David Mitchell, author of the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted and longlisted novels Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks, will be one of the guests at a series of special Adelaide Writers’ Week events next month.

Two other authors – Helen Macdonald  (H is for Hawke) and Norman Doidge (The Brain that Changes Itself) – were also announced today for the “out-of-season” sessions.

Writers’ Week director Laura Kroetsch said Mitchell, who will be guest at an event at Elder Hall on May 18, was “as fascinating in person as he is on the page”, and a must-see for fans of literary fiction.

The session with Canadian psychiatrist, researcher and writer Doidge – also author of best-seller The Brain’s Way of Healing – will take place at the Adelaide Town Hall on May 25.

Kroetsch will host the conversation with Macdonald at Elder Hall on May 17.

“It’s an extraordinary book,” she said of H is for Hawke, “and, because I have the pleasure of chairing the session, I am looking forward to talking to her about the loss of her father, her hawk Hazel and the fabulously arcane language of falconry.”

The May events are the first of a number of special sessions planned for the year which follow on from the success of “conversations” held last year with Julia Gillard (My Story) and Annabel Crabbe (The Wife Drought) outside of the main Writers’ Week program in February-March.

More details can be found on the Adelaide Festival website.