Poet Ashleigh Young to Open Bathurst Festival

Wellington author, poet and literary editor Ashleigh Young will open the Bathurst Writers’ and Readers’ Festival on May 4.

The festival consists of three days of live streamed sessions direct from the Sydney Writers’ Festival along with a diverse local programme of local author talks, panels, writing workshops and poetry slam.

Young was the winner of Yale University’s prestigious 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize for her collection of 21 essays, Can You Tolerate This?

 She will speak at the festival about her experiences of growing up in a small rural setting in New Zealand and her work as an essayist and poet.

In 2017, she told Stuff that Can You Tolerate This? touches on her early life in Te Kuiti, where she was born in 1983.

“A lot of the essays are about really small experiences. In an essay you can validate those experiences somehow and say ‘they are meaningful to me’,” Young said.

“In a funny way too I’m quite proud of my home town, Te Kuiti. It’s a surreal thought that such a tiny wee place might get recognition.”

Original article by Nadine Morton, Western Advocate, March 22, 2018.

Photo by Robert Catto.