Dame Fiona Kidman will give a talk, 'Telling Stories', under the auspices of U3A. The celebrated author explains that this will cover "How we tell the essential stories of our lives, both through creative non-fiction and in poems. I have been exploring memory, both through memoirs and poetry as an alternative form of life writing. I will share how I have gone about these processes, and will read excerpts and poems to illustrate the conversation."

Dame Fiona Kidman is a novelist, short story writer, poet and memoirist. Her original occupation was as a librarian. In the early 1960s she began to write journalism, radio drama and, later, television drama. Her first novel 'A Breed of Women', published in 1979 caused controversy but she continued to write in the face of some opposition. Her 2018 novel 'This Mortal Boy' won the Jann Medlicott Ockham NZ Book Award for Fiction. Her work is translated into several languages. She has been awarded a damehood for services to literature and is a Chevalier des Artes et Lettres by the French government, and also the French Legion of Honour. Currently she is a Patron of the Randell Cottage Writers Trust, also The Long Hall and of the Refugee and Migrants Trust.