Award-winning author visits

An author who has twice won the Miles Franklin award will speak at a literary dinner on Wednesday, October 19.

Alex Miller, who won the prize in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and again in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country, will speak at the dinner which will be held at the Boathouse restaurant in Koolewong.

His most recent novel Lovesong was published last November.

Mr Miller's book Landscape of Farewell, published in 2008, won the Annual Foreign Novels 21st Century Award from the People's Literature Publishing House in China.

He was also awarded the Manning Clark Cultural Award that year for an outstanding contribution to the quality of Australian cultural life.

In 2009, he was named as a finalist for the prestigious Melbourne Prize for Literature.

The dinner will be hosted by Umina book store Book Bazaar.

Owner Ms Mandi Lamont said it was "quite a coup for us to have someone of Alex Miller's calibre visit the Coast and we are very excited".

"Alex Miller is an exceptional author and one that we rarely get to see," she said.

"He only does author events every few years when a new novel comes out and then usually only major cities."

Media Release, 16 Sep 2011 Mandi Lamont, Book Bazaar Umina