Books and Beyond, the annual Christchurch Festival, is returning in 2004 for the seventh time. It has a new director, Reima Goldsmith, and is now linked to (and follows on from) the Melbourne Writers Event.

For 2004, the festival has two new venues: the Rydges Hotel (pictured) and ‘Our City’. It’ll run in August and September 2004, with the main events held from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 September. For more information, contact David Gregory, the NZSA Books and Beyond representative, via email.

This year’s line up has not yet been finalised, but last year’s was good: publisher Craig Potton, photographer Marti Friedlander, artist Don Binney, author Anthony McCarten, columnist Joe Bennett, novelist Lindsey Dawson, author Sue McCauley, and children's writers Margaret Mahy, William Taylor and Ken Catran.

NB: The NZ Society of Authors has a new web site. Apparently it has taken two years to develop, with support from Creative New Zealand and Massey University. The NZSA would like your comments on "how easy you find the site to navigate, the information and how useful it is, and also the layout of the bookshop".