Book Launches
20 May – 25 June, 2026
Free, RSVPs essential
Our annual Book Launch series is a special opportunity to hear from local authors both established and emerging. Make sure to reserve your free spot.
Book Launches
20 May – 25 June, 2026
Free, RSVPs essential
Our annual Book Launch series is a special opportunity to hear from local authors both established and emerging. Make sure to reserve your free spot.
Program
Book Launch: JC Wotherspoon, Philippa Kaye & Sara Powter
Theme: Storytelling
Featured titles: Raising Skies, Girls’ Lips are Sealed and A Fist Full of Holey Dollars
Space adventure, murder mystery and historical fiction come together in this compelling launch event featuring three exciting new novels. JC Wotherspoon launches a high-stakes tale in which an Earth-born ship captain must win the trust of his Mars-born crew to save the red planet. Philippa Kaye returns with a new Birdie Mealing mystery, where secrets simmer and murder sets the amateur sleuth on the trail. Sara Powter reimagines colonial Australia in a richly drawn story of romance, resilience and the challenge of building a new life.
| Wednesday 20 May Doors 6:00pm 6:30 – 8:00pm | Upstairs Wines Green Point, 389 Avoca Drive, Green Point NSW 2251 | Free, RSVP essential |
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Book Launch: Not Quite Write with Ed Bicioc and Amanda Scotland
Featured title: Flesh Fiction
In 2025, the Not Quite Write Prize for FLESH Fiction enticed authors aged 18+ from around the world to craft erotic short stories inspired by the theme, ‘Making the unsexy irresistible.’ This anthology is the forbidden fruit of those endeavours. Whether you prefer slow-burn seductions, deliciously depraved delights, or plain old human intimacy, we’re thrilled to deliver a curated collection of the wildly varied pieces that made us blush. Bold and inventive, these stories prove desire can bloom in the most unexpected places…
| Thursday 21 May Doors: 6:00pm | Bar Toto, 83/189 Ocean View Rd, Ettalong Beach NSW, 2257 | Free, RSVP essential |
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Book Launch: Adam Hennessy
Theme: Modern leadership in business
Featured Title: No Credit, All Impact
Adam Hennessy’s No Credit, All Impact challenges the idea that great leaders need the spotlight, offering a thoughtful and practical vision of leadership grounded in kindness, humility and emotional intelligence. For readers interested in purposeful leadership, high-trust teams and creating lasting change, this timely conversation explores a powerful alternative to ego-driven success. Adam will be in conversation with Teresa Read.
| Friday 22 May, Doors open 6:00pm 6:30pm-7:30pm | Work Collective, 3/322 West St, Umina Beach NSW 2257 | Free, RSVP essential |
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Book Launch: Geoffrey Price and Luca Collins
Theme: Shadows and survival
Featured titles: True Wild Light and Dancing with the Midnight Mare
Two powerful new novels explore the shadows of history, identity and survival. Geoffrey Price’s True Wild Light is a gripping, genre-bending story of masculinity, power and buried truths, where corporate greed, family history and magical realism collide. In Luca Collins’ moving new novel, two children eighty years apart—one in a Nazi labour camp, one in a family on the brink of collapse—cling to the promise of a mythic white horse. Together, these compelling books ask what we inherit, what we endure, and what might still save us.
| Tuesday 26 May, Doors open 6:00pm 6:30pm-7:30pm | Kincumber Library, 3 Bungoona Rd, Kincumber | Free, RSVP essential |
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Book Launch: Jana McLeod
Featured title: Morning Bird, Whale Song
Storytelling, art and music come together in this immersive Family Day event with Jana McLeod’s children’s picture book Morning Bird, Whale Song. Follow Marama, a small bird who wakes to find the sun has not risen, as she journeys through darkness and into the ocean depths in search of the song that will cradle the moon to rest and welcome the dawn. Gentle, moving and beautifully imagined, this is a story of courage and resilience for young readers.
| Saturday 30 May 10:00-10:30am | Gosford Library | Free, RSVP essential |
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Book Launch: Will Small & Central Coast Creative Writers Group
Featured titles: The Fossil of Us and Colours of the Coast
Short stories and poetry take centre stage in this vibrant celebration of short-form creativity. Colours of the Coast, created by members of the Central Coast Creative Writers Group, brings together a rich mix of stories and poems inspired by the many shades of human experience. Alongside it, Will Small’s The Fossil of Us offers poetry that is sharp, funny and deeply felt, capturing the tension between everyday life and a world that can feel like it is coming undone. Together, these two collections promise an event full of heart, insight and creative energy.
| Wednesday 3 June Doors 6:00pm 6:30-7:30pm | Six String Brewing, 90 The Entrance Rd, Erina NSW 2250 | Free, RSVP essential |
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Book Launch: Beverley Campbell, Patricia Kasengele & Inga Lie
Featured titles: Climbing Trees, Bwenbya’s Mother and It’s a Kind of Magic
Three remarkable women share powerful stories of resilience, courage and transformation. Beverley Campbell’s Climbing Trees reflects on growing up in war-torn Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), where family fracture and political upheaval shape a moving story of survival and self-discovery. In Bwembya’s Mother, Patricia Kasengele explores love, loss and the strength to endure. Alongside them, Inga Lie brings together extraordinary voices in an uplifting exploration of kindness, belonging and the healing power of being truly seen.
| Thursday 4 June Doors 6:00pm 6:30-8:00pm | Tuggerah Library, Westfield Tuggerah, 50 Wyong Rd, Tuggerah | Free, RSVP essential |
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Book Launch: WINGSPAN
Featured titles: WINGSPAN: a Festschrift for Robert Adamson
A special event celebrating the life, work and enduring influence of one of Australia’s greatest poets. WINGSPAN: a Festschrift for Robert Adamson, edited by Judith Beveridge brings together essays, letters, poems and reminiscences from acclaimed Australian and international writers including David Malouf, Susan Wyndham, Devin Johnston, Michael Palmer, Anthony Lawrence, Stephen Edgar, Gig Ryan, Richard Tipping and Kevin Hart. This landmark volume is a moving tribute to Robert Adamson’s extraordinary legacy and the affection in which he was held across generations and continents. MC’d by Judith Beveridge and Mark Mordue. With an introduction by Devin Johnstone and a reading by Anthony Lawrence.
| Thursday 25 June Doors 6:00pm 6:30-9:00pm | Bar Toto, 83/189 Ocean View Rd, Ettalong Beach NSW 2257 | Free, RSVP essential |
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Authors
JC Wotherspoon
JC Wotherspoon enjoys a bit of everything. He loves sport, reading, and hiking up mountains. He lives on the Central Coast, New South Wales, with his wife, Shannen, and two cockatiels, Kiki and Kura.
Phillipa Kaye
In the real world, Philippa Kaye (aka Pip) is an educator in Inclusion and Diversity. She loves a good cocktail, staying in pjs all day, and hanging with her Write Squad Community friends. Girls’ Lips Are Sealed is her second Birdie Mealing Mystery.
Sara Powter
Retiring in the middle of a COVID-19 lockdown, Sara Powter found the time to write. Within four months, she finished three stories. Six years later, she is nearing the completion of her 33rd book. Her novels are inspired by her passion for Colonial Australia, giving her convict ancestors a voice.
Ed Bicioc & Amanda Scotland (Not Quite Write)
Ed Bicioc and Amanda Scotland co-host the popular Not Quite Write podcast, where media critique, cultural musings, and practical writing advice collide with irreverent humour. Together, they judge the Not Quite Write Prize for Flash Fiction, a competition that challenges writers worldwide to craft brilliant stories in under 500 words.
Adam Hennessy
Adam Hennessy is a leader with over twenty years’ experience across education, justice, public safety, and health. A Certified Practising Manager and member of key NSW governance bodies, he is known for championing selfless, values-driven leadership that builds trust, advances equity, and delivers lasting impact.
Geoffrey Price
Geoffrey Price is a psychotherapist with 40 years clinical experience as a counsellor, international executive coach, and facilitator of rites of passage. His work has focussed on the psychology of power, masculinity and transformation, and the ways unexamined inner forces shape behaviour. He is the author of Puberty Boy which has sold more than 80,000 copies internationally and Licking Honey From the Razor’s Edge, he is the host of the podcast Stories From the Razor’s Edge.
Luca Collins
Luca Collins is a published children’s playwright, a filmmaker and actor. He has worked in the Australian Film Industry and in professional theatre. He has a Master of Creative Writing from the University of Technology, Sydney. The research for ‘Dancing with the Midnight Mare’ began in the 1990’s and culminated in Poland and Germany in Warsaw, Wroclaw, Dresden and Berlin.
Jana McLeod
Jana McLeod, a multidisciplinary artist, composer, storyteller, and art therapist of Australian and Māori (Ngā Puhi) descent. Her work explores archetypal themes that support life’s deeper journeys. Her debut storybook, Morning Bird, Whale Song, is a gentle, symbolic story of grief, resilience, and transformation for readers of all ages.
Will Small
Will Small is a 3x Australian Poetry Slam finalist and the founder of social impact agency Lead by Story. The Fossil of Us is his third published collection of poems, following Poems for When the World is Ending and All Things New.
Central Coast Creative Writers Group
Central Coast Creative Writers Group began in 2016, founded by fellow writer John Filby. From the outset, the vision was a space where writers could grow through a workshop-style setting, focusing on the craft of writing. Month after month, we explored elements such as description, dialogue, character development, and narrative structure, always with the goal of helping members produce something tangible and meaningful. Over the years, this approach has led to our members producing an impressive body of work spanning multiple genres and styles. In 2025, we felt it was time to share the fruits of our collective learning with the broader Central Coast community.
Beverley Campbell
Born in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Beverley Campbell’s early years were spent on a farm with her maternal extended family. Shortly after their neighbours were
murdered by terrorists in the mid-sixties, the farm was sold. In 1977 she fell in love with an Australian on a working holiday who proposed marriage and a new life. Beverley arrived in Australia in March 1978 on a one-way entry visa and no legal passport. Today, she resides on the Central Coast of NSW with her husband and their only daughter.
Patricia Kesengele
Born in Zambia, Patricia Kasengele has qualifications in Social Work and Social Policy. She has experience working in government and non-government organisations and co-authored a chapter of a adolescent medicine clinical handbook. Her experience as a mother of a child with a terminal illness inspired her to write this book.
Inga Lie
Inga Lie is a mother, social worker, Buddhist and music lover with experience in child protection, justice, health, sexual assault and education. She values kindness, inclusion and self care and advocates for an end to bullying and domestic violence. Inga’s proud of her Norwegian heritage and lives on Darkinjung land.
Robert Adamson 1943-2022
Born in 1943, Robert Adamson grew up in Neutral Bay, Australia, a harbourside suburb of Sydney. As a juvenile delinquent, he often sought refuge on the Hawkesbury River at the home of his paternal grandfather, who fished its waters for over four decades. He found his way to poetry, and over the past five decades he has produced twenty books of poetry and three books of prose. From 1970 to 1985 he was the driving force behind New Poetry, Australia’s cutting-edge poetry magazine, and in 1987, with his partner Juno Gemes, he established Paper Bark Press. He has won all the major Australian poetry awards, including the Christopher Brennan Prize for lifetime achievement, the Patrick White Award, and the Age Book of the Year Award for The Goldfinches of Baghdad (Flood Editions, 2006). Portrait by Juno Gemes.
Judith Beveridge
Judith Beveridge is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently Tintinnabulum, which was shortlisted for the 2025 Laurel Prize, an international award given to the best collection of environmental or nature poetry. Her previous book, Sun Music: New and Selected Poems, won the 2019 Prime Minister’s Prize for Poetry. Many of her books have won or been shortlisted for major prizes, and her poems are widely studied in schools and universities. She taught poetry at the University of Sydney from 2003-2018 and was poetry editor of Meanjin from 2005-2016. She is a recipient of the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal, the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement, and Creative Australia’s Lifetime Achievement in Literature award.
Mark Mordue
Mark Mordue has worked as an internationally published writer for the last forty years, consistently published across mainstream, literary and counter-culture media. Known as a ground-breaking rock journalist, his career embraces poetry, travel writing, award-winning criticism, and a recently acclaimed biography, Boy on Fire – The Young Nick Cave. 2005-2016. She is a recipient of the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal, the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement, and Creative Australia’s Lifetime Achievement in Literature award.
Support our Festival
As a not-for-profit organisation run with a small team of volunteers, contributions of any size go a long way in enriching the creative culture of our community. The Committee includes local Peninsula residents passionate about bringing the arts to the Coast. We are seeking support from the community to help us create a wonderful and inclusive festival.
