Meet our Featured Local Authors!
The Whitsundays Writers Festival is excited to partner with a number of regional authors for this year’s event.
“We are committed to celebrating regional, Queensland and Australian stories and storytellers,” says Festival President, Karen Jacobsen. “We are excited to showcasing the creative talent and diversity of the region’s writers and there many ways local authors can get involved.”
The Festival is delighted to announce the first of our Featured Local Authors.
North Queensland award winning contemporary romantic fiction author, Rachel Armstrong loves writing about rural small towns, stirring up the suspense with terrifying villains, and placing paranormal shifters in our everyday world. Her debut novel, Reunited with the Millionaire, is set on Hamilton Island and highlights what the Whitsundays has to offer.
Bec Russell is a long-term Whitsundays local, having lived in the area for most of her life. She feels blessed to have grown up in a beautiful, small, yet vibrant community. She is a holistic health coach and yoga teacher who began exploring her creativity a few short years ago. Bec is the co-author This I Know Is True and is the author of Life in the Soul Lane.
Having written her first novel when she was twelve, A.L. Tippett abandoned it after deciding that being an author wasn’t a “real” job and not worth pursuing. Thankfully, she rediscovered her passion for storytelling and has published The MINATH Chronicles. Her latest urban fantasy novel features a solo mum who struggles to make ends meet, along with druids, dragons, a tawny frogmouth, and the Big Mango in Bowen!
Jo Nightingale is an Airlie Beach local. In 2013 she was travelling through India when she felt compelled to record her journey. Unbelievable events were taking place that needed to be shared and her first book — Finding the Quietness Within — was born. This began her trilogy following her journeys around the world with the second book Finding the Stillness Within.
“We can’t wait for Festival attendees to meet our local authors by discovering their stories through our bookshop and taking time to meet them and learn more about their work and writing journeys,” said Karen.
More Featured Local Author announcements to follow.
Are you a local Whitsundays writer?
Local authors are most welcome to stock their titles at the Festival’s Bookshop. They can also sign up to become Featured Local Author and receive a number of exclusive benefits, a national platform to promote their books, and go into the running to be selected as a showcase author at the Festival’s closing event – the Local Author Long Lunch. The Featured Local Author offer must close Sunday 30 June 2024.