Join us as we launch day one of the Mandurah Readers & Writers Festival with Annie de Monchaux discussing her novel Audrey’s Gone AWOL.

The Readers’ and Writers’ Festival is an annual adult literature event presented by City of Mandurah Library Services. In 2025 it will be held from 16 – 18 January at the Seashells Resort Mandurah. The aim of the festival is to foster a love of reading and literature and encourage creativity in our community. This year the festival brings together an array of established and emerging storytellers from across Western Australia. The free to attend three-day festival includes author talks, and panel discussions.

Annie De Monchaux

Annie de Monchaux is a West Australian-based writer of fiction and non-fiction. Audrey’s Gone AWOL was published in 2024, and her second novel is due in 2026. The anthology Cray Tales was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Book Awards and the basis of a CBS Australia documentary. Prior to this, Annie worked in Hollywood, rewriting scripts for films.

Audrey’s Gone AWOL

It’s never too late to reinvent your life

Audrey Lamont has happily devoted herself to family life for the best part of 40 years. However, lately she has become aware that she lost herself somewhere between ‘I do’ and the weekly shop. Worse, her academic husband Simon has found time for romance – just not with Audrey. Feeling invisible to everyone, even herself, she flees to her aunt’s home in rural France.

While waiting for her sudden absence to spark a change of heart in Simon, Audrey finds solace in the charms of the French countryside and the company of her aged aunt and a cast of eccentric Bretons.

But soon Audrey discovers going AWOL might do more than save her marriage, it might change her life.…

What to Expect:

9.30am: In Conversation

10.15am: Q & A

10.30am: Book signing

Tea & Coffee provided.

Festival Bookseller is Dymocks Busselton

Places are limited. Bookings required. 1106927783799?aff=oddtdtcreator ” target=”_blank”>Book Now!