerie Clifford and Myfanwy Webb

Featured titles: Pride and Justice, Play of Light on Water and Deleting Vincent

Secrets, suspense, and fresh fiction collide as three authors launch gripping new works. Timothy Bowden reimagines Elizabeth Bennet as a masked vigilante in an alternate Pride and Prejudice. Valerie Clifford’s evocative novel explores healing and hidden wounds in a remote NZ fishing village. And in a chilling thriller, Myfanwy Webb delves into the psychology of female serial killers, unveiling Ashli’s confessions of murders disguised as suicides.

Lara Charles

Lara Charles is an Australian writer who explores life’s deeper threads through her thought-provoking work, published in respected publications both nationally and internationally. She is the creator of Deeper Threads and a teacher on the global cancer platform Thrivers Ark. Joy, Regardless is her debut memoir.

Wen Gibson

Wen Gibson travelled the world on a bicycle, settled in Scotland and then returned to the Central Coast to confront her past. Her short stories have been published in the Pearl Prize, Seniors’ Stories Volume 10, and the Wattle Tree Press Anthology.

Julie Ivison

Julie is a women’s wellness mentor, yoga teacher, herbalist, food therapist, Ayurvedic practitioner, musician, storyteller, singer, gardener and writer. She teaches women how to improve and enhance the quality and beauty of their life and become healthier in body, mind and spirit.

Suzanne Leal

Suzanne Leal is the author of The Year We Escaped, an adventure story for middle-grade readers set in wartime France. Suzanne’s time-travel novel, Running with Ivan, is a 2024 CBCA Notable Book for Younger Readers and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards and the ARA Historical Novel Prize. Suzanne enjoys visiting schools for author talks and workshops.

Juno Gemes

Juno Gemes is a writer and photographer who has her career advocating for change, her name is synonymous with Australian photography,  journalism and Social Justice. Gemes’ photographs are reknowned for making the history of First Nations people ‘s struggle for Justice visible in numerous publications over the last fifty years .

Outback Jess

Outback Jess has 10 years experience as a tour guide throughout Australia, and has frequently visited iconic locations as Uluru, the Kimberley, Karijini, Perisher, Far North Queensland and Whitsundays. She has also travelled two laps of Australia with her husband, and there is still more to explore.

Tenille Dowe

Tenille Dowe is an educator, author, and illustrator devoted to inspiring others through creativity and learning. A loving wife and mother, she is passionate about discovering her purpose and sharing messages of love, hope, and light. Through her work, she encourages perseverance, curiosity, and connection with the heart.

Casey Gray

Casey Gray is a writer and a disability advocate. She tells stories to help people connect. Casey makes Easy Read books so adults with intellectual disability can enjoy reading. Her stories are about love and friendship and adventure. She encourages people to read together and make friends and have fun.

Toby Davidson

Toby Davidson is a widely-published poet and poetry researcher living on Darkinjung Country on the Central Coast. His prior collections are Four Oceans (Puncher and Wattman), Beast Language (Five Islands) and, as editor, Francis Webb’s Collected Poems (UWAP). The Grand Reopening marks his 30th year as a poet and performer.

Tim Bowden

Timothy was a teacher before retraining as a school counsellor. He has written two previous novels and along his wife Sandra has produced two self help graphic novels for young people.  Timothy lives on the Central Coast of NSW with two demanding cats and a cheeky house rabbit. Apart from writing, he enjoys reading, boardgames and martial arts. Pride & Justice combines his interests in literature, human psychology and action into one classic reimagined story.

Valerie Clifford

Valerie Clifford is a Londoner who travelled to New Zealand for one year and stayed for twenty. There, she worked in education and women’s health research and raised two children. Seeking further work experiences she moved to Canberra, then Fiji, Melbourne, and Oxford and now lives on the Central Coast of NSW.

Myfanwy Webb

Myfanwy Webb’s diverse careers as medical researcher, animal behaviourist and biologist have resulted in the publication of three books; Deleting Vincent, Stages of Suicide-How to Help Your Mind and true adventure Wild – Life Death Encounters with Wild Animals. She is also the author of book chapters, academic papers and magazine articles.