This year’s festival celebrates some of the most vital and impactful storytelling in Australian literature, with a dedicated program of First Nations writers whose work spans historical fiction, picture books and Indigenous knowledge and whose voices are reshaping how this country understands itself.

Billed as the 'longest running event on the Australian surfing calendar', the Thermos Australian Longboard Titles will return for a third consecutive year to Tweed Coast beaches 24-30 July.

Ev King-Prime opened the first art gallery in Byron and helped develop the nascent visual arts scene on the North Coast.

A giant petrel found near Hawks Nest, north of Newcastle, was confirmed positive on the weekend for H5 high pathogenicity (H5 bird flu) avian influenza in laboratory tests by the CSIRO Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness.