Women who write frankly about their own life-changing experiences are set to take to the stage at this year's Belfast Book Festival, which returns to the Crescent Arts Centre next week for its fourth year running. Sharing personal experiences of cancer, miscarriage, emigration, politics, the loss of a mother at a young age and its effect on later life as well as the creative process and its healing nature, authors Ann Widdecombe, Willetta Fleming, Christine Hamill, Emma Heatherington and Deborah Alicia Nicholas,among others, will be speaking at a series of lectures in Belfast from June 9th to 15th. Go to belfastbookfestival.com for a full line-up. Niamh Towey