Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre [BMEC] will host the festival from May 20 to 22, with former local Aofie Clifford to be the featured author for the Great Festival Read with her latest release, When We Fall.

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Festival coordinator Kylie Shead, who will facilitate the event alongside Jen Barry, hopes Great Festival Read participants will read When We Fall prior to the event, where it is hoped Clifford herself will appear to discuss the book.

"We're expecting to release the festival program in mid-April after the Sydney Writers' Festival program comes out, but the Great Festival Read will definitely take place on Sunday, May 22," Ms Shead said.

"It's wonderful that we have Aofie on board as our featured author this year, as we always look to engage an author with a local connection for the Great Festival Read."

Ms Barry said When We Fall is an ideal entry point for readers looking to get into crime fiction for the first time.

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"It's such an accessible book for a wide range of audiences, so we encourage anyone looking for new reading material to give it a peek," she said.

"The Great Festival Read will allow for a denser discussion of the book, where people are invited to share their own thoughts."

The panellists for this year's Great Festival Read are Bathurst U3A crime fiction group facilitators Elizabeth Tink and Jennifer Short, BooksPlus' Kate Conolan and local crime fiction fan Rod Allan.

Ms Shead said the festival is expected to include more face-to-face events this year after two COVID-wrought years, and will also be held free of clashes with other events.

"We're hoping to attract more visiting authors and make a concerted effort to further localise the event," she said.

"Across the community, people are feeling really starved of in-person events, with a bit of a Zoom hangover in the air, so we hope this will encourage literature buffs to get out and about in town again."

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Copies of When We Fall are now available from BooksPlus, and festival visitors are encouraged to make monetary donations to the BMEC box office to assist in the festival's running costs.

The event will be free to attend, with no density limits in place for this year.

For more information about the festival, visit www.bmec.com.au or contact the BMEC box office on 6333 6161.

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