CELEBRATED food critic Matthew Evans will launch this year's Bendigo Writers Festival with a four-course banquet.
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It will kick off four days featuring more than 100 presenters and over 70 events, the festival's freshly published program reveals.
Other headliners include celebrated journalists Jon Faine, Dr Norman Swan and Gideon Haigh.
Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert will beam in, as will West Indies cricketing legend Michael Holding.
Writers John Marsden and Dianne Dempsey, politician Julia Banks and acclaimed pianist Simon Tedeschi will be among those to feature in conversations and performances.
Organisers have chosen the theme "flourish" for the 12th Bendigo Writers Festival, saying it will be a "bouquet of bright things, a feast of goodness".
The festival will also be a significant moment for a battered tourism industry, Bendigo Venues & Events manager Julie Amos said.
"It will really symbolise a reopening of Bendigo," she said.
The festival will take place during an intense period for the arts sector, which is attempting to both recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and solidify the city's reputation as a leading tourism destination.
The May 12 launch will take place a month after the 150th Bendigo Easter Festival and run parallel to the Bendigo Art Gallery's blockbuster Elvis: Direct from Graceland exhibition.
Ms Amos said that even before visitors to those three events had been counted, her group had already registered 16,000 people through performing arts venues since January 19.
More people visited the Bendigo Sustainability Festival, Lost Trades Fair and a host of other weekend-long events in recent months.
"The aim will be to keep that going and grow. I don't think Bendigo is going backwards," Ms Amos said.
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The 2022 Bendigo Writers Festival is already shaping as a very successful festival, she said.
Ticket sales had already been strong even before the program came off the press.
"The festival just keeps getting stronger every year," Ms Amos said.
For more information on presenters or to purchase Bendigo Writers Festival tickets, visit bendigowritersfestival.com.au
People can also call the Capital Theatre's box office on 5434 6100.
This story was amended at 8.40am on Tuesday, March 29. Ms Amos' first name is Julie, not Kate. The journalist apologises for his mistake.
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