Share captivating stories and inspiring conversations with fellow booklovers and brilliant authors at the 10th Orange Readers and Writers Festival.
Hosted by Central West Libraries, the festival will be held upstairs at the Hotel Canobolas from July 31 to August 1 and is designed to provide a warming winter escape as the temperature drops.
Orange City Council's Recreation and Culture Committee Chair, Cr Tammy Greenhalgh said it was an opportunity to chase away the winter chill while gathering with like-minded booklovers.
"There's no better time to sit down with a good book than winter. This is a great way to bring regional NSW readers and writers together to share a love of reading and meet Australian authors," Cr Greenhalgh said.
The main festival event will be held from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 1 August with five guest authors, including special guest author Chris Hammer, whose novel Scrublands was made into a hit series on STAN, and Treasure & Dirt, which will premiere on the ABC on July 19.
The authors are:
- Chris Hammer - Legacy, Treasure & Dirt (ABC TV) Scrublands (STAN)
- Cynthia Banham, in conversation with Marianna Saran - Mother Shadow
- Sam Guthrie - The Peak
- Meredith Jaffe – The Importance of Being Delia
- Sue Williams - The Duke's Secret
The winners of the 2026 Banjo Paterson Writing Awards will also be announced by Orange Mayor Tony Mileto at 11am.
Early bird tickets cost $80 until 20 July, after which tickets will cost $95. Book here.
Interested writers can also attend a history writing workshop on Friday 31 July from 10am to 1pm with local author Kim Kelly.
Whether you're advanced with your writing project or at the very beginning, Kim will show you how to tap into your creative flow through a series of fun and inspiring exercises.
Workshop tickets cost $45 and bookings can be made here.
The Orange Readers and Writers Festival is hosted by Central West Libraries, operated by Orange City Council, and supported by Collins Booksellers. Books by the guest authors will be available for sale and signing at the festival.
More about the authors
Chris Hammer:
Chris Hammer is a leading Australian author of crime fiction with sales of more than 1.5 million copies around the world. His first novel, Scrublands, was an instant bestseller when it was published in mid-2018. It won the prestigious UK Crime Writers Association John Creasey Award for best debut crime novel in 2019 and was shortlisted for various awards in Australia and the United States. Scrublands and subsequent books have been sold into translation in multiple languages and made into a hit television series. His follow-up books – Silver (2019), Trust (2020), Treasure & Dirt (2021), The Tilt (2022), The Seven (2023), The Valley (2024) and Legacy (2025) – are also bestsellers, and many have been shortlisted for major literary prizes. His new book Full Circle will be launched September 2026.
Before turning to fiction, Chris was a journalist for more than thirty years, dividing his career between covering Australian federal politics and international affairs. He reported from more than thirty countries on six continents with SBS TV, while in Canberra his roles included chief political correspondent for The Bulletin, senior writer for The Age and online political editor for the Sydney Morning Herald.
Chris has also written two non-fiction books, The River (2010; 2025) and The Coast (2012). He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Charles Sturt University and a master's degree in international relations from the Australian National University.
Cynthia Banham:
Cynthia Banham is a full-time writer and part-time habitat gardener.
Previously, she worked as a lawyer, journalist and academic. She spent two decades in Canberra, initially working in the Parliament House press gallery and later completing a PhD on human rights law and politics at the Australian National University. Since returning to Sydney, she has become immersed in restoring her manicured garden into a wilder place of refuge for frogs, lizards, insects, and small birds.
Among the many losses Cynthia suffered after surviving a plane crash with life-changing injuries was a connection to nature. In her twenties and thirties, she had trekked through the South American Andes, the Himalayas twice, and ran three marathons. The loss of mobility was devastating. Through habitat gardening, she has found a way to reclaim some of that: she can no longer move easily through nature, but nature can move around her.
Sam Guthrie
Sam Guthrie is the author of the bestselling political thriller The Peak, a critically acclaimed debut shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association's John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, one of the United Kingdom's leading awards for first crime novels.
His fiction draws on more than twenty-five years working at the intersection of geopolitics, diplomacy and corporate power. A former senior government official and diplomat, Guthrie has served as a trade envoy to China and advised governments and major corporations on international strategy, political risk and geopolitical change. He has worked extensively across Europe, the United States and Asia, and spent close to a decade living and working in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Prague.
Guthrie writes character-driven political thrillers that explore how personal ambition, loyalty and moral compromise collide with the machinery of state power. Drawing on first-hand experience of international negotiations, political systems and intelligence cultures, his novels examine the hidden forces shaping world events and the individuals caught within them.
He holds a master's degree in international relations and lives in Sydney, Australia.
Meredith Jaffe
Meredith Jaffé is the author of five novels for adults- The Tricky Art of Forgiveness (2022), The Dressmakers of Yarrandarrah Prison (2021), The Making of Christina (2017) and The Fence (2016.) and now The Importance of Being Delia. Her bestselling novel, The Dressmakers of Yarrandarrah Prison, was voted in the 2021 Booktopia Favourite Australian Book Award Top 50 and the 2022 Better Reading Top 100. She also writes for children.
Previously, Meredith wrote the weekly literary column for the online women's magazine The Hoopla. Her feature articles, reviews, and opinion pieces have also appeared in the Guardian Australia, The Huffington Post, and Mamamia.
Sue Williams
Sue is a masterful writer of historical fiction, praised for both her meticulous research and her empathic treatment of characters, particularly women, brought back from the shadowy reaches of the past into the spotlight.
Her Australian series, Elizabeth & Elizabeth, about the Elizabeths Macquarie and Macarthur, That Bligh Girl about Mary Bligh the daughter of notorious governor and mutiny survivor William Bligh, and The Governor, His Wife and His Mistress about the tangled love life of Philip Gidley King, and now The Duke's Secret have all proved best sellers.
Sue also writes non-fiction and her most recent work was Under Her Skin – the astonishing biography of Professor Fiona Wood AM, one of Australia's most innovative and respected surgeons and a world-leading burns specialist, whose ground-breaking research and technology development has changed patients' lives.
Incredibly private, Fiona has for years resisted all attempts to tell her story but Sue Williams finally wore her down, writing to her for over ten years, asking her for permission. Finally, Fiona agreed, and told a story that took everyone aback.
