Great Festival Read

Festival favourite, the Great Festival Read, returns for 2023 with author Fiona Kelly McGregor and her book, Iris. The Great Festival Read is like a giant book club where we invite everyone to read the book and then come along to the event on the Sunday morning of the Bathurst Writers’ & Readers’ Festival. At the event a panel discusses the book, the author is in attendance for an In Conversation, as well as an opportunity for book signings and questions. This year the event also includes a delicious breakfast (appropriate for a Sunday morning really) which is included in the ticket price.

An exclusive live event for Bathurst Writers’ & Readers’ Festival.

ABOUT THE BOOK, IRIS

Who is Iris Webber?
A thief, a fighter, a wife, a lover.
A scammer, a schemer, a friend.
A musician, a worker, a big-hearted fool.

A woman who has prevailed against the toughest gangsters of the day, defying police time and again, yet is now trapped in a prison cell. Guilty or innocent?

Rollicking through the underbelly of 1930s sly-grog Sydney, Iris is a dazzling literary achievement from one of Australia’s finest writers. Based on actual events and set in an era of cataclysmic change, here is a fierce, fascinating tale of a woman who couldn’t be held back.

Copies of the book available from Books Plus Bathurst and Bathurst Library.

ABOUT FIONA

Fiona Kelly McGregor is the author of eight books, including the novel Indelible Ink, which won Age Book of the Year. She is also known for her repertoire of performance art, seen internationally, and is a writer, artist and critic living and working on Gadigal land.