Literary legend Jackie French on Saturday will donate 200 of her books to help re-stock the bookcases of Tathra residents who lost their homes in last month's bushfire.
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She is not alone, with Canberra authors and the community in general donating new books for the Book Love for Tathra drive organised by South Coast author Melissa Pouliot.
"Tathra lost around 70 homes. If we work on each home housing 100 books - I have a lot more than that! - that’s around 7000 books gone from our small community,'' Melissa said.
The books will be handed over at The East Hotel on Saturday to the ACT Writers Centre which is housing them for distribution to Tathra.
Melissa said only new books were being given out.
"Individual authors have been incredibly generous. One of the first boxes to arrive was 50 children’s books by a WA-based author for the school, which thankfully was relatively unscathed even though we all know just how close we came to losing it,'' she said.
"Then there’s Jackie French, one of my all-time favourite Australians, who is donating 200+ books to Tathra. As well as Jackie there is a growing number of Canberra authors who are contributing. I am so incredibly humbled.
"Also a big part of Book Love for Tathra is the Australian reading community. People are purchasing their most favourite books in the whole world to add to the collection.''
Other authors who have donated books include L.J.M. Owen, Craig Cormick, Robert Macklin, Jack Heath, Anna Snoekstra, Robyn Cadwallader, Kerry Malone, Cate Whittle and Tania McCartney.
Jackie said books were "friends''.
"When times are bad you need all of those,'' she said.
