This year’s Byron Writers Festival is a first-look destination, with several of Australia’s most anticipated new books arriving at the festival before the ink has barely dried.

or thousands of years, the kitchen was the pharmacy. Long before supermarket shelves and medicine cabinets, families turned to nourishing broths, warming spices, medicinal herbs and seasonal foods to support their health through winter. While modern medicine has an invaluable place – particularly for serious illness – many everyday winter rituals have been forgotten or aged out.

Plans for a proposed 23-townhouse development in the outskirts of Bangalow are open to the public today, with a drop-in information session being held from 11am to 4.30pm at the Old Scouts Hall, 9 Station Street, Bangalow.

The Ballina Concert Band will perform a fun-packed set of jazz, blues and New Orleans favourites at a free gig at the Cherry Street Sports Club in Ballina, this Sunday, 28 June, from 2pm to 3pm.