The next event in our Readers and Writers Programme is on Sunday 6 November at 2 p.m. in the Ocean Road Community Centre.

We invite you to meet Cristina Sanders, who turns her colourful and active life into colourful and active stories. She is a runner, tramper and sailor.

For her book Jerningham, wanting to know about early sailing ships, she signed up for a Spirit of Adventure voyage, loving it so much that she has continued as an adult helper with youth trips.

Her latest historical novel Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of The General Grant deals with the wreck on Auckland Island of a ship carrying gold miners from Victoria, their winnings stitched into clothes and bedrolls.

Only fourteen men survived … and one woman, Mrs Jewell. Only their last match started a fire that had to be fed for nearly two years, while they lived on seals and birds’ eggs until their eventual rescue.

Cristina’s skill is to imagine the tensions, despair, and courage of the shipwrecked party, especially the lone woman among them.

Everyone is welcome, entry is by koha, and refreshments will be served.