Sydney Writers' Festival: Recent Episodes
Sydney Writers' Festival
Australia's largest celebration of literature, stories and ideas. Bringing together the world's best authors, leading public intellectuals, scientists, journalists and more.
The story of the Trojan War, like so many wars real and imagined, is a story most often told by the victors, the princes and the powerful.
In this new imagining of the ancient legend, Son of Nobody, Yann Martel tells the familiar tale from an unheard perspective: that of a commoner and goatherd who becomes a soldier, Psoas, the son of nobody. Acclaimed for his Booker Prize–winning Life of Pi, adapted into an Oscar-winning film, Yann’s first novel in a decade sings a universal song about the power of story.
Unravel ancient traditions with Yann, in conversation with ABC Radio National’s Claire Nichols (The Book Show).
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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An incomparable storyteller, lucid analyst and eloquent polemicist, acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh’s rich body of fiction and non-fiction work has shaped our contemporary understanding of history and the environment.
Listen in as Amitav reflects on his career and range of bestselling books including the Ibis trilogy, ground-breaking non-fiction in The Great Derangement and The Nutmeg’s Curse and his newest novel Ghost-Eye, set in 1960s Calcutta.
Explore the themes of history, post-colonialism and environmentalism behind his ongoing work, in conversation with Michael Williams.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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[Content warning: Family violence]
Instant bestseller and “best debut novel in years” (The Sunday Times) starts in a literal and metaphorical storm.
While registering her son’s birth, Cora faces a decision that could change his life: what will she name him? Her options – Bear, Julian or Gordon – each come with their own legacies, expectations and risks. In The Names, novelist Florence Knapp tells a powerful story of darkness and hope through three vastly different versions of a boy’s life.
Explore the profound force of family with Florence, in conversation with ABC Radio National’s Claire Nichols (The Book Show).
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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In a novel, the words on the page are our entrance into another’s mind. But sometimes it’s the space between the lines that define a character.
In David Szalay’s 2025 Booker Prize–winning Flesh, István is caught between the boundaries of Hungary and England, his teenage years and adulthood, his body and sense of self and desire and indifference. With spare, propulsive prose, David paints an intimate portrait of a man slowly unravelling as he asks profound questions about the strangeness of being.
Hear David trace the evolution of his singular novel and its protagonist, in conversation with Michelle de Kretser.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
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The history of the Kabul Inter-Continental Hotel is the history of a nation.
Built in 1969, it has stood through Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a civil war, a US invasion and waves of Taliban control. Legendary international war correspondent Lyse Doucet arrived at the ‘Inter-Con’ for the first time in 1988. The Finest Hotel in Kabul chronicles 40 years of visits, during which Lyse reported on events that made world news and formed intimate connections with the people of Kabul.
Listen as Lyse reflects on the story of modern Afghanistan as told by its people, in conversation with Debbie Whitmont.
This episode was recorded live at the 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
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In the latest instalment of Mick Herron’s internationally bestselling series, palms are itching among Jackson Lamb’s cohort of misfit spies.
A legendary former spy’s missing book, a state secret and some mischievous blackmail: which underhanded action will rock the carefully calibrated boat of Slough House? An instant Sunday Times bestseller and continuation of the adapted Apple TV+ series Slow Horses, Clown Town is a spy thriller with a witty twist and an unforgettable band of characters.
Listen as Mick reveals details about the evolution of the Slough House thrillers and what comes next, in conversation with Michael Williams.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Join Yumi Stynes and Artistic Director Ann Mossop as they discuss the 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival program.
The pair talk about the 2026 Festival theme, Show Me The Truth, and how fiction, poetry and creative writing and bring us closer to the truth. Unpack the program and get a glimpse behind the scenes of the Sydney Writers' Festival office.
The 2026 Sydney Writers' Festival is out now. Head to our website to explore the program: https://www.swf.org.au/
Tickets on sale Saturday 14 March at 10am.
Thank you to 2SER for facilitating the recording of this podcast.
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‘Cancel culture’ may seem like a 21st century invention sparked by contemporary politics and stoked by social media, sometimes with deadly consequences.
However, as philosopher A.C. Grayling illustrates in Discriminations: Making Peace in the Culture Wars, disagreement and public shaming are ancient traditions.
Learn how ‘cancel culture’ evolved and what effect it’s having on intellectual discourse. Festival favourite A.C. Grayling searches for a middle ground in an environment where everything is up for debate.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Detective Inspector John Rebus first hit bookshelves in 1987 as a witty Scottish crime fighter but now the legendary detective is behind bars himself, living a literal locked-room mystery.
Midnight and Blue is Ian Rankin at his tense and thrilling best, mixing the police procedural genre with a literary character study of his best-known detective and his home city of Edinburgh.
Explore the latest instalment of the Inspector Rebus series and reflect on Ian’s bestselling career in crime writing, with television adaptations and translation into more than 20 languages. In conversation with Michael Williams.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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In Your Favourites’ Favourites, our most loved writers introduce one of their favourite authors.
Bestselling Australian crime writer Michael Robotham speaks with British crime novelist Chris Whitaker about his sensational new thriller, All the Colours of the Dark, described as a “must-read” by favourite thriller writer Gillian Flynn.
Over decades, Saint Brown has been hunting the man who kidnapped her best friend, Joseph ‘Patch’ Macauley, when they were teens. Meanwhile, Patch is on his own hunt for a girl named Grace, who saved him in a dark room years ago. But his search turns to obsession with little evidence that Grace ever existed.
Hear Michael and Chris discuss his unforgettable story, already in development for the screen.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Over a masterful career spanning 10 novels, a memoir and various children’s books, Maggie O’Farrell has established herself as a modern literary monument.
Her two latest novels, Hamnet, inspired by Shakespeare’s family, and The Marriage Portrait, set in 16th-century Italian court, represent a turn into historical fiction. The former won the UK’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, while the latter was shortlisted for it.
In conversation with Kate Evans, Maggie teases out the details of her writing life, including her interest in the depth of women’s stories and the intricate intimacy of families, and the wild popularity of Hamnet.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Undercover agents aren’t just the stuff of stories for writers Jack Beaumont and Ben Macintyre.
A French intelligence officer turned spy thriller writer, Jack (Dark Arena) has all the insider knowledge to craft true-to-life operations in his novels. Ben (The Siege) is an espionage expert and he’s written the definitive account of the siege that put the SAS on the world stage.
Hear these two connoisseurs of the clandestine share the truth behind the spy stories that thrill us. With Michael Williams.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Myths of cryptid big cats stalking the Australian landscape are as old as colonisation.
In Dusk, the puma hunting Tasmania’s lowlands has left enough evidence – in the form of dead and missing men – to prove her existence.
Two-time winner of The Age Book of the Year and winner of the Voss Literary Prize Robbie Arnott returns with another immanently beautiful story of loss and redemption.
Hear Robbie discuss his new novel, told with his renowned mastery of language, and the gothic myths of beasts and prey that underpin it. In conversation with Michaela Kalowski.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Zoë Foster Blake is a multi-talented and ambitious novelist, beauty journalist and skincare entrepreneur whose bio is long enough to leave you wondering how she does it all.
Channelling that can’t-stop, won’t-stop energy is Kit, a thriving hairstylist and the protagonist of Zoë’s latest novel, Things Will Calm Down Soon. Kit has itchy feet and always wonders what’s next. So when she can’t find the perfect product for a look, it makes sense for her to make it herself, right?
Sit down with Zoë, in conversation with Mamamia’s Holly Wainwright, for a breather and reminder that things will definitely calm down soon.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
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On 30 April 1980, armed gunmen stormed the Iranian embassy in London and took 26 hostages in what would become a six-day siege.
Millions around the world were glued to their TVs as the previously secret SAS planned and executed a rescue mission. Ben Macintyre’s The Siege: The Remarkable Story of the Greatest SAS Hostage Drama recounts minute-by-minute the negotiations, media frenzy and cutting-edge intelligence work that changed a nation forever. It draws on unpublished source material and interviews with members of the SAS, hostages and witnesses, providing unprecedented insight.
Join Ben as he discusses his definitive account of this astonishing event. In conversation with Richard Fidler (ABC Radio National’s Conversations).
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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As politicians and analysts attempt to manoeuvre with the global superpower, these writers reflect on how the 20th century got the nation where it is today.
Bombard the Headquarters!: The Cultural Revolution in China is Linda Jaivin’s account of the ideological quarrels and personalities that underpinned the violent beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Louisa Lim’s Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong and Edward Wong’s At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China mix national history with personal archives to paint detailed portraits of Hong Kong and China, respectively.
Hear Linda, Louisa and Edward in conversation with Peter Hartcher as they discuss the crucial history that made China what it is today.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Commonwealth Writers’ Prize winner Catherine Chidgey’s 9th novel, The Book of Guilt, sparked an international bidding war.
With undertones of Shirley Jackson and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, the story’s teenage triplets discover – when the government decides to shut down their home – that some lives are valued more than others in this dystopian 1970s England.
Join Catherine, in conversation with Beejay Silcox, to hear about her deeply unnerving new novel.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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This trio of Australian literary talents make writing a family affair.
The Moriarty sisters, Jaclyn (the Kingdom and Empires series), Liane (Here One Moment, Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers) and Nicola (Every Last Suspect and The Fifth Letter) have decades of writing experience between them. Their achievements include international bestsellers, film and television adaptations and prestigious awards.
In this panel discussion, they reflect on their career beginnings – including how they used to earn pocket money for writing stories – their different publishing paths and their many successes over the years. Hosted by writer and broadcaster Sarah Macdonald.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Every family has a secret but not every family has a memoirist to reveal it to the world.
Writer and former restaurant reviewer Candice Chung’s memoir Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You is a tender account of reconnecting with her family and breaking down the barriers of cultural taboos. Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars is award-winning writer Peter Godwin’s exploration of his changing relationship with his mother, his sister and his ex-wife and the winding histories that got them where they are now. Journalist Michael Visontay in Noble Fragments unravels a rare-book mystery linked by a legal document to his family’s history.
Hear Candice, Peter and Michael in conversation with Georgina Godwin reveal the tender underbellies of their family memoirs.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Space, in all its awe-inspiring, mind-blowing expanse, is still the final frontier.
Its greatness and grandness force us to reflect on our humanity, our existence and our place within the universe.
In Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize–winning Orbital, six astronauts contemplate the Earth and its inhabitants from the International Space Station. Ceridwen Dovey’s newest short story collection, Only the Astronauts, imagines the perspectives of non-humans in space, from an abandoned mannequin orbiting the Sun to a team of ‘tamponauts’ journeying to Mars.
Consider the limits of humanity in the universe with Samantha and Ceridwen in conversation with host Ashley Hay.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
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After a lifetime of bringing Shakespeare’s female characters to life on stage, multi-award-winning British actor Harriet Walter lends them her pen in She Speaks!.
Shining a new light on classic stories, Harriet writes between the lines of some of Shakespeare’s most compelling characters – from servants to sovereigns. She imagines what Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, Juliet’s nurse, Cleopatra and others could have said without the constraints of the Bard’s perspective and reveals what might be their true desires
Join Harriet in conversation with Ailsa Piper as they delve into the unexplored depths of the English literary canon.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
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[Content warning: sexual assault]
Feminism has a checkered past, but what can we expect from feminist ideas these days?
CEO of independent news commentary platform Cheek Media Co. Hannah Ferguson (Taboo: Conversations we never had about sex, body image, work and relationships), Stella Prize winner and investigative journalist Jess Hill (See What You Made Me Do, Quarterly Essay 97, Losing It) and human rights lawyer and Fulbright Scholar Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts (Long Yarn Short) discuss whether feminism can find solutions to some of our current crises.
Join them as they reckon with what feminism has to offer and predict future solutions to complex social problems in this panel discussion with host Sisonke Msimang.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
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Rumaan Alam’s Entitlement probes complex racial and social dynamics much like his New York Times bestselling Leave the World Behind, which was adapted into a Netflix film starring Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali.
In his new novel, Rumaan introduces themes of wealth and philanthropic aspirations when an ageing white billionaire hires an ambitious young African American woman to help him dispose of his money – through worthy causes, of course.
Join Rumaan in conversation with Sisonke Msimang as they examine the promise (or the lie) of the American Dream in the 21st century.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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International bestselling novelists Liane Moriarty and David Nicholls share the experience of seeing their powerful local stories turn into bingeable television series and films.
Liane’s Big Little Lies was the first book by an Australian to debut at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list and, since then, all 10 of her novels have been optioned for screen adaptation.
David executive produced the Netflix adaptation of his bestselling novel One Day and has written screen adaptations for Far from the Madding Crowd and Great Expectations.
Join Liane and David as they talk about their new books, Here One Moment and You Are Here, and being sensations across page and screen. With host Claire Nichols (ABC Radio National’sThe Book Show).
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Wars, coups and economic and climate crises: each new headline can make it feel like the world is suddenly falling apart.
But behind many dramatic world events are long-term historical patterns and the rise (and sometimes the fall) of tyrannical and authoritarian rulers. From the Arab Spring to the fall of dictators like Syria’s Assad, find out more about telling these stories from the inside with award-winning foreign correspondent Peter Greste (The Correspondent) and political scientist and author Marcel Dirsus (How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive). In conversation with Avani Dias.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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After the success of her two best known works, The Secret River, adapted for stage and television, and Restless Dolly Maunder, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Festival favourite Kate Grenville is still grappling with what it means to be a descendant of colonisation in Australia.
Journey through time and place with Kate as she reframes her family’s history in Unsettled: A Journey Through Time and Place, placing First People in the same picture. With Kate Evans.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
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Stories about brotherhood are a mainstay of classical writing, from brothers Romulus and Remus to brothers-in-arms Achilles and Patroclus.
Ferdia Lennon's award-winning debut tells the story of two unemployed theatre-loving best friends in ancient Sicily who tempt Athenian prisoners of war with food and drink in exchange for recitations of their favourite Greek poetry. From there to a full production of a Greek tragedy is only a small step in this this exhilarating story of friendship, art and war that brings the ancient world vividly alive.
Find out more about the best and worst that humans are capable of with Ferdia Lennon, in conversation with Australian playwright Tom Wright.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
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Colm Tóibín returns to the world of Brooklyn – adapted into a BAFTA- and Oscar-nominated film starring Saoirse Ronan – with the long-awaited sequel, Long Island.
Set 20 years after Rose Lacey’s death, Long Island follows Eilis Lacey after an unknown Irishman unexpectedly brings a baby into her family’s midst. Full of longing and regret, the book exhibits the hallmarks of a master storyteller’s restraint and Colm’s customary wit.
In conversation with Kate Evans (ABC Radio National’s The Bookshelf), Colm discusses his latest portrait of the people of picturesque Enniscorthy, which is being heralded as his best work yet.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Home is a beginning, an origin, a safe harbour, a memory or a dream. Some homes we arrive at, some find us and some we make ourselves.
International bestselling novelist Hannah Kent (Burial Rites and Always Home, Always Homesick), academic and writer Abbas El-Zein (Bullet, Paper, Rock: A memoir of words and wars) and George Orwell Prize winner Peter Godwin (Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars) have had markedly different experiences of home. Divided between countries, dismantled by conflict and erased through exile, home becomes a symbol of identity and a beacon of hope.
Hannah, Abbas and Peter tell host Sisonke Msimang what ‘home’ means to them.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
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The Safekeep, the debut novel from Yael van der Wouden, took the literary world by storm when it was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize.
Incorporating desire, family loyalty and betrayal in this twisted tale set in post-WWII Netherlands, Yael captivates and tantalises readers in equal measure with the forbidden love between Isabel and her brother’s graceless new girlfriend Eva.
Hear how Yael uncovered unexpected secrets of the past, both familial and national, in conversation with Claire Nichols (ABC Radio National’s The Book Show).
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Jessica Townsend, one of Australia’s bestselling and most loved authors, discusses the highly anticipated fourth book in The New York Times bestselling Nevermoor series.
In Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow readers rejoin Morrigan in her Wundrous world of magic on another adventure to go somewhere she’s never been before. In conversation with Reece Carter (A Girl Called Corpse).
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Distinguished international and local writers working across the crime genre unpick the relationship between fact and fiction.
Miles Franklin Literary Award winner Shankari Chandran, whose newest novel is a gritty thriller set in Colombo, ten-time Walkley Award–winning investigative journalist Kate McClymont and international bestseller and Diamond Dagger Award winner Ian Rankin each have a lifetime of mysteries under their belt.
Listen to them question the line between truth and fiction and interrogate the ethics of telling crime stories and exploring the search for justice. With host Michael Robotham.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Torrey Peters burst onto the literary scene in 2021 with her debut novel, Detransition, Baby, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and was named one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st century by The New York Times.
Her kaleidoscopic follow-up, Stag Dance, combines three gender-blurring novellas for a romp through gender apocalypse, secret romance and cross-dressing lumberjacks.
Join Torrey and host Yves Rees as they discuss Torrey’s eye for the rough edges of the LGBTQIA+ community and her desire to push the limits of trans writing in this new work about womanhood, trans identity and queer relationships.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Meet the baking besties who are queens of the Australian pastry game.
Nadine Ingram of Sydney’s Flour and Stone, Natalie Paull of Melbourne’s Beatrix Bakes and Kate Reid of nationwide Lune Croissanterie come together to talk all things pastry – from building their baking empires to their favourite recipes and their friendships.
With host Jennifer Wong, pull out your recipe cards, line your baking trays and get special insight into the poetry of pastry.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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The Ministry of Time landed on multiple bestseller lists thanks to its highly original, genre-defying story, which combines elements of time travel, romance and spy thriller.
Described by Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton as “outrageously brilliant”, Kaliane Bradley’s debut challenges the boundaries of literary and genre fiction as the past meets the future when a disaffected civil servant accepts a job at a mysterious new government ministry specialising in ‘historical expats’.
Hear Kaliane and host Spectrum editor Melanie Kembrey unpack the triumph of Kaliane’s debut novel and what it means to change the world by defying history. With an introduction from Fiona Morrison.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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It seemed improbable enough in 2016, but here we are now in Donald Trump’s second term at the White House.
What does the return of the 45th President of the United States mean for the international superpower? And how will it affect the rest of us?
Listen in as journalist and political commentator Peter Beinart, foreign correspondent Nick Bryant and Director of the Australia Institute’s International & Security Affairs Program Emma Shortis join host Barrie Cassidy to unpack the election outcome, Trump’s first few months in office and what to expect over the next four years.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Beloved Irish author Marian Keyes unpacks her latest story of lost sparks and old flames and what happens when high-flyer Anna swaps New York’s skyscrapers for the rugged Irish coast.
Readers were first introduced to the loveable and chaotic Walsh Family 30 years ago. They’ve watched the five beloved sisters, including middle daughter Anna, grow into middle age. Anna enjoys a solid and enviable life in New York until her spark goes out and she needs the warm embrace of her family in Dublin to kickstart her passion for life. A thorny local public relations project and the reappearance of an old flame might just do the trick.
As Marian introduces a wonderful cast of new characters to fall in love with in her sixteenth novel, she also sheds light on the novel’s themes including midlife lessons, friendship break-ups, letting go of mistakes, regret and perceiving yourself differently. Expect laughter, heartfelt moments and inspiring storytelling that showcases Marian’s fearless honesty, warmth and wit for an uplifting event with one of the most beloved voices in fiction today.
Hear bestselling author Marian Keyes discuss the latest Walsh Family instalment in conversation with author and Mamamia podcast host Holly Wainwright.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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In 1998, at the beginning of his esteemed career as an international human rights lawyer, Philippe Sands was invited to advise Augusto Pinochet as the Chilean dictator faced arrest in London.
Instead, Philippe chose to act as a barrister for Human Rights Watch, where he uncovered the well-hidden connection between Pinochet and former SS commander Walther Rauff. In his latest book, part memoir and part detective story, Philippe draws on interviews and archives to link two of the most brutal regimes of the 20th century at the infamous 38 Londres Street in Santiago.
Hear Philippe in conversation with Rosalind Dixon.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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The dead permeate the supernatural and strange worlds of Argentinian writer Mariana Enriquez.
Sometimes they’re simple ghosts, but other times they’re a different kind of haunting: apparitions of queer counterculture and a country’s brutal past that follow you off the page.
Following her International Booker Prize–shortlisted The Dangers of Smoking in Bed and Premio Herralde de Novela winner Our Share of Night, Mariana’s third short story collection, A Sunny Place for Shady People, presents a delicious array of macabre and horrible happenings. Hear Mariana exorcise the inspiration for these queer and twisted tales in conversation with Carody Culver.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Acclaimed columnist and political commentator Peter Beinart issues a bold appeal to rewrite the narrative of Jewish identity to embrace nuance, tradition and culture.
Bringing together his personal experience and understanding of politics with history and a clear vision for the future, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning is a provocative work that grapples with persecution, victimhood, supremacy, morality and the distinction between the nation-state.
Hear Peter tell a new story of Jewish identity in conversation with Debbie Whitmont.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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On the one hand, food is about comfort, love and passion. On the other, it’s about the economics of the restaurant rat race and the politics of identity and historical context.
Hear chefs, restauranteurs and culinary stars Parwana’s Durkhanai Ayubi (Returning the Moon), Adam Liaw (Time for Dinner) and Melbourne icon Tony Tan (Tony Tan’s Asian Cooking Class) discuss the good and bad of food culture. They consider our relationship with food, the flavours of identity, capitalism’s control of the restaurant industry and the social change on the horizon. With host Virginia Trioli.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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On the International Space Station, a team of astronauts watch our big blue planet as it silently turns beneath them.
This 2024 Booker Prize–winning novel is largely observations of the astronauts as they collect data and record small, slow changes in their environment and their own bodies. Yet Samantha Harvey’s prose is expansive, delicately encompassing life and death, fragility and strength, hope and fear in concentric circles of human life.
Hear Samantha discuss the profundity of this meditative novel in conversation with ABC Radio’s Claire Nichols (The Book Show).
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Artificial intelligence’s collision with human creativity is one of the most important stories of our time.
With the accelerating impact of AI, so much of what we understand about being human is being re-written.
Acclaimed writer Jeanette Winterson (12 Bytes: How artificial intelligence will change the way we live and love) sees AI changing our lives in unprecedented ways. Academic and researcher Toby Walsh (The Shortest History of AI) predicts the place AI will have in our futures.
Hear Jeanette and Toby bring the perspectives of an artist and a scientist together in this important contemporary conversation. With an introduction from Verity Firth.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Local treasure Dylin Hardcastle and international gems Alan Hollinghurst and Yael van der Wouden trace love, longing and queer experience through the decades in their heartfelt new novels.
In Dylin’s A Language of Limbs and Yael’s The Safekeep, teenage girls and women navigate unexpected Sapphic desires, while Alan paints a portrait of one man’s journey of self-discovery from childhood into adulthood in Our Evenings.
Discover how these intimate yet expansive queer histories came to be in this discussion with host Maeve Marsden.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Festival favourite State of the Nation returned bigger and better than ever this year for an Australian post-election wrap-up.
Assess the state of Australian politics in this panel discussion featuring broadcaster and Walkley Award–winning journalist Waleed Aly, Prime Minister’s Literary Award– and Walkley Award–winning journalist George Megalogenis, The Australia Institute’s chief political analyst Amy Remeikis and Melbourne Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award winner Niki Savva. They join veteran political journalist and former host of Insiders and Offsiders Barrie Cassidy.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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We closed out the 2025 Festival with an address from award-winning Australian writer Anna Funder.
As a writer who places being human at the centre of her work, Anna (Wifedom, Stasiland) has explored the best and worst that humans are capable of – surveillance, fascism and the tyranny of patriarchy – and the many forms of human courage and resistance. As artificial intelligence accelerates and patriarchy takes the gloves off, the world of bots and tech bros sees humans as raw material – free data they can profit from – in the same way that men have profited from women’s work for so long. How can we resist this exploitation of our humanity?
Hear how Anna sees the future of tech’s role in our lives in a formidable Closing Address.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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[Content warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners should be aware that this podcast contains reference to deceased persons.]
The fight for First Nations rights in Australia is ongoing, most recently frustrated by the lost 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum.
Indigenous leader and author Thomas Mayo’s newest work, Always Was, Always Will Be: The Campaign for Justice and Recognition Continues, is a guidebook to action for Indigenous recognition and a rallying cry for those working to close the gap.
Historian Clare Wright’s conclusion to her democracy trilogy, Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy, tells the story of how the Yolŋu of Arnhem Land created the Yirrkala Bark Petitions in 1963 and gave birth to the land rights movement.
Join Thomas and Clare as they explore these important struggles and what we can learn from them. With host Lorena Allam.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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What enables writers to grow and flourish?
Writing is mostly a solitary pursuit that draws on individual reserves of talent and skill. But writers are also part of a national community that can help, or hinder, celebrate or ignore them. Ireland provides bountiful support to its writers and literary ecosystem, but Australia fails to adequately nurture its own.
Listen to prominent writers Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn, Long Island) and Booker Prize–shortlisted author Charlotte Wood (Stone Yard Devotional, The Natural Way of Things) discuss how they became writers and the state of their nations’ literature. What can be done to wake Australia up to the need to support its writers? With host Michael Williams.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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The novel has continued to evolve since its inception as a major literary form centuries ago. It has seen styles and genres come and go, adaptation and translation between languages and cultures and countless publishing trends and cycles. In this panel discussion featuring four extraordinary novelists, Rumaan Alam (Entitlement), Robbie Arnott (Dusk), Samantha Harvey (Orbital) and Torrey Peters (Stag Dance), join host Kate Evans (ABC Radio National’s The Bookshelf) to consider the novel, its place in contemporary times and how their work fits into the larger literary landscape.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Join Benjamin Law and Artistic Director Ann Mossop as they discuss the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival program.
The pair talk about the 2025 Festival theme, In This Together, and how books bring us closer to one another, our planet and ourselves.
The 2025 Sydney Writers' Festival is out now. Head to our website to explore the program: https://www.swf.org.au/
Tickets on sale Saturday 15 March at 10am.
Thank you to 2SER for facilitating the recording of this podcast.
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Bruce Pascoe and Lyn Harwood invite us onto the Country they call home in Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra, reflecting on life after publishing Dark Emu.
In the aftermath of devastating bushfires in north-eastern Victoria, the couple rebuilt their farm. Here, they run the Aboriginal social enterprise Black Duck Foods, committed to traditional food-growing processes that care for Country and give back to the community.
Sit down with Bruce and Lyn, in conversation with Kerry O’Brien to explore how Australian agriculture can be transformed through the practices of the past.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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We all know the importance of literacy for school and life, but what happens when, despite all your efforts, reading just doesn’t “click”?
Sally Rippin, the Australian Children’s Laureate and author of the book Wild Things: How we learn to read and what happens if we don’t is joined by journalist and Dyslexia advocate, Cat Rodie, in an exploration of literacy, education and those who often fall through the gaps.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Jennifer Croft, Bri Lee and Louise Milligan have earned widespread acclaim in the realms of translation, non-fiction and investigative journalism, respectively.
Now, these authors are branching out into novels for the first time in their illustrious careers, revisiting themes in their previous writing to create stunning, gripping and beguiling works of the imagination.
Separate fact from fiction with Jennifer, Bri and Louise as they discuss the pleasures and pitfalls of braving a new genre.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Explore the literary histories of Charmian Clift, Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower.
Following her biography The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift, Nadia Wheatley contributed the afterword to The End of the Morning, Clift’s final manuscript, which was recently published more than 50 years after her death. Literary scholar Brigitta Olubas (Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life) joins forces with journalist Susan Wyndham to edit Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower: The Letters, which reveals the deep and vexed friendship between two of Australia’s greatest writers.
Learn more about these fabled authors’ work and writing lives with the scholars who are salvaging their stories from the archives.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Humankind stands at a crossroads: will artificial intelligence make us superhumanly productive, liberating us from life’s most mundane tasks? Or have we opened Pandora’s box, unleashing sentient technology that will eventually destroy us?
In a colossal contest of persuasion and wit, two teams of our best and brightest debate whether artificial intelligence is better than the real thing.
Decide once and for all with team captains Annabel Crabb and David Marr, as they duke it out alongside teammates Matilda Boseley, Rhys Nicholson, Tracey Spicer and Toby Walsh. Adjudicated by Yumi Stynes.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Robyn Davidson once described Unfinished Woman as an “infinite book”. “I feel absolutely that I have to write it and absolutely that I can’t write it.”
Twenty-five years in the making, this unforgettable memoir charts her expeditions since crossing the Gibson Desert with camels – the subject of her debut, Tracks, which her then-landlord, Doris Lessing, presciently declared “a classic”.
Robyn’s exploits include having a “volcanic” love affair with Salman Rushdie in London, migrating with nomads in Tibet and marrying an Indian prince in the Himalayas. She finally returns to the long-avoided country of her childhood and her mother’s tragic suicide.
Explore her remarkable life, in conversation with Michaela Kalowski.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Some consider Pride and Prejudice the first romantic comedy, with Jane Austen having set the ground rules for others to follow.
Certainly, with its witty heroine and enemies-to-lovers plotting, Pride and Prejudice has created many of the tropes we continue to see in rom-coms today. YA authors Kate and Angourie Rice (Stuck up and Stupid), Sophie Gonzales (The Perfect Guy Doesn't Exist) and Gabrielle Tozer (The Unexpected Mess of it All) talk with Nathan Luff about Austen’s lasting influences on the genre and the fun involved in reimagining rom-coms for contemporary readers.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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What kind of world could we create if we stopped believing inequality is the price of progress?
Archaeology professor David Wengrow’s groundbreaking book, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, co-authored with the late David Graeber, overturns the theories of Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens), Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel) and Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now). Challenging dominant narratives that the agricultural revolution meant abandoning an egalitarian Eden, the book unearths advanced early civilisations that weren’t governed by kings, presidents or authoritarian rule.
Transform your understanding of human evolution with David, in conversation with ABC RN’s Richard Fidler, and learn how rewriting history may provide political inspiration for today.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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In Your Favourites’ Favourites, our most loved writers introduce one of their favourite authors.
Acclaimed Women & Children author Tony Birch sits down with debut writer Graham Akhurst, a Fulbright Scholar who drafted his YA novel, Borderland, while studying in renowned writing program at Hunter College in New York City. This gripping coming-of-age story follows a city-born First Nations teenager on an epic quest to figure out who he is.
Join Tony and Graham as they discuss First Nations identity, the impact of colonisation and what happens when you take a stand.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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If you thought you knew the backstory of The Teacher's Pet, the gripping whodunnit podcast downloaded by over 80 million listeners, think again.
Two-time Gold Walkley Award–winning investigative journalist Hedley Thomas’ book takes readers behind the scenes of the podcast investigation with a blow-by-blow account of one of the most intriguing and enduring murder mysteries of our time.
Get the scoop as Hedley reveals to Matthew Condon how fresh leads, old evidence and a groundswell of public attention on a scandalous cold case finally saw justice delivered after nearly four decades.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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“The past is a foreign country”, L.P. Hartley famously wrote. It is also a place readers can visit via masterful historical fiction.
Be transported by esteemed panellists Francesca de Tores (Saltblood), Mirandi Riwoe (Sunbirds) and Abraham Verghese (The Covenant of Water) as they discuss the magic of bringing history to life for contemporary audiences. Learn how these authors conjure the past to make sense of the present and convincingly intertwine fact and fiction in their prose. Hosted by Kate Evans (ABC RN’s The Bookshelf).
Abraham Verghese appeared at this event via video link. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Imagine another world with the fantasy writers who are redefining the wildly popular genre.
Australian fantasy heavyweight Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom series) takes to the stage with ascending local star Shelley Parker-Chan (The Radiant Emperor duology) and global sensation Samantha Shannon (The Roots of Chaos series) to explain how they create expansive universes for their epic stories, heroes and heroines.
This is must-listen episode for YA and fantasy fans alike! Hosted by Aimée Lindorff.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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She may be self-absorbed, adrift or unhinged, but the ‘sad girl’ is taking the publishing industry by storm.
Debut novelists Nadine J. Cohen (Everyone and Everything), Madeleine Gray (Green Dot) and Jessie Stephens (Something Bad is Going to Happen) have all created unforgettable protagonists who are fallible, at times unlikeable and painfully relatable.
Hear from these exciting debut novelists as they discuss making and breaking this emerging genre’s rules, and how they crafted compelling portraits of present-day womanhood. In conversation with The Guardian’s Steph Harmon.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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From parched paddocks to sleepy coastal towns, the bodies keep piling up – and Australian readers can’t get enough.
This panel brings together some of Australia’s hottest local crime writers, with Sulari Gentill (The Mystery Writer), Dinuka McKenzie (Tipping Point) and Benjamin Stevenson (Everyone on this Train is a Suspect).
Dust off your Akubra for a thrilling chat about the outback noir genre and what makes Aussie crime fiction unique, with host Alex Adsett.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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In the wake of a shift in the global power balance, how can Australia best protect itself?
Two of Australia’s most interesting foreign policy thinkers take a fresh look at Australia’s place in the world and come to some surprising conclusions. Clinton Fernandes (Sub-Imperial Power) and Sam Roggeveen (The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace) tackle the big questions about the US alliance, the threat of China, and underneath it all, what kind of country Australia really is.
Listen as Sam and Clinton reshape Australia’s understanding of itself in the international arena, in conversation with Verity Firth.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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What is the writer’s role in an era of profound ecological change?
This panel event brings together leading local nature writers James Bradley and Bruce Pascoe to discuss how best to defend our environment. James’ latest book, Deep Water: The World in the Ocean, dives into the waves, and Bruce’s Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra investigates traditional agricultural practices that offer a blueprint for our farming futures.
Reflect on our relationship with the natural world and what lies ahead, as James and Bruce are joined in conversation by Ashley Hay.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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"People have crazy lives," says Paul Murray. "The stuff that happens to – quote-unquote – ordinary folks is very operatic."
Case in point: his Booker Prize shortlisted The Bee Sting which follows an unravelling household in the Irish Midlands who embody Tolstoy's proverb about unhappy families. Paul's third novel has been acclaimed by critics as “generous, expansive and glorious as a cathedral” (The Guardian).
One of three superb Irish writers at this year's Festival, this is your chance to catch Paul solo, in conversation with Kate Evans (ABC RN's The Bookshelf).
This episode was recorded live in May 2024.
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Four waves in, the feminist fight for gender equality is far from over.
This panel brings together the powerful and incendiary feminist voices of Hannah Ferguson, Sisonke Msimang and Jennifer Robinson. Hear from these leading writers and activists who between them offer daring feminist opinions on topics ranging from freedom of speech, right-wing politics, racism, xenophobia, belonging and identity, taboos around sex and pleasure, as well as the legal judgements that continue to silence and disadvantage women.
Be inspired by the feminist firebrands who are fighting for meaningful social change. Hosted by the inimitable Jo Dyer, this is an important examination of the most pressing issues facing women today.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Last year, Bryan Brown interviewed Sam Neill at the Festival. This year, it was Bryan’s turn in the hot seat as Sam interviewed him about his gripping new crime novel, The Drowning. Bryan is one of the most recognisable faces on our screens with more than 80 film and television projects to his name. This sensational new thriller with his characteristic laconic style – humorous, tough and suspenseful – confirms his place as one of the great Australian storytellers.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Going deep into the historical past, Lauren Groff (The Vaster Wilds, Matrix) and Francesca de Tores (Saltblood) create memorable heroines, real and imaginary, whose stories have not been told.
Their portrayals of ordinary women doing extraordinary things – a girl escaping alone into the wilderness, a pirate on the high seas – are richly detailed and vividly alive. Coming out of hiding into our imaginations, these heroines are so fierce they jump off the page. Join Lauren and Francesca in conversation with novelist and scholar Sophie Gee.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Join two of the most admired writers in Australia today, Booker Prize–winning Richard Flanagan and Miles Franklin–winning Anna Funder as they discuss writing in the margins between fiction and non-fiction, history and memoir, personal and public.
Historian Clare Wright leads this conversation, examining their genre-bending masterpieces. Through a hypnotic melding of dream, history, science and memory, Question 7 traces the ripples of history through Richard’s own family and is described by Anna as holding “a life between its covers”. Wifedom is Anna’s “counterfiction”, an attempt to write Eileen O'Shaughnessy, George Orwell’s first wife, back into the narrative from which history has so carefully excised her. Not only a New York Times Notable Book of 2023, Wifedom also described by Geraldine Brooks as “Simply, a masterpiece”.
Redefine genre with Richard and Anna as they discuss the craft of writing, the parts of themselves left excavated on the page and the consequences of the choices we make.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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While everyone has dirty laundry in their lives, not everyone will choose to air theirs publicly.
Whether on social media, in written memoir, public speaking or on television, how can sharing the ‘self’ when the story touches on family and community, still be navigated ethically? What are the consequences and ramifications of bringing the personal into the public realm? Join writers Benjamin Law, Rhys Nicholson and Amy Thunig as they unpack the fallout on the other side of publication, with host George Haddad.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Sean Turnell spent almost two years in Myanmar’s terrifying Insein Prison, accused of being a spy. Ma Thida was also incarcerated there, where, denied medical treatment, she came very close to dying.
How did they survive? What hope do these important players in Myanmar’s government and politics hold for the return of democracy three years after the military seized power in a coup? In conversation with Catherine Renshaw.
This event was presented in partnership with PEN Sydney and recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers' Festival.
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Melissa Lucashenko describes her latest novel, Edenglassie, as her “big book” – a multigenerational epic that torches Queensland’s colonial myths and reimagines Australia’s future.
Set in Brisbane and rivalling the romances of Too Much Lip and Mullumbimby, two parallel love stories play out two centuries apart. In both the colonial era and the present day, no one knows how far legacies will reach into modern lives.
Sit down with this celebrated author as she is joined on stage by ABC RN’s Kate Evans to discuss her critically acclaimed novel, described by The Weekend Australian as being “as heart-warming as it is heart-breaking”.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Following broadcaster and author Julia Baird’s multi-award-winning international bestseller, Phosphorescence, comes a beautiful and timely exploration of that most mysterious but necessary human quality: grace.
Bright Shining: How grace changes everything asks what grace looks like today, how we recognise it, nurture it within ourselves and express it. For Julia, grace can be found by being kinder, bigger and better with each other.
Sit down with Julia to discuss this luminous work, which The Guardian described as “a book the world needs now”. In conversation with journalist Jacqueline Maley.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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As conflict plays out across an unnamed region, the protagonist in Parramatta Laureate of Literature Yumna Kassab’s Politica imagines how she will later narrate her experiences: “We hadn’t spoken for years but then the war broke out...”
Sharing difficult stories is also at the heart of Miles Franklin Award winner Shankari Chandran’s Safe Haven, which follows a refugee threatened with deportation when she speaks out for other detainees. Sit down with Yumna and Shankari as they discuss their poignant and timely novels, which ask how, if possible, we can measure the cost of war and what lengths we will go to in the search for safety. With host Ashley Hay.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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After smash-hit Fates and Furies, the modern-day marriage story that was Barack Obama’s book of the year in 2015, Lauren Groff’s novels have looked to the past to understand the present.
Her latest historical novel, The Vaster Wilds, is set on the edge of the New World at an unnamed British settlement in the Americas. Fleeing violence, disease and starvation, a servant girl enters the wilderness alone. This spirited survivalist story has been critically acclaimed as “exhilarating” (The Guardian), “visionary” (The Observer) and “timeless” (The Times).
Join Lauren and host Melanie Kembrey as they explore this prophetic novel, which encapsulates the story of America in miniature.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Join Richard Flanagan as he discusses this hypnotic, genre-defying new book which entwines memoir, biography, autofiction and history through a daisy chain of stories both intimate and collective.
Opening with his father as a prisoner of war, the book leads readers through a literary love affair into nuclear physics of the 1930s and 40s and finally towards a young Richard fighting for his life in Tasmanian river rapids in a rumination on life’s choices and their intergenerational chain reactions. Richard speaks with Kerry O’Brien.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Social change is driven by conversation, in sharing ideas, and translating those ideas for audiences who don’t agree or understand what is at stake.
For many First Nations writers and journalists, this has been a huge priority over the last year, in particular, and one that comes with a cost. In a conversation with legendary truth-tellers, find out what sustains them to keep on going in the face of profound challenges. With Larissa Behrendt, Tony Birch, Narelda Jacobs and Amy Thunig.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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The quest for a life worth living has been the business of philosophers for millennia. How can we pursue answers to life’s big questions in a world that feels increasingly dangerous and unstable thanks to big tech and AI?
Unpack the ‘how’ in this unmissable episode from the pre-eminent philosopher A.C. Grayling.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Anti-fatness is a system of oppression, argues Kate Manne, afflicting vulnerable bodies in intersectional ways.
Building on her incisive studies of misogyny and male privilege, the Melbourne-born feminist philosopher’s latest book, Unshrinking: How to Fight Fatphobia, unpicks the dangerous virtues associated with dieting and deprivation, using a blend of first-hand stories and trenchant analysis.
Praised by US writer Roxane Gay as “required reading”, this timely intervention calls for a radical re-evaluation of who our bodies exist for – ourselves and no one else.
Learn from an acclaimed, accessible new voice in moral philosophy, in conversation with host Maeve Marsden.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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At 18, Abdulrazak Gurnah arrived in England as a refugee from the Zanzibar Revolution. Receiving the Nobel Prize more than 50 years later, he reflected that the “prolonged period of poverty and alienation” he experienced made him a writer.
From the contemporary immigrant experience in his debut, Memory of Departure, to colonial wartime conscription in Booker Prize shortlisted Paradise, Abdulrazak’s unflinching yet humane oeuvre interrogates the legacies of empire, centring that which is often too marginalised.
Listen as he and writer Sisonke Msimang discuss his tenth novel, Afterlives – an intergenerational portrait of love and loss under German occupation in East Africa.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? And what is the Baroque anyway?
Enter art historian and curator Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men, a response to E.H. Gombrich’s classic chronicle, The Story of Art, first published in 1950, which was recently updated to include... one woman.
Katy’s revisionist history builds on her popular podcast and Instagram account, The Great Women Artists, where her fresh approach has garnered fans worldwide and earned her a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list.
Overturn art history as you know it with Katy, in conversation with curator Beatrice Gralton.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Crime fiction king Michael Connelly discusses the highlights of his illustrious career and the characters who have populated the pages of his cult classic novels.
The bestselling author of 39 books, selling over 80 million copies worldwide, he talks with The Monthly’s Michael Williams about the art of crime writing, seeing his work reach the screen, including the Netflix smash-hit The Lincoln Lawyer and his newest book in the series, Resurrection Walk.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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How do you support writers if the market for their books is being steadily destroyed?
As bookshops close their doors in record numbers and writers see their income steadily eroding, its time for government to take action. With a simple fix – to stop book discounting for a time after first publication, as many EU countries do. Both writers and independent booksellers would benefit.
Ray Bonner, Richard Flanagan, Olivia Lanchester and Michael Robotham join host of Read This Michael Williams in-conversation.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Jake Adelstein has spent decades reporting on Japanese organised crime and is the only American journalist to be admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club.
These unique experiences informed his memoir, Tokyo Vice, which was adapted into an HBO Max series starring Ansel Elgort, the second season of which premiered in February. Jake returns to Japan’s seedy underworld with this hotly anticipated follow-up Tokyo Noir, which is equal parts history lesson, true crime exposé and darkly comic memoir.
Hear Jake and host Peter Hartcher discuss what it’s like when you’re in too deep to distinguish the story you chase from the story you are living.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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At 21, Samantha Shannon was hailed as the next big thing in genre fiction for her bestselling dystopian debut, The Bone Season.
Samantha’s latest queer fantasy series, The Roots of Chaos, is a feat of feminist worldbuilding, reimagining the legend of Saint George and the Dragon to create a universe where princesses save themselves. Following smash-hit The Priory of the Orange Tree, the prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, is an engrossing saga about a world on the brink of war with dragons – and the women warriors who must protect humankind. Meet fantasy’s new mother of dragons, joined on stage by Shelley Parker-Chan.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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[Content warning: Sexual assault]
Suzie Miller’s disturbingly prescient play, Prima Facie, dramatises the price sexual assault victims pay for speaking out.
This blistering one-woman show wowed audiences on Broadway and the West End, winning Suzie an Olivier Award and Killing Eve favourite Jodie Comer a Tony for her performance as the brilliant young barrister who, one sickening night, finds herself thrust into the flawed justice system.
Put the courts on trial with Suzie and writer and podcaster Nicole Abadee, as they discuss Prima Facie’s adaptation into a gripping novel and screenplay set to star Cynthia Erivo.
Suzie Miller appeared at this event via video link. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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What is driving American decline, and what does it mean for the world?
Long-time foreign correspondent Nick Bryant’s most recent posting took him to New York City to cover the Trump years. In his compelling analysis of American history and politics, Nick finds the roots of current polarisation and conflict in its history. If the American experiment is failing, what does this mean in for a world order with American power and influence at its heart? Pressing global issues such as current conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, the world’s ability to act on climate change, the dangers of AI or threats posed by China and Russia are all held hostage by the failure of the American experiment.
Learn from this renowned reporter as he discusses how the hate, divisiveness and paranoia of contemporary American politics are central to the nation’s story. In conversation with ABC RN’s Geraldine Doogue.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Banning books, waving flags and persecuting racial minorities. Sound familiar?
After New York Times–bestselling novel Little Fires Everywhere – which was adapted into a popular miniseries starring Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon – comes a similarly moving tale about the unbreakable bond between a mother and son.
Celeste Ng’s third novel, Our Missing Hearts, is set in a marginally more dystopian version of Trump’s America and follows Bird, a young boy searching for his politically dissident mother, and Margaret, a poet striving to change the world for her son.
Listen to Celeste and host Claire Nichols as they discuss hope in the face of isolation and cynicism, the redemptive power of storytelling, and the capacity for art to create meaningful change.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Find sanctuary in this uplifting celebration of creativity, chaired by Michaela Kalowski.
Award-winning journalist Julia Baird follows her international bestseller, Phosphorescence, with Bright Shining, a stunning and insightful call for grace in a world which has forgotten its importance.
Bestselling author Holly Ringland, whose debut novel, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, was published in 30 countries and adapted into an Amazon miniseries starring Sigourney Weaver, invites readers into her creative practice in The House That Joy Built.
Learn how to recognise, cultivate and express these nourishing qualities, even in the darkest of times.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Can a person truly be good? What is forgiveness? Is losing hope a moral failure? And is the business of grief ever really finished?
These questions pervade Charlotte Wood’s latest novel, Stone Yard Devotional, which is set on the Monaro plains where the much-loved author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend grew up.
It follows a woman who abandons city life to return to the place of her childhood, holing up in a cloistered religious community where she confronts her past.
Hear Charlotte and host Beejay Silcox discuss her most personal novel to date.
This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Love is indeed a many splendoured thing in the work of K Patrick and Christos Tsiolkas, who know firsthand the pleasures of writing queer love stories.
Hosted by Madeleine Gray, this beautiful conversation brings together two authors to discuss their sensual new novels. K’s Mrs S pulses with lust and longing at an elite boarding school, while Christos’ critically acclaimed The In-Between follows a fledgling relationship between two middle-aged men.
Swoon with K and Christos in this heartfelt discussion of romance, regret, desire and hope.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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“We are invisible”, writes Balli Kaur Jaswal in Now You See Us. “We clean your houses, we look after your children, we know your secrets.”
The Singaporean-Australian writer is joined by Dominican-American novelist Elizabeth Acevedo (Family Lore) and Arab-Australian author Sara M Saleh (Songs for the Dead and the Living and The Flirtation of Girls) whose latest works portray the private lives and subterranean desires of women who are too often silenced.
In conversation with ABC RN’s Kate Evans, these cross-cultural novelists discuss the rich inner worlds of their characters, whose aspirations are often obscured by duty and expectation.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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In his Booker Prize acceptance speech, Paul Lynch admitted his fifth novel, Prophet Song, had been difficult to write.
“The rational part of me believed I was dooming my career,” he said, “though I had to write the book anyway. We do not have a choice in such matters”.
Set in Ireland’s near future, Prophet Song depicts a collapsing society in the grip of an increasingly tyrannical government. The Booker Prize judges described it as a novel “to remind us of all that is worth saving”.
Sit down with Paul and host Michael Williams to discuss this timely and terrifying parable.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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War correspondent Marie Colvin stated: “It has always seemed to me that what I write about is humanity in extremis, pushed to the unendurable, and that it is important to tell people what really happens in wars.”
With conflict continuing in Ukraine, and the death toll of journalists in the Gaza conflict reaching alarming proportions, we look at the role of journalists in war – on and off the frontlines – and how vital the protection of journalists is to news we can trust about the realities of war.
Join us to hear from those with firsthand experience from the most conflict-ridden parts of the world: Global Affairs Editor for the ABC, John Lyons, The Guardian World Affairs Editor, Julian Borger and journalists Alisa Sopova and Anastasia Taylor-Lind of the 5km From the Frontline project. In conversation with journalist and broadcaster Hamish Macdonald.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Matildas fever swept across Australia during the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, taking hold of new soccer fans and diehards alike. But where do we go next to tap into the potential of women’s sport?
Hosted by The Ticket podcast’s Tracey Holmes, this elite panel features Olympic rugby gold medallist Chloe Dalton (Girls Don’t Play Sport), Australia’s most decorated cycling Olympian Anna Meares and world champion pro-athlete Jana Pittman (Enough).
Cheer on the sportswomen kicking goals for female athletes everywhere.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Physician and writer Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone, crafts a masterly narrative of three generations of a family in Kerala, through the eyes of a young girl, from her arranged marriage at the turn of the 20th century to her emergence as the matriarchal figure Big Ammachi.
Solving the mystery of a family affliction – in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning – the book brings to life a vanished past and the impact of change on lives and communities.
Examine the marriage of medicine and literature with Abraham, joined by host Roanna Gonsalves.
Abraham Verghese appeared at this event via video link. This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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After a male colleague took credit for her work, Bonnie Garmus channelled her rage into the unforgettable protagonist of Lessons in Chemistry Elizabeth Zott – a chemist-turned-celebrity cook who surreptitiously teaches housewives to subvert the status quo.
With her debut, Bonnie became a multimillion-copy-bestselling novelist, whose novel has also been adapted into an Apple TV series starring Brie Larson. This 1960s-set comedy has inspired readers worldwide with its message that it's never too late to change everything – including yourself.
Listen to Bonnie as speaks with Caroline Baum about science, sexism and success in your sixties.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Australia has been a close ally of the United States since 1940, but what does this mean for contemporary politics when democracy is more fragile than ever?
Donald Trump and his attacks on the US electoral system have raised red flags about the strength of American democracy. But in an age of disinformation and civic decline, signs of fragility are visible elsewhere, and Australia is no exception.
Chaired by Festival favourite Barrie Cassidy, one of Australia’s most experienced political correspondents and analysts, this expert panel features former BBC foreign correspondent Nick Bryant (The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict With Itself), UNSW Sydney Professor of Law and constitutional democracy specialist Rosalind Dixon and Senior Fellow of the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre Bruce Wolpe (Trump’s Australia: How Trumpism changed Australia and the shocking consequences for us of a second term).
Unpack the far-reaching ramifications of this relationship across trade, security, foreign policy and beyond. Together they will examine whether it’s too late to steer Democracy back on course in this defining moment with the ‘battle for the soul of America’ due to play out at the US Election later this year.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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“Praiseworthy is mighty in every conceivable way: mighty of scope, mighty of fury, mighty of craft, mighty of humour, mighty of language, mighty of heart.” – Stella Prize
Hear from the winner of this year’s Stella Prize, Alexis Wright, as she joins judging panel chair Beejay Silcox in conversation to discuss her creative inspirations, writing process and prize-winning work, Praiseworthy.
Celebrating original, excellent and engaging works by women and non-binary authors, the Stella Prize has helped elevate the careers of numerous Australian writers and has become one of the country’s most prestigious literary accolades.
Alexis Wright appeared at this event via video link. This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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“I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces”, begins Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel, The Sympathizer, the internationally acclaimed bestseller that was recently adapted into an HBO series starring Sandra Oh and Robert Downey Jr.
This duality is also at the heart of Viet’s highly original memoir, A Man of Two Faces, which details with sardonic wit and incisive analysis the double consciousness of a Vietnamese refugee growing up in North America.
Listen to the celebrated author, hailed as “a conscience of American literature” (The New Yorker), in conversation with Benjamin Law.
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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“How other people live is pretty much all I think about,” writes Ann Patchett.
Since her breakthrough novel, Bel Canto, won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Ann’s clever, compelling and expertly crafted portraits of other people’s lives have enamoured readers and critics alike.
The author of bookshelf staples like Commonwealth and The Dutch House returns with another bestseller, Tom Lake – a meditation on young love, marriage and the lives people lead before having children.
Hear stories from Ann and her writer penpal, Meg Mason (Sorrow and Bliss), on home, family and bookselling – with some Parnassus Books reading recommendations thrown in!
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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[Content warning: misogynistic violence, sexual assault]
When Kate Manne’s first book Down Girl, a tightly argued analysis of misogyny, was published shortly after the full exposé of Harvey Weinstein, she became ‘the philosopher of #MeToo’ – someone who could explain in crisp and compelling terms what misogyny is and how it works.
With her trademark combination of philosophical rigor and vivid storytelling, her next book Entitled took aim at male privilege and how it hurts women. Her new book Unshrinking: How to Fight Fatphobia targets particularly prevalent and oppressive aspects of misogyny – fatphobia and diet culture – proposing a radical rethinking of our bodies and the world.
In her closing address, join Kate to build on this extraordinary body of work and consider what recent activism has changed, what has resolutely stayed the same and what has worsened. What might the future of misogyny look like?
This episode was recorded live at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Join Annabel Crabb and Artistic Director Ann Mossop as they discuss the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival program.
The pair talk about the 2024 Festival theme, Take Me Away, and how books let us escape into different worlds, live other lives and travel in time and space.
The 2024 Sydney Writers' Festival is out now. Head to our website to explore the program: https://www.swf.org.au/
Tickets on sale Saturday 9 March at 10am.
Thank you to 2SER for facilitating the recording of this podcast
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[Content warning: Child sexual abuse]
Join internet darling Daniel Lavery as he lifts the lid on his writing life and Dear Prudence, a collection of the weirdest and wildest questions received during his tenure as Slate’s agony aunt. Filled with his always sympathetic, thoughtful and good-humoured advice, it offers a good dose of sense and compassion in an increasingly wonky world. Daniel reveals the secrets to dispensing wise counsel and talks about his broader career as the co-founder of legendary website The Toast and a New York Times–bestselling author. In conversation with Mon Schafter.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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The Curiosity Lecture series returns to the Festival with a line-up of our most thought-provoking speakers delivering one-time talks on topics of intrigue, interest and importance. In this entertaining talk, author Tabitha Carvan shares the story of how falling for Benedict Cumberbatch while stuck at home with two young children became an unlikely catalyst for self-discovery. She casts light on what becomes of women’s passions in adulthood and what happens if you subvert the narrative and simply love something like you used to.
Supported by UNSW Sydney.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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[Content warning: Sexual assault and paedophilia]
Women and girls have long been pressured to conform to written and unwritten rules about how to think, act, look and feel. But a new generation of writers and activists are breaking down barriers to allow women and girls to show their real selves. Hear from Wadjanbarra Yidinji, Jirrbal and African-American filmmaker and Gigorou author Sasha Kutabah Sarago and activist for sexual assault survivors and The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner author Grace Tame in conversation with disability and women’s rights advocate Hannah Diviney about their pathbreaking work.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Celebrated Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov has been one of the most important voices throughout the Russian invasion of his adopted homeland, releasing frequent dispatches from Kyiv and the remote countryside. See him in conversation about Diary of an Invasion, his searing on-the-ground account of the human toll of the war, the interrelated history between the nations, and how language itself has become a battleground in the conflict. Andrey speaks live via video with on-stage interviewer Matt Bevan.
Supported by ARA.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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When Ghassan Hage’s seminal study on racism in Australia, White Nation, was published 25 years ago, the Cronulla riots, Christchurch massacre and Black Lives Matter movement all lay ahead. Hear from a lively panel of writers and thinkers as they consider how racism and white privilege have changed here since then and what lies ahead. Anthropologist and social critic Ghassan Hage, Palestinian-Egyptian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, The Sydney Morning Herald culture editor Osman Faruqi, and Gomeroi academic and author Amy Thunig are joined in conversation by global diaspora expert Andonis Piperoglou.
Presented with Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Australian author Holly Ringland became a publishing sensation with the release of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, a gripping coming-of-age novel that has been adapted for TV, starring Sigourney Weaver and Leah Purcell. Her latest novel, The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, is an equally enthralling tale, tracing the far reaches of grief, courage and sisterly love in a story spanning Tasmania, Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands. Holly speaks with Michaela Kalowksi about her new masterwork.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Richard Osman, bestselling novelist of The Thursday Murder Club series and king of British television trivia, talks with Sydney Writers' Festival's Artistic Director Ann Mossop in his first Australian appearance.
The beloved murder mystery series has gripped readers worldwide – soaring to success as an international bestseller with over 10 million copies sold worldwide.
Richard talks about the fourth book in the series, The Last Devil to Die, and the antics that await the unlikely crime-fighting friends of Coopers Chase retirement village. In setting out to solve the murder of an antiques dealer, the gang encounters art forgers, online fraudsters, drug dealers, and heartaches close to home. Richard discusses his career as a leading television producer and presenter, what drew him to writing crime novels, and the upcoming screen adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club helmed by Steven Spielberg.
Catch up on this thrilling conversation for fans of murder, mystery and more!
Presented in partnership with BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival.
This episode was recorded at a special Sydney Writers' Festival event in November 2023.
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Did podcasts kill the radio star – or completely revitalise storytelling for the 21st century? Join a special line-up of crime podcasters for a discussion about the rise of the medium and how it is changing journalism. They consider how the format fosters creativity and intimacy, and why it may yet rank among the most exciting cultural innovations of our times. Featuring Patrick Abboud, Kate McClymont, and Hedley Thomas, on stage with the Schwartz Media’s 7am host, Ruby Jones.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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In a special series of events, Your Favourites’ Favourites sees our most beloved writers speak with a breakout Australian author from the past year. Join globally bestselling crime novelist Jane Harper as she chats with fellow crime writer and stand-up comedian Benjamin Stevenson about the secrets to crafting a suspenseful story. They talk about the worldwide success of Benjamin’s third novel, the darkly funny meta-murder mystery Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, which is soon to be adapted into a major HBO TV series.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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[Content warning: Explicit language]
Eleanor Catton became the youngest winner of the Booker Prize in 2013 for her sprawling Victorian mystery The Luminaries. Its keenly anticipated follow-up, Birnam Wood, is a psychological thriller set in rural New Zealand, where super-rich foreigners face off with ragtag locals on the eve of a global catastrophe. Eleanor is in conversation with Beejay Silcox about her gripping story that brings kaleidoscopic insight into what drives us to survive.
Eleanor Catton appears thanks to the support of Rosemary Block.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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In skilled hands, historical fiction brings the past to life in surprising ways. It also helps us make sense of our present, and even offers foreknowledge of the future. Hear from some of the country’s finest writers of historical novels – Geraldine Brooks (Horse), Pip Williams (The Bookbinder of Jericho) and emerging talent Sally Colin-James (One Illumined Thread) – as they discuss the past as prologue and how they convincingly intertwine fact and fiction in their work. Hosted by ABC RN’s The Bookshelf’s Kate Evans.
Supported by ARA.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Before Markus Zusak became an international bestseller with The Book Thief, he wrote and published the award-winning novel The Messenger. The story of a Sydney taxi driver’s extraordinary adventures, it has now been brought to television by the ABC. In this conversation about the joys and challenges of taking a beloved work of fiction to the screen, Markus is joined by award-winning executive producer and writer Sarah Lambert (Lambs of God, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart). Film and TV critic Wenlei Ma hosts the conversation.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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A dazzling love letter to gaming and friendship, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by American novelist Gabrielle Zevin has become a word-of-mouth bestseller across the globe. It follows two university friends who become creative partners in a brilliantly imagined world of video game design, where success brings fame, joy and tragedy. Gabrielle chats with Melanie Kembrey about her lifelong love of gaming, what her novel reveals about the importance of play and the many ways we forge human connections, and why she hoped to illuminate the early days of a vast entertainment industry often overlooked by bookworms.
This episode was recorded live at a special 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival's event.
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Weary of nonstop climate doom? Listen to a trio of environmental experts examine promising developments, signs of hope and viable solutions for a greener, more sustainable future. Climate scientist Joëlle Gergis (Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope), inventor and scientist Saul Griffith (The Big Switch), and environmental advocate Claire O’Rourke (Together We Can: Everyday Australian’s doing amazing things to give our planet a future) offer an empowering vision for stemming the climate crisis, in conversation with Simon Holmes à Court.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Much-loved Conversations host and bestselling author Richard Fidler delves into The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, an account of medieval wanderers who travelled to the edges of the known world during Islam’s fabled Golden Age. He joins Nicole Abadee to discuss the work hailed by The Sydney Morning Herald as “a bewitching tale consisting of stories within stories that radically tilts the Western reader’s perspective, revealing a world when all roads led to Baghdad”.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Hear from Miles Franklin Award–winning Carpentaria novelist and Waanyi nation woman Alexis Wright as she talks about her latest novel, Praiseworthy. Set in a small Australian town beset by a haze cloud that heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of ancestors, the story is rendered with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis is renowned. Alexis speaks with Ivor Indyk about a timely fable for the end of days.
Alexis Wright appears thanks to the support of Sam Meers AO.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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[Content warning: Domestic violence]
Award-winning and bestselling author Trent Dalton has captured readers with books like Boy Swallows Universe, All Our Shimmering Skies and Love Stories. He has made us laugh, and made us cry, but above all, he has drawn us in to his unique world of storytelling.
His new novel, Lola in the Mirror, is a darkly funny and beautiful story of life, death and a country neck-deep in a housing crisis. Trent talks about his work's progression from page to stage and screen and how his new novel navigates the intricacies of writing fiction from reality. He delves into that intimate and sometimes-confronting moment we all face when looking in the mirror.
Listen to him in conversation with author and broadcaster Indira Naidoo.
This episode was recorded at a special Sydney Writers' Festival event in October 2023.
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Hear from acclaimed storytellers Robbie Arnott, Fiona McFarlane and James McKenzie Watson about their beautiful novels, which chart very different lives set against unmistakably Australian backdrops. Robbie’s Limberlost tells the story of a man’s journey through life, while evoking Tasmania’s diverse natural habitat. Fiona’s The Sun Walks Down unfurls the narrative of a missing child in 1883 South Australia, depicting the distinct landscape and unsettling history of the Flinders Ranges. James McKenzie Watson’s gothic thriller Denizen is a simultaneous celebration of harsh country and stoic people, set against the backdrop of remote NSW. Listen to them in conversation with Susan Wyndham.
Supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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[Content warning: discussions of mental health and suicide]
How can we apply the wisdom of the ages to modern living? This is the question at the heart of books by Worimi storyteller Paul Callaghan and journalist and author Brigid Delaney. Paul’s The Dreaming Path: Indigenous Thinking to Change Your Life reveals the power of Indigenous spirituality as a deep source of contentment and wellbeing, while Brigid’s Reasons Not to Worry examines how ancient Stoic principles can help us regain a sense of agency and tranquillity. Listen to them in conversation with Ailsa Piper.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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The latest novels of celebrated writers Sophie Cunningham and Gail Jones explore the lives of extraordinary artistic figures at turning points in history. Sophie’s This Devastating Fever interweaves the lives of Leonard and Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Set with modern-day climate change disasters. Gail’s acclaimed Salonika Burning imagines how the stories of famous figures who served in the first world war, including author Miles Franklin and painters Grace Pailthorpe and Stanley Spencer, may have overlapped. They speak with Ashley Hay about their blending of history and fiction.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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A panel of fascinating figures discuss their new memoirs and what it means to live a creative life – on stage, on screen, or in journalism. Mawunyo Gbogbo’s Hip Hop & Hymns recounts growing up African Australian and forging a media career via New York. Shane Jenek’s Caught in the Act charts his hard-won journey to fame as drag artist Courtney Act. Heather Mitchell’s Everything and Nothing depicts the light and shade that co-exist in love, family and the arts. They talk with host Maeve Marsden.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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One of the great Australian writers, Don Watson has done much to hold a mirror up to the nation. His latest title, The Passion of Private White, tells the true story of an anthropologist and Vietnam veteran, Neville White who has devoted fifty years to the Yolngu clans of the Donydji homeland in north-east Arnhem Land; at once mapping and recording their culture, law, lands and languages and helping them build a successful community – one precariously poised between their traditions and European ideology and institutions. Don speaks with Laura Tingle about his storied career and his new book, which brings unique insight into the deep past and the troubled present.
Supported by ARA.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Home cooking is at the heart of our food cultures and brings a comfort that can satisfy our physical and emotional needs. Join a panel of celebrated chefs and writers as they discuss their own home cooking, compare comfort dishes and consider the rich conversation between time-honoured ways of preparing meals and the sometimes-showy food culture of today. Featuring restaurateur Durkhanai Ayubi (Parwana: Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen), prize-winning chef Rosheen Kaul (Chinese-ish), cook and star of Netflix’s Chef’s Table Asma Khan (Ammu) and culinary writer Alice Zaslavsky (The Joy of Better Cooking) in conversation with writer and comedian Jennifer Wong.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Admonished or admired for their moxie, ‘difficult women’ make themselves heard, challenge the status quo and shun gendered notions of niceness. In this panel event, two authors reflect on the difficult women who grace the pages of their books, sometimes with no grace at all. What makes these characters so striking? And why do we need them in the world? Anne Casey-Hardy (Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls) and Fiona Kelly McGregor (Iris) share the stage with interviewer Sophie Cunningham.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Bestselling author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai and debut Australian author André Dao come together to discuss their new books in which the tumult of Vietnamese history converges with the present day. The follow-up to The Mountains Sing, Quế Mai’s Dust Child is a suspenseful saga of family secrets, hidden trauma and the overriding power of forgiveness. André’s Anam moves through a series of displacements from Hanoi to Paris and Melbourne to explore themes of memory, colonialism, inheritance and belonging. They appear in conversation with Sheila Ngọc Phạm.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Trinidadian-British poet, novelist and musician Anthony Joseph was awarded the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize in 2022 for Sonnets for Albert. A series of elegies to his mostly absent father, it explores the wider edges of Caribbean masculinity, loss and longing, drawing praise from the judges as “a luminous collection which celebrates humanity in all its contradictions and breathes new life into this enduring form.” Hear from Anthony as he discusses his craft and career, spanning five poetry collections and three novels, in conversation with Felicity Plunkett.
Supported by Jibb Foundation.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Award-winning journalist Kate Legge discusses her search for answers after she learned of her husband’s affair, as chronicled in her memoir, Infidelity and Other Affairs. She reflects on a journey that led to the discovery of a fault line of betrayal spanning generations, and the ensuing path to healing. Kate is in conversation with Ailsa Piper.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Can’t get enough romance literature in your life? Join bestselling historical fantasy romance author Freya Marske (A Restless Truth), acclaimed debut novelist Saman Shad (The Matchmaker) and Wiradjuri councillor turned fiction-writer Yvonne Weldon (Sixty-Seven Days) for a panel event that reveals the thrills, spills and secrets of penning page-turning love stories that bring fresh life to the genre while making our hearts beat a little faster. They chat with ABC radio host and self-professed romance novel addict Rudi Bremer.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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In the inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, artist and The New York Times–bestselling author Jenny Odell extolled the value of rest as resistance in a culture that always expects us to be productive. In conversation with Jess Scully she takes the discussion further and introduces her new book Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock which makes a radical argument about our concept of time and offers a hopeful antidote for anyone grappling with burnout and anxiety about the future.
Supported by ARA.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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After penning the Pulitzer Prize–winning novels The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, American author Colson Whitehead set out to write a trilogy of stories centred on a furniture salesman-turned-crook named Ray Carney. The first in the series, Harlem Shuffle, is a hugely entertaining tale of race, power and the history of New York in the guise of a page-turning heist novel. Join Colson in conversation with Michael Williams about the book and its forthcoming follow up, Crook Manifesto, which continues the saga in an increasingly combustible 1970s Manhattan.
Colson Whitehead appears thanks to the support of Matthew and Fiona Playfair.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Although many of us are lucky enough to eat well, we live in a food system that is broken. Ultra-processed products abound, food workers are exploited, hunger coexists with massive food waste, and farming methods have toxic consequences. Hear from a panel of inspiring advocates as they consider solutions to these problems and the path towards a better food future. Featuring champion of First Nations food practices and Warndu co-founders Damien Coulthard and Rebecca Sullivan, chef and writer Matthew Evans and food rescue activist Ronni Kahn in conversation with Margot Saville.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Hear from a panel of speakers whose works have, in different ways, illuminated Afghanistan’s kaleidoscopic past and present through war and unrest, but also through culture and community. Durkhanai Ayubi shares her family’s food, heritage and culture in Parwana. Zaheda Ghani speaks to her debut novel Pomegranate & Fig, a story of tradition, family, war and displacement. Andrew Quilty recounts the capture of the country’s capital in 2021 through the eyes of Afghans in August in Kabul. They speak with writer and director Benjamin Gilmour, whose film Jirga tells the story of an Australian soldier who returns to Afghanistan seeking to make amends for a war crime.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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RBG: Of Many, One playwright and lawyer Suzie Miller (Prima Facie) read her way into Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s character and intellect via hundreds of pages of cases and judgements. To bring her to the stage, actor Heather Mitchell (Everything and Nothing) even brushed her teeth ‘as Ruth would’. Find out more about the alchemy that brought RBG to life on the page and the stage in this very special conversation between two unique artists. They are joined by Ailsa Piper.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Biographies of public figures are perennially popular with readers eager to gain insight into the lives and legacies of political leaders and media titans. But are they beholden to scandals and scoops, or can they bring valuable perspectives to historic events and how we see ourselves as a nation? Hear from Paddy Manning, Niki Savva and Margaret Simons about how they balance public and private as they discuss their accounts of those in public life, on stage with host Laura Tingle.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Regarded as one the great Sri Lankan novelists, Shehan Karunatilaka won the 2022 Booker Prize for his epic, searing and darkly funny satire The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Narrated by the ghost of a gay atheist photojournalist, it follows a week in the afterlife in which he reckons with his sexual escapades, a gambling habit, and the state-sponsored death squads he sought to expose. Shehan speaks with Michael Williams about a novel that breaks with conventional modes of storytelling to illuminate the humanity and horrors of wartime Sri Lanka.
Supported by ARA.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Bestselling historian and Oxford professor Peter Frankopan explores the impact of climate change across history in The Earth Transformed: An Untold History. From how the cyclical pressures of El Niño paved the fall of the Moche civilisation in South America to the volcanic eruption in Iceland that helped bring the Ottoman Empire to its knees, he brilliantly recasts human history through the lens of the natural world. Peter chats with Tim Flannery about a compelling book with a timely message – civilisations that fail to act sustainably may be met with catastrophe.
Supported by ARA.
Peter Frankopan appeared at Sydney Writers' Festival thanks to Tearaway Press.
Supported by the British Council.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Jane Harper has been hailed “the queen of outback noir” (The Sunday Times) for a string of crime novels that have sold more than 3 million copies in 40 territories worldwide. Her latest book, Exiles, brings back federal policeman Aaron Falk, who was first introduced in The Dry. He investigates the disappearance of a woman from a country wine festival whose infant daughter is found unharmed in her pram. See Jane in conversation with Michaela Kalowski about the thrilling and final instalment of the much-loved Falk series.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Two-time world debating champion Bo Seo and former High Court justice Michael Kirby examine how we might better listen to and disagree with each other in an era of increasingly harsh and divisive discourse. They discuss Bo’s new book, Good Arguments, part memoir of how he discovered the art of debating as a shy, conflict-adverse child, and part treatise on why the pillars of good debate – fact finding, reason and persuasion – offer an antidote to political spin, fake news and social media slugfests.
Supported by the Jibb Foundation.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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How is fiction evolving with our times? Is the novel a vulnerable art or more vital than ever? Could AI one day pen a masterpiece or do our storytellers guard an inimitable craft? Join some of the leading names in literature today – Eleanor Catton, Richard Flanagan, Tracey Lien and Colson Whitehead – for a lively discussion about the state of the novel and the future of fiction. They are joined in conversation by ABC RN’s The Bookshelf’s Kate Evans.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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We are fascinated by stories of crime and how they unfold. There are no finer narrators of such stories than legendary author Helen Garner and The Teacher’s Pet podcaster Hedley Thomas, whose work explores the link between confronting terrible things that happen and the people who are involved. They sit down with Sarah Krasnostein to explore the compelling nature of crime and the pressing question of what happens when justice takes a lifetime – or if it never comes at all?
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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With effects rippling into the present, the Sri Lankan Civil War, lasting more than 25 years from the early 1980s until 2009, has found an important place in our current cultural canon. Join lawyer and novelist of Song of the Sun God and Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, Shankari Chandran, author of Booker Prize–winning The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, Shehan Karunatilaka, and Anandavalli as they discuss the island nation’s turbulent recent history and its influence in their storytelling. In conversation with prize-winning author Roanna Gonsalves.
Supported by UNSW Sydney.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Culinary icons Stephanie Alexander AO and Maggie Beer have inspired generations of home cooks and fundamentally transformed how we think about food. They reflect on their decades-long friendship, and their partnership in running a cooking school for Australians in a medieval villa in Italy. They also talk about their influential books on preparing, cooking and savouring delicious food, including their co-authored Tuscan Cookbook, which was recently optioned to be made into a feature film. They are joined on stage by cook, writer and presenter Adam Liaw.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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In a special series of events, Your Favourites’ Favourites sees one of our most beloved writers speak with a breakout Australian author from the past year. Join popular writer and broadcaster Benjamin Law as he chats with Tracey Lien, a southwestern Sydney–raised, Brooklyn-based reporter and debut novelist of All That’s Left Unsaid. Set in 1990s Cabramatta, the story is an internationally bestselling murder mystery that explores the effects of migration and inherited trauma while pulling apart the intricate bonds of friendship, family and culture.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Australian novelist Pip Williams drew wide acclaim for her bestselling debut, The Dictionary of Lost Words, “a marvellous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress” (Geraldine Brooks). Her new novel, The Bookbinder of Jericho, covers similar terrain, with the story of a young British woman working in a book bindery who gets a chance to pursue knowledge and love when the first world war upends her life. Pip discusses her latest work with Cassie McCullagh.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Relive all the thrills and spills of the past year in Australian politics with veteran journo Barrie Cassidy and his hand-picked squad of the country’s sharpest pundits. From ScoMo’s secret ministries to the climate reckoning of the Teal wave and the verdict on Labor’s first year in office, it’s all up for dissection as they take the pulse of the nation. Hear Barrie in conversation with Amy Remeikis, Niki Savva and Laura Tingle.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Celebrated actor Sam Neill shares stories from his memoir Did I Ever Tell You This, a wild and witty account of a career in film and TV spanning half a century. From his early days in amateur Shakespeare productions in New Zealand to leading roles in movies such as My Brilliant Career, Jurassic Park and The Piano, Sam brings insight and humour to his trials and triumphs, on and off screen. He is joined in conversation by fellow actor and author, Bryan Brown.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Four favourite writers come together to give the lowdown on having their works adapted into TV shows and movies and adapting the work of others. Hear from Eleanor Catton, whose novels The Rehearsal and The Luminaries have made their way to the screen; Holly Ringland, whose bestseller The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is being turned into a series starring Sigourney Weaver; and Tom Rob Smith, whose novel Child 44 became a movie with Tom Hardy and whose adaptations for the screen The Assassination of Gianni Versace have won him an Emmy and a Golden Globe. They chat with Benjamin Law.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Asma Khan, the Indian-British chef, restaurateur and star of Netflix’s Chef’s Table, shares culinary memories and treasured recipes from her book Ammu.Well-known for her all-female kitchen team and her commitment to social change, Asma speaks with Annabel Crabb about a cook book that is a joyful celebration of heritage, of slow-cooked dishes passed through generations, and of the inextricable link between food and love.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Whether in his magical realist tale of climate crisis The Living Sea of Waking Dreams or Booker Prize–winning window into the cruelty of war, The Narror Road to the Deep North, Australian novelist Richard Flanagan has used fiction to explore some of the great topics of our time. In his engrossing Closing Night Address, Richard speaks to the vital importance of telling our own stories to the shape the future.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Whether in his magical realist tale of climate crisis The Living Sea of Waking Dreams or Booker Prize–winning window into the cruelty of war, The Narror Road to the Deep North, Australian novelist Richard Flanagan has used fiction to explore some of the great topics of our time. In his engrossing Closing Night Address, Richard speaks to the vital importance of telling our own stories to shape the future.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.
Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Former prime minister Julia Gillard deep dives into her new book with Indira Naidoo. Not Now, Not Ever celebrates 10 years since Julia clapped back at misogyny with a speech in Parliament that continues to echo through the years. What inspired her words? What progress has been made since then? And what does future look like for the next generation of female leaders?
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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From Pulitzer Prize–winning author and journalist Geraldine Brooks, Horse is a historical saga of spirit, obsession and injustice. With the moral complexity of her novel March and a multi-stranded plot reminiscent of People of the Book, she explores the true tale of one of America’s greatest racehorses while reckoning with the corrosive legacy of slavery and racism. Geraldine Brooks spoke with Nicole Abadee about her latest work at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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With the campaign for a First Nations Voice to Parliament in full swing, leading First Nations thinkers Stan Grant and Teela Reid ask whether we are entering a new era for Australian democracy. Are we ready to speak and hear the truth about history as we move into the future? Two storytellers with different experiences and perspectives spoke about what it means to be a First Nations person in a country that is yet to reconcile historical wrongs.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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What will a Voice to Parliament actually mean? Indigenous leader Thomas Mayo and legendary journalist Kerry O'Brien have worked together to write an accessible and engaging guide to this important question. Whether you want to understand more about the Voice in the lead-up to the referendum, or would like some clear answers to share in conversation with loved ones, their discussion with host Jennifer Robinson is an inspiring sneak peek into what our shared future can be.
This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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"…it’s also a question of thinking about what lies ahead and what is the history behind it." Ann Mossop, Artistic Director of Sydney Writers' Festival
Join Annabel Crabb and Artistic Director Ann Mossop as they discuss the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival program.
The pair talk about the 2023 Festival theme, Stories For The Future, and its underlying call to action to think about how we understand the past, how we live in the present and how our words, our imaginations and our actions shape the future.
Thank you to 2SER for facilitating the recording of this podcast.
The 2023 Sydney Writers' Festival is now on sale. Head to our website to explore the program and book your tickets: https://www.swf.org.au/
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Join acclaimed Australian authors Jennifer Down and Hannah Kent as they discuss their immersive and lyrical novels that find beauty and hope amid tragedy. Praised as “mesmerising, brutal and unforgettable” (Sydney Morning Herald), Jennifer’s Bodies of Light traces a woman’s quest to forge a meaningful life after overcoming cycles of abuse and trauma. Hannah’s Devotion is a historical queer love story that journeys from Prussia to the South Australian frontier, exploring love, longing and the pain that arises from division. They appear with Susan Wyndham.
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If creativity and building a cultural and intellectual contribution are difficult undertakings, does doing it in collaboration with another person make it easier or harder? Whether making a podcast, writing a book or building a following are two heads better than one? With their acclaimed podcast, Ladies, We Need to Talk Yumi Stynes and Claudine Ryan tackle taboos and topics that women want to explore but are too afraid to share. Taking their partnership to the next level, the two released a book that dove deeper into the forbidden conversations of bodies, health, sex and relationships. Join Yumi and Claudine as they compare notes on the highs and lows, the advantages and disadvantages of working with one another. This panel will be moderated by interviewer and curator, Michaela Kalowski.
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Of the (many) exhausting things about social media, one of the most tedious is the self-appointed authorities spouting armchair commentary on any and every subject, all while experts are increasingly degraded or ignored in our politics and media. From climate science to historical knowledge, if expert findings don’t suit a certain political narrative, they’re ultimately dismissed. Communications expert Ed Coper (Facts and Other Lies), economist Richard Denniss (Big: The Role of the State in the Modern Economy) and marine ecologist Adriana Vergés sit down with Sophie Black to consider how we make sense of the world and who we should be listening to when everyone’s an ‘expert’.
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Generations of inertia on the climate crisis, entrenched political partisanship and a public sphere defined by the volume of opinions rather than the willingness to listen means changing minds is a big ask. But from teachers to activists, artists and corporations, a huge effort has gone into trying to effect real change. What tools of persuasion, what methods of advocacy, what direct action is fair game when it comes to trying to get one’s cause across? What does the collision between the individual and big institutions look like? And does ideology have any chance against the forces of capital? Host Matt Beard and panellists Thomas Mayor, Sara M. Saleh and Carl Rhodes (Woke Capitalism) discuss the challenges and ethical dilemmas of trying to make a difference.
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In these uncertain times we live in, how exactly are we meant to make up our minds? New York Times Australian Bureau Chief and author of Into the Rip, Damien Cave; philosopher, science writer and author of How We Became Human, Tim Dean; and cognitive neuropsychologist Muireann Irish discuss what drives us to action. How do we weigh up pros, cons and risk factors, and how do stress and fear bear on our capacity for critical thinking? With ABC Radio National’s All in the Mind host Sana Qadar.
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In award-winning writer Fiona Murphy’s (The Shape of Sound) first year of work as a physiotherapist, a patient asked her: “How does it feel to be nothing more than a glorified walking stick?” In some ways the work of a physiotherapist appears passive – congenial, even, involving gentle walks and small talk. But they are primed to catch any signs of distress or fatigue and predict the likelihood of a fall before it happens. In this insightful lecture, Fiona examines bodies, aging, fear and falling.
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William Shakespeare has long been regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language, but have we heard enough from The Bard? Is it time we prioritised other writers? Wirlomin Noongar writer and poet Claire G. Coleman (Lies, Damned Lies: A personal exploration of the impact of colonisation) contends that Shakespeare’s work lacks relevance for Australian readers and urges that it is vital we work more concertedly to decolonise the literary canon.
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The authors of two of 2022's most atmospheric historical fiction novels come together to discuss their books which trace compelling family dramas in richly-drawn settings from Western Australia to Iceland. Emily Brugman’s The Islands follows the sweeping story of the Saari family, a small group of Finnish migrants who come to find a new home on a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia in the mid-1950s. Kári Gíslason’s The Sorrow Stone takes a sidelined figure from the Viking tales and places her at the centre of an epic story of betrayal and revenge, set against the dramatic backdrop of the Icelandic countryside. Emily and Kári discuss their enthralling novels with Susan Wyndham.
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We’re living in an attention economy, but some of us are paying a steeper price than others. Being disabled or chronically ill means navigating a world not designed for you and having no choice but to always pay attention. 2022 Sydney Writers’ Festival Guest Curator Fiona Murphy asks: what if we flipped the equation and people with disability and chronic illness started charging for their expertise? In a series of funny, compelling and frank talks, four writers with disability and chronic illness share why society needs to start paying attention to the experts. Featuring El Gibbs (appearing live via video), Fiona Wright, Hannah Diviney and Michelle Law.
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The authors of two of 2022's most anticipated releases, Arab-Australian writers Omar Sakr and George Haddad, come together to discuss their debut novels about family, history and identity, and Western Sydney. Omar’s Son of Sin is a story of growing up queer and Muslim that illuminates the bonds that bind families, and how they can break. George’s unflinching Losing Face reflects Australian identity back to readers, while testing the notion that facing consequences makes us better people. They speak with Sarah Malik.
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Published by SBS Voices and Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement, ‘Straight-up Islander’ is Australia’s first online collection from writers with specific ancestral ties to the many islands and oceanways that make up the South Pacific Ocean. As Australia’s closest neighbours, we have a long and complicated history together: from the brunt of brownface humour to slavery and colonialism. Join the collection’s editor, Winnie Dunn, in this urgent and critical dialogue with Professor Jioji Ravulo, Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Kaiya Aboagye and Christine Afoa, all writers who represent Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Erub Island and Kuku Yalanji lands and oceanways.
Presented with SBS Voices and Sweatshop.
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In this special event, Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement celebrates the release of BLACKLIGHT, an anthology showcasing 10 years of First Nations storytelling from Western Sydney and beyond. Join a panel of First Nations writers as they delve deep into the art, history and soul of Black and Brown literature in Australia. Featuring Travis De Vries, Ali Murphy-Oates and Steven Ross in conversation with Sweatshop General Manager, Winnie Dunn.
Presented in partnership with Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement.
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“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” Percy Bysshe Shelley once mused. His famous epithet resonates today as readers turn to a new generation of poets who are bringing rhyme and reason to bear on thorny ideas and urgent emotions in uncertain times. In this special event, the poets behind some of 2022's most thought-provoking and stirring works read and perform from their works. Featuring Eunice Andrada (TAKE CARE), Tony Birch (Whisper Songs), Maxine Beneba Clarke (How Decent Folk Behave), Madison Godfrey, Sarah Holland-Batt (The Jaguar and Fishing for Lightning), Jazz Money (how to make a basket), Omar Musa (Killernova) and Sara M. Saleh, with host Declan Fry.
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“10 September 1996: Pauline Hanson delivered her maiden speech, and I lost all faith in Australian politics. 20 August 2018: Mehreen Faruqi was sworn in as the first Muslim Senator to join the Upper House, and my faith was finally restored." – Michael Mohammed Ahmad
Miles Franklin–shortlisted author Michael Mohammed Ahmad (The Other Half of You) speaks with Mehreen Faruqi about Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud, her no-holds-barred debut memoir.
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The new books from acclaimed journalists Antoinette Lattouf (How to Lose Friends and Influence White People) and Amy Remeikis (On Reckoning) each draw on their personal and professional insights into challenging structural power. They come together to discuss their work: Antoinette on how to make a difference when championing change and racial equality with witty yet confronting analysis of how to prepare for the popularity contest you’ll lose; and Amy on her investigation into the fallout of allegations of sexual assault in Parliament, and the power and potential of anger and non-conformity in the face of injustice. They are joined in conversation with Ellen Fanning.
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The newest works of non-fiction by Australian writers Delia Falconer and Indira Naidoo offer deeply personal and profound meditations on our relationship with the natural world. Delia’s Signs and Wonders explores how it feels to live as a reader, writer, mother and lover of nature in an era of extreme ecological change. Indira’s The Space Between the Stars is the poignant story of awakening to the power of nature in the wake of her sister’s passing. They appear in conversation with Suzanne Leal.
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Louisa Lim and Kylie Moore-Gilbert come together to discuss the complexities of power, persecution and freedom. Louisa’s Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong is a deeply researched and personal account of Hong Kong, its people and the untold history they are claiming. Kylie’s The Uncaged Sky: My 804 days in an Iranian prison is the gripping account of her extraordinary fight to survive imprisonment in Iran. They speak with Ann Mossop.
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From the soapbox to the stage, carefully crafted speeches have inspired and persuaded minds throughout the ages. As we lose faith in our leaders and the institutions of civil society cede their moral authority, we gather a group of stirring orators to recreate their favourite moments of speechifying – from the worlds of politics and theatre, cinema and the law – to remind us of the power of words and the thrill of great oration. Including Richard Fidler (The Golden Maze), Sisonke Msimang (Always Another Country), Clare Wright (You Daughters of Freedom) who take to the microphone for this rousing event. Hosted by Sarah Kanowski.
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Too often our notions of life outside Australia’s capital cities are that it is monochrome and homogenous. The Growing Up In Country Australia anthology offers a fresh, modern, and at times surprising look at country life today, bringing together the perspectives of established and emerging writers. Join the collection’s editor, prize-winning One Hundred Years of Dirt author Rick Morton, as he speaks with contributors Farz Edraki, Bridie Jabour and Benjamin Riley. Together, they discuss challenges such as drought, fire and isolation, as well as the joy, adventure and beauty of growing up outside our capital cities.
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[Content warning: Sensitive themes including suicide]
Two fascinating non-fiction works explore our relationship to life, our bodies and mortality itself. In Bedtime Story, Chloe Hooper looks to classics by the likes of Brothers Grimm and JRR Tolkien to teach her own children about grief and resilience after her partner falls seriously ill. In her essay collection The First Time I Thought I Was Dying, Sarah Walker examines our unruly bodies and asks how we might learn to embrace our chaos. They share the stage with interviewer Anton Enus.
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With so much concern around silencing and censorship in contemporary discourse, it’s hard to think of any one element that has a greater impact on what can and can’t be said in Australia than our defamation laws. No matter how much of an idiot REDACTED might be, or however well founded the allegations against REDACTED are, in Australia, you publish at your peril. Our panel of brilliant legal and media minds – Hannah Marshall, Chris Masters and Kate McClymont – choose their words carefully with Erik Jensen as they explore why we have the harshest defamation laws in the world, and how this affects good public discourse.
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Two extraordinary writers of short fiction come together to discuss crafting fully realised worlds that capture our interest over just a few pages. Patrick White Literary Award winner Tony Birch’s latest collection of short stories (Dark as Last Night) captures the humanity and humour of kids toughened beyond their years on the edges of society. Paige Clark’s debut (She Is Haunted) showcases an entrancing new literary voice. Drawing comparisons to Carmen Maria Machado, Paige runs with themes such as race, family and grief into surreal and uneasy places. Tony and Paige are in conversation with Declan Fry.
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This All Come Back Now is the first anthology of speculative fiction by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers, spanning bush horror, ghost stories, time travel and post-human futures. Hear from a panel of contributors as they discuss how their work is rooted in Indigenous ways of being, knowing and becoming, and what the toolkit of speculative fiction allows them to explore in terms of kin and Country, memory and future thinking. The editor of the anthology, Mykaela Saunders, sits down with Evelyn Araluen, Merryana Salem and Jack Latimore.
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Booker Prize-winning British author Julian Barnes returns to Sydney Writers’ Festival to introduce his latest novel, Elizabeth Finch. Charting the story of a remarkable teacher through the recollections of a former student, the book has been hailed as a loving tribute to philosophy, a careful evaluation of history and an invitation to think for ourselves. Julian appeared live via video at the 2022 Festival, in conversation with host of ABC Radio National’s The Book Show Claire Nichols, to discuss how questions of love, friendship and biography are woven through the story and his broader body of work, including Flaubert’s Parrot and The Sense of an Ending.
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Two beloved figures in Australian media come together to discuss their hopeful and heartfelt new memoirs that excavate the struggles and secrets of their youth. Funkytown charts ABC journalist Paul Kennedy’s path to redemption as a promising young AFL player who lost his way to drinking, brawling and a faulty notion of what it means to be a man. All Mixed Up by ABC 7.30’s Jason Om explores the early trauma of losing his mum, his hard-won acceptance after coming out as gay and the obscured truths of his multiracial family. They appear on stage with interviewer Rick Morton.
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A hot new novel can keep you turning the pages late into the night, but a different – and some may argue, greater – pleasure comes from the act of re-reading. Whether it’s returning to a classic and seeing its humour in a fresh light, or expecting to be swept off your feet by a romance only to find you’re now transfixed by the class politics, there’s a singular joy in coming back to well-thumbed favourites. ABC Radio National’s The Bookshelf co-host Kate Evans chats with authors Bernadette Brennan (Leaping into Waterfalls) and Ruth Wilson (The Jane Austen Remedy) about the books they return to time and time again and the lessons they offer.
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When it comes to crime fiction, mothers are too often cast as one-dimensional, tragic or hysterical minor players. Shaking up the tired tropes, gripping new novels by Jane Caro (The Mother), Dinuka McKenzie (The Torrent) and Laura Elizabeth Woollett (The Newcomer) unfold through the eyes of complex, deftly drawn mothers pushed to their limits absolving, avenging and protecting their families. The authors sit down with Suzanne Leal to discuss why mothers provide such engaging and humanising perspectives in crime writing.
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From Siri to medical devices, technology and AI are helping us navigate daily life with greater efficiency and ease. But on the flip side, instances of algorithm bias, questions around who is collecting our data and for what ends, and fears about how technology is degrading public discourse are bringing into focus pressing new ethical dilemmas. Transhumanism scholar Elise Bohan (Future Superhuman: Our transhuman lives in a make-or-break century), AI expert Toby Walsh (Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI) and technologist and Palawa-Trawlwoolway woman Angie Abdilla (co-editor of Decolonising the Digital: Technology as Cultural Practice) examine the promises and perils of tech today, in conversation with creative robotics researcher Belinda Dunstan.
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Many classic crime and thriller reads centre around uncovering long-held secrets or investigating cold cases, but what new terrors are right here in our present-day? Here are three writers of gripping novels that highlight the frightening possibilities of the present and what untold fears await us in the near future. Hear from Tim Ayliffe (The Enemy Within), J.P. Pomare (The Last Guests) and Caroline Overington (The Cuckoo’s Cry), in discussion with Sulari Gentill (The Woman in the Library).
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Holding together a family in the face of life’s disappointments and let-downs has long been the stuff of literature; as farce, drama, comedy or tragedy. Paddy O’Reilly’s Other Houses follows Lily and Janks as they struggle pay-day to pay-day to try to offer their daughter the future they dream of. Toni Jordan’s Dinner with the Schnabels tracks Simon’s attempts to get things back on track after the failure of his business. These two deeply compassionate writers talk to host Nicole Abadee about how domestic pressures, financial anxiety and the chaos of modern life can make us laugh, cry and understand what’s going on behind closed doors of other peoples’ families.
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Bestselling novelist Hannah Kent (Devotion) speaks with SJ Norman about Permafrost, SJ's debut collection of short fiction that updates the gothic and romantic literary traditions.
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Concerns about cultural appropriation and authenticity – about who gets to tell a story, and who owns it – now dominate conversations about literary endeavour and value. Booker Prize–winner Damon Galgut (The Promise), Larissa Behrendt (After Story) and Paige Clark (She Is Haunted) join host Sisonke Msimang to ask: what are the responsibilities and opportunities of the creative writer and artist, and does imagination have its limits.
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With an unexpected turn of phrase or lyrical twist, poetry can surprise, thrill and invite readers to make meaning from between the lines. Hear from acclaimed Australian artists and writers Maxine Beneba Clarke and Omar Musa as they discuss their electrifying new poetry collections, which upend conventional wisdom about colonial history, climate change and our pandemic-afflicted times. Maxine’s How Decent Folk Behave extends her reputation as a “powerful and fearless storyteller” (Dave Eggers), while Omar’s Killernova has been described as “if Frank Ocean ghost-wrote Nostradamus” (Hera Lindsay Bird). They appear in conversation with Evelyn Araluen.
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Booker-shortlisted author Steve Toltz discusses his newest work, Here Goes Nothing, with acclaimed author Sarah Krasnostein. As wildly inventive and savagely funny as his first two books, Quicksand and A Fraction of the Whole, Here Goes Nothing is a razor-sharp take on love, mortality and the afterlife. He shares common ground with Sarah, whose book The Believer explores the universal need to make sense of life, death and all that lies between. Steve appears via video.
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Nobody who has listened to Martha Wainwright's music could be in any doubt of her powerful voice, her blistering honesty and her disarming humanity. Her memoir, Stories I Might Regret Telling You, is one to excite established fans and lovers of graceful, candid writing alike. From her childhood amongst musical royalty – daughter to folk legends Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister to Rufus Wainwright – to a career with all the highs and lows of the music industry, to tales of motherhood, love and loss, divorce and the search for personal peace, it's an unforgettable work of searing emotional honesty. In conversation via video with host Julia Zemiro, Martha shares the stories, truths and triumphs behind the music.
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Every new book comes with a host of wildly enthusiastic quotes from early readers hailing the author and/or their work as The Next Big Thing. But what does this hype mean for readers hoping to find their next read? Enter the discerning literary critic, whose expert distillation of a book’s composition helps us to read between the lines and sort the ‘must reads’ from the ‘not for me’s’. Author and winner of the Walkley–Pascall Award for Arts Criticism Delia Falconer (Signs and Wonders: Dispatches from a time of beauty and loss), writer, essayist and poet Declan Fry, and writer and researcher Eda Gunaydin (Root and Branch) discuss the role of literary criticism in a world of hype.
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Senator Mehreen Faruqi reflects on the hypocrisies and double standards of freedom of speech in Australia. The toxic forces of racism, xenophobia and anti-migrant hostilities, which were heightened during the pandemic, dictate who can and can’t freely express themselves. These forces shape public debate, exclude marginalised voices and consolidate the power of the already powerful. Challenging them is essential. Join Senator Faruqi as she reflects on the global challenges to free speech and the fight of writers and communicators the world over.
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With leaders who claim to be handpicked by God and ongoing debate over religious freedoms, the separation of church and state in Australia is murkier than ever. What roles do faith and religion play in the leadership, governance and decision-making of our political figures? Can the messages of charity and kindness in scripture benefit the country – or are we on a path to a more puritanical society? Interfaith Minister and author of Intimacy and Solitude and Seeking the Sacred,Stephanie Dowrick and journalist and author of Beyond Belief, Elle Hardy discuss with Tom Tilley.
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Having penned two of the past year’s most acclaimed novels, Miles Allinson and Emily Bitto come together to discuss their stories of characters searching for identity and meaning within fractured realities. Miles talks about In Moonland, a family portrait of three generations that stretches from the wild idealism of the 70s to the fragile hopes for the future. Emily sheds light on Wild Abandon, her tale of a lonely outsider who travels from Australia to America’s heartland trying to find his place in a late-capitalist world. Miles and Emily are interviewed by Michaela Kalowski.
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Eminent First Nations writers Jackie Huggins and Chelsea Watego discuss their seminal collections that confront vital questions about this country’s past and present. Jackie’s anthology Sister Girl represents decades of writing by the historian and activist, offering deep insight into the history, values and struggles of Indigenous peoples, and her biography of her father Jack of Hearts: QX11594 is a moving account of the sacrifices made by this country’s soldiers. Chelsea’s fierce, funny and unsparing Another Day in the Colony draws from other great Black thinkers to argue for a future based not on inclusion and hope, but on self-determination. They are joined in conversation by Larissa Behrendt (After Story).
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In an era of climate crisis, we consider ways to protect land and Country. Campaigns to confront climate change speak of renewable energy sources and an ending of fossil fuel mining. But what of the inherent values of Country? Are we humble enough to accept its right to autonomy? 2022 Festival Guest Curator Tony Birch (Whisper Songs) sits down with three First Nations poets – Jazz Money (how to make a basket), Anne-Marie Te Whiu (Solid Air) and Evelyn Araluen (Dropbear) – who have woven images and stories that engage with the authority of Country and our place in it.
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Among the individuals who shape our creative, imaginative and personal selves, the influence and lasting impact of writers, artists and thinkers is irrefutable. So, in this special remembrance of writers past, Festival guests pay tribute to icons lost in the past year, eulogising and celebrating those giants in the sky. With Jackie Huggins (Sister Girl) on bell hooks; Sarah Krasnostein (The Believer) on Joan Didion; and Melissa Lucashenko (Too Much Lip) on Keri Hulme; and Clem Bastow (Late Bloomer) on Stephen Sondheim, this is an unforgettable celebration not to be missed, hosted by Susan Wyndham.
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Brendan Cowell and Trent Dalton have written two of the year’s most heartfelt and moving books. Brendan chats about Plum, his raucous novel of a fast-living former NRL player who is unexpectedly plunged into a quest for self-care and self-discovery. Trent shares how he hit the streets to speak with strangers when collating Love Stories, a collection of slice-of-life vignettes about love in its many forms. In an event sure to lift your spirits, the duo appear in conversation with Catherine Milne. Brendan appears via video.
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Winner of the 2021 Booker Prize, Damon Galgut, discusses his novel The Promise: a menacing and at times mordantly funny drama that charts the deep hurts and injustices of South Africa’s past and present. It was hailed by Booker judges as “a spectacular demonstration of how the novel can make us see and think afresh”. Damon sits down for an intimate and illuminating conversation with his longtime friend, Miles Franklin–winning author Michelle de Kretser, whose newest novel Scary Monsters tackles similarly big themes with an equally unsparing eye.
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Hear from the winner of the 2022 Stella Prize, Evelyn Araluen, who took home the award for her groundbreaking poetry collection, Dropbear. Described by 2022 Stella Prize judge Melissa Lucashenko as "a breathtaking collection of poetry and short prose which arrests key icons of mainstream Australian culture and turns them inside out," Dropbear has received broad praise for its fierce, witty critique of Australia's fantasy of its own racial and environmental innocence. Evelyn is joined on stage by Melissa Lucashenko for what promises to be a rich, intimate discussion on poetry, connection to Country and the role of the arts in society.
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Beloved Australian journalist and writer Annabel Crabb (The Wife Drought) sits down with Al Campbell to discuss her dazzling debut, The Keepers.
“Ever since I read The Keepers, Al Campbell’s debut novel, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it.” – Annabel Crabb
This event was part of the Your Favourites' Favourites series, in which writers you already love and trust interview the author of their favourite Australian debut from the last year.
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Two of the biggest names in Australian literature, Michelle de Kretser (Scary Monsters) and Christos Tsiolkas (7 1/2) come together to discuss their latest books. These thrilling contributions to already stellar careers take them in new directions as they play with form and voice while asking questions of their own work and the world. Don’t miss this fascinating exchange between two prize-winning writers, with host Roanna Gonsalves.
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They are seemingly the three hardest words to say in public life: “I was wrong”. The process of changing minds – individually, collectively and culturally – is made that much harder by a political landscape in which admitting uncertainty, confessing error or revealing a change of heart is actively discouraged. Hear from some of Australia’s most respected holders of deep-seated beliefs – David Marr, Jane Caro, Paul McDermott and Marcia Langton – as they each present a short talk on a topic that deepened their learning, evolved their thinking or flat out changed their mind. Hosted by Maddison Connaughton.
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From one of the great writers of our time, Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House is the long-awaited sibling novel to her Pulitzer Prize–winning A Visit from the Goon Squad. Returning to the same characters and thematic terrain as her earlier novel, in equally genre-shifting style, she interweaves stories about authenticity, privacy and meaning in a world where our memories can be shared online. Jennifer appears live via video in conversation with Maddison Connaughton.
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Liane Moriarty is a global publishing sensation. In a very special conversation, The New York Times bestselling author discusses her new novel, Apples Never Fall, the sensation around her TV adaptations, and her broader body of work with Literary Editor of The Australian and author Caroline Overington (The Cuckoo’s Cry). Together, they examine the art of crafting gripping stories, creating compelling characters and capturing layers of drama.
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Two of Australia’s most acclaimed writers, Amanda Lohrey (appearing live via video) and Charlotte Wood, come together for a conversation about their most recent books, their incredible bodies of work and creative lives at large. Amanda’s Miles Franklin–winning novel, The Labyrinth, and Charlotte’s bestselling work of non-fiction, The Luminous Solution: Creativity, Resilience and the Inner Life, each offer essential and illuminating insights into the hope, redemption and restoration to be found in art and creation. They appear in conversation with Ailsa Piper.
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In this exciting showcase of performances and readings, six of Sweatshop’s most dynamic writers share their stories on love, fear and faith. Including readings from Jazz Money, Guido Melo, Maryam Azam, Shirley Le, Mark Mariano and L-FRESH The LION. Hosted by Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement's Michael Mohammed Ahmad.
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Hear from two of the nation’s most thought-stirring writers, Clementine Ford and Bridie Jabour, as they discuss their latest books exploring the meaning of life and love today with Maeve Marsden. Clementine’s tender and moving memoir How We Love traverses the throes of romance, the grief of losing a parent, the journey into motherhood and the value of self-worth. Bridie’s Trivial Grievances is a funny and forthright enquiry into the anxieties of millennials finding their way at work, home and beyond during uniquely challenging circumstances.
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Rebecca Solnit is one of the great essayists of our times, having garnered acclaim for her work on subjects as diverse as feminism, the history of walking and even the art of getting lost. Her essay ‘Men Explain Lolita to Me’ is literary criticism and social commentary at its finest, and her seminal ‘Hope in the Dark’ is a modern classic. The renowned author and activist joins host Sophie Black live via video to discuss her latest book Orwell’s Roses, a lush exploration of nature, pleasure and politics inspired by George Orwell’s love of gardening. She shares a fresh take on the British writer, shares the significance of joy in his concept of freedom, and pushes readers “to treasure the small moments of grace to be found in the natural world, even now in the face of climate catastrophes and global unrest” (Los Angeles Review of Books).
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[Content warning: Domestic violence]
Acclaimed Sydney authors Michael Mohammed Ahmad and Amani Haydar examine the effects of love, expectation and trauma within families in their newest books, with a particular focus on fatherhood. Mohammed’s novel, The Other Half of You, is a letter from the main character Bani to his son Kahlil, revealing a tender and loving father. Amani’s memoir, The Mother Wound, tells of how she suffered the unimaginable when she lost her mother in a brutal act of domestic violence perpetrated by her father. Mohammed and Amani speak with Sarah Ayoub about the light and dark within families, and how racism and patriarchy perpetuate harm by dehumanising fathers.
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Why have we lost our ability to focus and how do we get it back? This is the question globally bestselling author Johann Hari asks in his newest book Stolen Focus, which strives to not only change, but also possibly save, our minds. He unmasks the powerful forces that render us uniquely vulnerable to companies raiding our attention for profit, while casting a hopeful vision for reclaiming our waning attention spans, both as individuals and as a society. Johann appears live via video, in conversation with Amanda Collinge.
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The literary debut of celebrated musician Warren Ellis, Nina Simone’s Gum, takes its name from an unlikely keepsake he snatched from the underside of his idol’s piano in a moment of rapture. Join Warren as he sheds light on his playful memoir in which a meaning-rich relic blossoms into a metaphor for art, music and obsession, traversing his childhood in country Victoria, collaborations with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and prize-winning work with Dirty Three. Warren joins live via video in conversation with Marieke Hardy.
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One of the most celebrated novels of 2021, Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby examines the lives of three women – transgender and cisgender – when they collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires. Described by Carmen Maria Machado as “so good I want to scream”, Detransition, Baby brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the taboos around gender, sex and relationships, gifting readers a thrillingly original, witty and deeply moving novel. Appearing live via video, Torrey speaks about her unforgettable debut with Liz Duck-Chong.
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Endless column inches are devoted to think pieces and hot takes on the rise of China, but genuine understanding and meaningful conversation continue to elude us. Under his nom de plume Murong Xuecun, Hao Qun is one of China’s most celebrated authors, a genuinely independent voice in fiction and non-fiction. He recently left China to publish Deadly Quiet City: Stories from Wuhan, Covid Ground Zero, which cuts through speculation to tell real stories of intimate experiences of Chinese citizens during an epic global tragedy. Now in Australia, Murong joins Linda Jaivin (The Shortest History of China) and Louisa Lim (Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong) for a conversation that goes beyond broad media commentary, with the BBC’s Frances Mao.
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It’s hard to imagine two figures with a bigger impact on the cultural and intellectual understanding of contemporary Australia than Marcia Langton and Julianne Schultz. The two professors are unparalleled when it comes to analysis, engagement and understanding of our public and political sphere. The esteemed pair sit down to assess the potential, the disappointments and the current state of the nation. Marcia and Julianne speak with Clare Wright.
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To Paradise is the first novel by Hanya Yanagihara since her decades-spanning saga of survival and suffering A Little Life won over the world and became a Booker Prize–shortlisted bestseller. Her follow-up is even more ambitious in scope, traversing some three centuries and differing versions of America, and exploring themes of love, loss and the elusive promise of utopia in a fictionalised New York. Hanya speaks with Anton Enus.
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Award-winning social advocate Yassmin Abdel-Magied explores everything from big tech to unconscious bias. Her searching new essay collection Talking About a Revolution shares the challenges and grief around her activism and leaving Australia. Speaking live via video in her first Australian event ahead of its release, she shares insights into how notions of justice and transformative change are evolving, as well as the adversity faced by a younger generation of activists urged to work towards empowerment rather than power. Yassmin is in conversation with Sisonke Msimang.
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Hailed as a tonic for wanderlust and a cure for loneliness, Still Life by British novelist Sarah Winman is a joyous historical celebration of love and beauty in all their forms. Hear from the bestselling author of When God Was a Rabbit and Tin Man about this rich tale of people brought together by art, love and war, set against the backdrop of Tuscany, Florence and London in the 1940s. Sarah joins live via video, speaking with Ailsa Piper.
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Three extraordinary writers reflect on the changed, changing and changeable nature of their minds over their careers. Hear from award-winning Yankunytjatjara poet, author and memoirist Ali Cobby Eckermann (Inside My Mother), Bidjara and Birri Gubba Juru author, academic and advocate Jackie Huggins (Sister Girl and Jack of Hearts: QX11594), and Yuwaalaraay musician and author Nardi Simpson (Song of the Crocodile), each complex and compassionate artists of rare strength and power.
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Chloe Hooper is one of our finest writers: in her non-fiction (The Tall Man, The Arsonist), her fiction (A Child’s Book of True Crime, The Engagement) her acclaimed journalism and new book Bedtime Story, she has attracted readers and accolades alike for her fearless storytelling, unflinching eye and generous sense of humanity. To close the 2022 Festival, Chloe reflected on the power and limitations of the stories that we tell, and the words that we choose to make sense of the world.
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"I think that these great defenders of western civilisation think it is so weak that it will collapse if we have gender neutral bathrooms, it will collapse if we have a treaty with First Nations people, that these things are antithetical to liberalism. They're not." – Stan Grant
In a meeting of great journalistic minds, legendary reporters Stan Grant and Kerry O'Brien come together for an intimate and wide-ranging conversation on the state of the world. Stan's new book, With the Falling of the Dusk, investigates why the planet is being pushed to crisis and how we might avert it – weaving the personal along with the universal. Kerry draws on his 50-year career as both a news presenter and foreign correspondent covering national and global affairs. Together, they reflect on the human condition and our shared future.
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Many column inches have been devoted to ideas about who gets to be heard. The ubiquitous cry of ‘cancel culture’ is bandied around to suggest that we have a collective cultural problem with free speech, but the nature of disagreement in the public sphere suggests that the real difficulty lies elsewhere. Different platforms speak at different volumes, structural power rejects dissent and our discourse is increasingly polarised. Hear Jeff Sparrow (Fascists Among Us: Online Hate and the Christchurch massacre), Randa Abdel-Fattah (Coming of Age in the War on Terror) and journalist Kishor Napier-Raman explore the loaded ways we understand the privilege, responsibilities and dangers of public speech, with Sophie Black.
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"If I go on believing I might be able to have my mind changed then the possibilities are endless." Michael Williams, Artistic Director of Sydney Writers' Festival
Join Annabel Crabb and Artistic Director Michael Williams as they unveil the 2022 Festival program.
The pair discuss the 2022 Festival theme, Change My Mind – an invitation, a challenge, and a promise of intent – and the litany of impressive local authors as well as writers from further afield joining us this year, ready to inspire conversation, spark new ideas and start robust debates about the world and our place in it.
Thank you to 2SER for facilitating the recording of this podcast.
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Each of us – including your favourite YA authors – has a treasured protagonist, antagonist or side character who we firmly believe should have nothing bad ever happen to them. Listen to this special gala event from 2021 All-Day YA as Gary Lonesborough (The Boy from the Mish), Zana Fraillon (The Lost Soul Atlas), Garth Nix (The Left-Handed Booksellers of London), Leanne Hall (The Gaps), Michael Pryor (Gap Year in Ghost Town), Jenna Guillaume (You Were Made for Me) and Will Kostakis (Rebel Gods) share which characters they would protect at all costs from malevolent authors and literary harm. Introduced by Amelia Lush and hosted by Will Kostakis, with a Q&A at the end.
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"I think it's valuable to dwell on the difficult stuff sometimes, and that this can actually be very productive and germinating in terms of writing." – Claire Thomas
Rebecca Starford and Claire Thomas discuss their acclaimed 2021 novels with Declan Fry. Hailed as a gripping thriller and deft character study, Rebecca’s The Imitator is the story of a female spy recruited into an elite MI5 counterintelligence unit during World War II. Named one of The Sydney Morning Herald’s most anticipated books of the year, Claire’s The Performance is a tightly woven portrayal of three women forever changed during a night at the theatre as bushfires burned nearby.
Listen as these two talented authors touch on the joys of inhabiting their characters' heads, their shared need to make sense of the world through art and the growing societal pressure to adopt a false sense of positivity.
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Celebrated journalist Barrie Cassidy breaks down the challenges and opportunities for the then newly minted US President Joe Biden with a panel of experts and colleagues. Joining him are journalist for The New Yorker and award-winning author of Joe Biden: American Dreamer Evan Osnos; UNSW Law Professor Rosalind Dixon; and former foreign minister Bob Carr. Throughout their lively discussion, the group offers their insights into the man who took the presidency in a time of extraordinary turmoil.
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“Maybe the fingernail in the flesh is your dream too, now that loving and staying away are newly conjoined.” – Maria Tumarkin
For our 2021 Festival, an all-star line-up of guests came together to deliver a speech on the Festival theme, Within Reach. Speakers celebrated the power of writing to generate empathy, imagination and action. In this moving highlight, cultural historian and novelist Maria Tumarkin (Axiomatic) muses on the blurred boundaries between personal and shared space in a world of colonial theft, social distancing measures and rolling crises.
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"I am not magically transformed by my relationship with mushrooms, but I am certainly on the right path." – Krissy Kneen
Faced with the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, award-winning author Krissy Kneen (Affection; An Uncertain Grace; and The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen: Travels with My Grandmother’s Ashes) was forced to rethink her writing practice and took an unexpected deep dive into the world of mushrooms. In this Curiosity Lecture, Krissy gives a mushroom-making masterclass, argues the case for why mycologists are the cheeriest scientists and explains how mycelium might become the saviour of our planet.
Please note, experiences of depression and anxiety are discussed in this podcast episode.
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“I was never in pain or afraid, but it was a journey that’s left me cherishing every bit of every day and I’m so happy that it’s within reach.” – Alison Lester
For our 2021 Festival, an all-star line-up of guests came together to deliver a speech on the Festival theme, Within Reach. Speakers celebrated the power of writing to generate empathy, imagination and action. In this moving highlight, children’s author Alison Lester recounts her harrowing time spent in a six-day medically induced coma and what unexpected treasures came from this miraculous experience.
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As the COVID-19 pandemic ushers in a new era of remote communication, machines are being programmed to mimic the way humans make friends, grow intimate and fall in love. In this compelling talk from our Curiosity Lecture series, evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks (Artificial Intimacy: Virtual Friends, Digital Lovers and Algorithmic Matchmakers) explains how these artificially intimate devices can help us make friendships in a world of cognitive overload, stay close in a time of isolation and feel better despite the rising rate of mood disorders.
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For too long our understanding of how to build urban spaces has relied on a particular set of orthodoxies and expertise. But what does it mean to reconceive of the places where we live; how might we combine other knowledges and ideas with an appetite for change? Jess Scully (Glimpses of Utopia), Fiona Murphy (The Shape of Sound) and Alison Page (Building on Country) talk with Manisha Amin from the Centre for Inclusive Design about how we might design our way to a better, more inclusive and more sustainable way to live.
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A good joke makes us laugh. A great joke can upset some of the most powerful people in the world. With deft irreverence, the best political satirists reach right into the heart of things and bring back stark truths about the world we live in – all while keeping us in stitches.
Join some of Australia’s most facetious comedians, writers and social commentators as they discuss the perilous (and hilarious) art of being funny in unfunny situations and undermining the very serious and powerful, one joke at a time. Featuring Twitter icon and writer for Tonightly with Tom Ballard, Rebecca Shaw; The Chaser’s and Dragon Friends’ Alex Lee; and The Weekly’s Alistair Baldwin; in conversation with The Frant’s and The Feed’s Jan Fran.
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“Some might say that it’s still better to send an imperfect message to the future than nothing at all, but what we choose to memorialise is as political and flawed as what we choose to forget.” – Ceridwen Dovey
For our 2021 Festival, an all-star line-up of guests came together to deliver a speech on the Festival theme, Within Reach. Speakers celebrated the power of writing to generate empathy, imagination and action.
In this stellar highlight, social anthropologist and author Ceridwen Dovey discusses NASA’s Golden Record and the warped legacy of what we choose to remember.
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“We are living in an existential but predominantly climactic crisis, and it is one that we cannot imaginatively distance ourself from with utopian thinking,” said Evelyn Araluen in this intellectually rigorous and magnificently poetic discussion with Tony Birch. Together, they discuss Evelyn’s fierce debut, Dropbear – a collection of poetry and prose from one of Australia’s most exciting young writers, described by Declan Fry as “a stunning scalpel wielded through Australian myths” (Guardian Australia) – the project of sovereignty, and creating change through storytelling.
Please note, this episode contains references to topics including Indigenous deaths in custody and the Stolen Generations.
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"This collective fury is so bright, so full of possibility, that it does feel like something new is afoot." – Sisonke Msimang
For our 2021 Festival, an all-star line-up of guests came together to deliver a speech on the Festival theme, Within Reach. Speakers celebrated the power of writing to generate empathy, imagination and action. In this enthralling highlight, author Sisonke Msimang questions where justice can be secured from and if a new future awaits us.
Please note, this episode contains references to sexual assault and harassment.
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“People talk about queer family but what I saw was an ecosystem, a habitat. And I thought: I can live here.” – Fiona Kelly McGregor
For our 2021 Festival, an all-star line-up of guests came together to deliver a speech on the Festival theme, Within Reach. Speakers celebrated the power of writing to generate empathy, imagination and action. In this wondrous highlight, acclaimed writer and artist Fiona Kelly McGregor presents eight scenes from a dancing life.
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“Though I am not religious, I have often been grateful for how the calendar of my parents’ faith can bring me to pause and contemplation. I suspect I am not alone in finding it difficult to make space for such moments of serenity in this age.” – Christos Tsiolkas
For our 2021 Festival, an all-star line-up of guests came together to deliver a speech on the Festival theme, Within Reach. Speakers celebrated the power of writing to generate empathy, imagination and action. In this moving highlight, award-winning writer Christos Tsiolkas contemplates the centrality of family and the assurance of ritual in times of uncertainty and separation.
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Jacqueline Maley and Debra Oswald speak with Susan Wyndham about their enthralling works of fiction bound by sudden tragedy, motherhood and rage. Sydney Morning Herald columnist Jacqueline Maley sheds light on The Truth About Her, her portrayal of a journalist and single mother who learns that a young wellness blogger she uncovered in an exposé has taken her own life. Award-winning Offspring creator Debra Oswald reflects on her thriller, The Family Doctor, about a suburban GP haunted by the murder of a friend and her children by their estranged husband and father. Listen to this powerful and emotive discussion on shame, consequences and the craft of writing compelling narrative conflict and characters.
Please note, this episode involves discussion of suicide and domestic violence.
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Each year, The Sydney Morning Herald names the authors it considers to be the best young fiction writers in the country. Jason Steger, Books Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, leads a discussion with 2021 winners Jessie Tu (A Lonely Girl Is A Dangerous Thing), K.M. Kruimink (A Treacherous Country) and Vivian Pham (The Coconut Children) about their extraordinary works, crafting a distinctive narrative voice, and the cathartic, playful and empowering role writing has held in their lives.
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“We are eating the wrong animals. We are growing the wrong crops. We’ve completely misunderstood the land.” – Bruce Pascoe
Australia is a beacon of unique biodiversity and rich natural resources, yet its land, water and wildlife are devastatingly mismanaged. Environmental experts and authors Richard Beasley (Dead in the Water), Bruce Pascoe (Loving Country), Victor Steffensen (Fire Country) and Rebecca Giggs (Fathoms), join ABC Radio’s Philip Clark to call for change. From uncovering political inaction to recovering Indigenous agricultural practices, this is a powerful conversation about when we stopped being the lucky country and if we can change.
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For our 2021 Festival, an all-star line-up of guests came together to deliver a speech on the Festival theme, Within Reach. Speakers celebrated the power of writing to generate empathy, imagination and action.
“People say the system is flawed. But what if it’s actually working?” says award-winning writer, editor and literary activist Ellen van Neerven in this stirring highlight. Why, since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, are things only worse? What is justice without accountability?
Please note, there is discussion of Indigenous deaths in custody in this podcast episode.
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What does Australia look like in 2050? What climate catastrophes are occurring? What legacies of white supremacy are we living with? Or have we found a way to change our country’s course?
Some of Australia’s most imaginative and provocative Indigenous writers and writers of colour offered an unflinching prediction of our country’s future in the daring anthology, After Australia. Discover what ails our world, and how we might still yet change our future, with contributors Michelle Law (Single Asian Female, Homecoming Queens) and Roanna Gonsalves (The Permanent Resident); in conversation with the anthology’s editor Michael Mohammed Ahmad (The Lebs).
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“...real change is within reach. And we should never give up on the potential to make this planet a better place.” – Tony Birch
For our 2021 Festival, an all-star line-up of guests came together to deliver a speech on the Festival theme, Within Reach. Speakers celebrated the power of writing to generate empathy, imagination and action. In this moving highlight, celebrated author Tony Birch (The White Girl), winner of the 2020 NSW Premier’s Award for Indigenous Writing, calls each of us – even in the darkest of times – to act with strength, reach for hope and listen to Country.
Please note, experiences of depression are discussed in this podcast episode.
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“I really get that strength from Country and from knowing that those stories are still there and you’re supposed to be telling those stories, and there’s something bigger speaking to you and speaking for you. I really get that sense of purpose from that.” – Amy McQuire
The racial justice movement gained momentum around the world in 2020, but what happened in Australia? Across the anglosphere, statues toppled, mastheads faced a reckoning and protests on the streets met conversations about representation and accountability. Yet Australian newsrooms and TV screens, our cultural and media institutions, somehow missed the moment. Why are the key figures in our public sphere so bad at addressing entrenched racism, structural power and unchallenged whiteness?
Journalist Amy McQuire, triple j Hack’s Avani Dias and IndigenousX’s Rhianna Patrick confront the white elephant in the room, with writer and broadcaster Sami Shah.
Please note, this episode contains discussion of Indigenous deaths in custody and experiences of racism.
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“This notion that we could write without it being saturated with what it feels like to be faced – confronted – with the threat to what makes our lives possible, to think that one could write that without an emotional response, without it being saturated with emotion, is to write as if we were writing about what was happening on the moon, not here on Earth.” – Danielle Celermajer
Danielle Celermajer’s Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future is a different kind of nature writing; it’s a philosophy, elegy, meditation. In the aftermath of last year’s bushfires, Danielle asks what we are losing in this shared, ravaged world. In her book Beyond Climate Grief, science reporter Jonica Newby considers what a personal, emotional, human response might be to global catastrophe. The two discuss these themes and their personal journeys of courage and hope in the face of disaster and uncertainty, with Suzanne Leal.
Please note, there is discussion of mental health topics and climate grief in this podcast.
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“Am I Australian? Am I Canadian? Am I Jamaican? I’m all of them. And they exist inside me. And all I had to do was be responsible to that person that was inside me. So in a way, it kind of gave me that grounding…I found myself. And it had nothing to do with a country. It had to do with my own spirit and the ancestors with me.” – Sienna Brown
In the right hands, a story set in the past can shed new light on the present, set the imagination loose and make for a page-turning read. But what are an author’s responsibilities (and burdens) when it comes to telling the truth? A panel of celebrated authors of historical novels unpack the tricky business of sorting facts from fiction when putting the past to the page. Featuring 2020 ARA Historical Novel Prize winner Mirandi Riwoe (Stone Sky Gold Mountain), Sienna Brown (Master of My Fate) and Miles Franklin Award winner Steven Carroll (O) with historian Clare Wright (You Daughters of Freedom).
Please note, topics such as the history and experiences of racism, including slavery, are discussed in this podcast episode. Racial slurs are also discussed as examples of historical discrimination.
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For our 2021 Festival, an all-star line-up of guests came together to deliver a speech on the Festival theme, Within Reach. Speakers celebrated the power of writing to generate empathy, imagination and action. In this special highlight, bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies Trent Dalton delivers one undeniable truth wrought by the pandemic: that he quite likes to wrap his arms around people. Enjoy this humorous and hopeful homage to the hug.
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“You write an extraordinary decapitation,” begins this enthralling conversation on the sixteenth century, royalty and the craft of writing historical fiction. In 2020, the third and final volume of Hilary Mantel’s magisterial Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, brought her retelling of Thomas Cromwell’s rise and fall to an end over 900 astonishing pages. While her collection of essays Mantel Pieces, also published in 2020, spanned from her celebrated piece ‘Royal Bodies’ (linking Anne Boleyn and Kate Middleton) to some of the finest literary criticism around. Hilary joined Sydney Writers’ Festival from the UK to share her insights and literary methods with ABC Radio National’s Jonathan Green.
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In a world that has felt chaotic, uncertain and inescapably busy, what simple acts help us find joy amongst it all? ABC Radio Sydney’s Sarah Macdonald asks a line-up of beloved writers how they capture moments of wonder and peace in their day – whether it’s growing their own garden, enjoying a cup of tea, writing or looking at the stars. Host of ABC’s The Drum and author Julia Baird; author, comedian and broadcaster Sami Shah; and author Krissy Kneen (The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen) share the grounding rituals and perspectives that grant them pleasure in life.
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Ceridwen Dovey and Emily Maguire shed light on their riveting new novels, both electrifying tales of trust and consequences, with Bridie Jabour. A murder mystery and study of modern manners, Ceridwen’s Life After Truth tells of former Harvard classmates whose weekend reunion is rocked by the death of a fellow alumnus. Emily is a Miles Franklin Award shortlisted writer whose latest novel, Love Objects, is the insightful, compassionately drawn story of a young woman whose aunt is imperilled by compulsive hoarding. Together, the two discuss the writing process, midlife opportunities (rather than midlife crises), and the power of fiction to generate empathy.
“More and more I feel that in fiction we are all rehearsing for real life...it continues to astound me that as humans we have no real way of knowing what is going on in anybody else’s mind and yet we still manage to come together and try so hard to communicate between one another, there’s something heartbreaking about that. And for me that’s what fiction is...it’s the most profound tool we have at our fingertips to get into each other’s experiences.” – Ceridwen Dovey
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Journalist and author Caroline Baum (Only) joins two of Australia’s favourite broadcasters and authors for a whirlwind of a conversation comprising incredible stories, curious characters, robots, alchemy and hyper-optimism. Host of ABC’s Conversations Richard Fidler has turned his love affair with Prague into a personally curated history – The Golden Maze – a work that is both a biography of a city and the stories and people that define it. Former host of ABC Radio National’s TheBook Show Ramona Koval recently embarked on a global quest to better understand the ingenuity, science and tales that make us human in A Letter to Layla.
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Award-winning author Michelle de Kretser (Scary Monsters) speaks with Andrew Pippos about his debut novel Lucky’s – an unforgettable family epic that was shortlisted for the 2021 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. “In Andrew Pippos’ Lucky’s, the grand story of the Greek diaspora is rendered beautifully intimate,” said Michelle de Kretser. “Pippos writes lively, evocative prose while handling structure and characterisation with flair.” Listen to this conversation that ranges from the local – the Australian Greek literary tradition – to the epic – The Iliad and The Odyssey. And enjoy insights into the craft of writing from two literary sensations along the way.
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One of the enduring beliefs of Australian identity is the idea that we as a nation embody the larrikin spirit, that we’re easy going, anti-establishment, laissez-faire. But arguably, behind our ‘she’ll be right’ veneer, we’re an anxious, obedient people living in what some believe is the most over-regulated nation of all of the world’s democracies. In this spirited and thought-provoking conversation, David Marr, Joe Williams and Rebecca Huntley separate the shit-stirring from the boot-licking with ABC’s Laura Tingle.
Please note, this podcast episode contains references to sexual assault and massacres of Indigenous peoples. It also contains explicit language.
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“The noise that is most difficult for any of us is the noise that is inside our own heads.” – Stephanie Dowrick
After years in which many of us were forced to spend more time alone, a panel of writers join Anton Enus for a profound and fascinating reflection on the pitfalls, pleasures and peace of solitude, and its powerful relationship with self-renewal, self-understanding and creativity.
Christine Jackman’s Turning Down The Noise: The quiet power of silence in a busy world follows her quest to strip out the constant stimuli of modern living. Donna Ward’s She I Dare Not Name: A spinster’s meditations on life is a memoir of living life alone in a world built for couples and families. And three decades on, Stephanie Dowrick’s classic Intimacy and Solitude: Finding new closeness and self-trust in a distanced world is more timely than ever, and has been republished with new reflections on life in the pandemic.
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In the words of Sydney Writers’ Festival Guest Curator Nayuka Gorrie, “The future is black, abolitionist and whatever we want it to be.” Lorna Munro, Mali Hermans, Keith Quayle and Estelle Clarke join Nayuka to consider those futures – hopeful, defiant and clear-eyed – and ask how we might radically reimagine black stories.
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Prize-winning Australian writers Malcolm Knox and Michael Robotham join Ashley Hay to discuss the riveting new novels that extend their reputations as masters of their crafts. A prolific journalist and author, Malcolm chats about the hilarious and mesmerising Bluebird, which examines nostalgia, gentrification and the Australian dream through the lens of decades of secrets buried in a beachside suburb. One of the country’s finest and bestselling crime writers, Michael talks about the pulse-quickening When She Was Good, which sees the return of forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven, embroiled in an explosive murder case with disturbing origins.
Please note, this discussion includes references to topics such as sexual abuse and torture.
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Youth activists have become some of our strongest voices advocating for climate justice. They are heralded as leaders of the future, yet fear that without action from politicians, they will never see the future they’ve been burdened with building. In this electrifying conversation, a panel of Australia’s most inspiring young activists, Jean Hinchliffe (Lead the Way), Daisy Jeffrey (On Hope) and Varsha Yajman, share how they are tackling the most pressing issue of our time with Santilla Chingaipe.
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that this podcast episode contains the names of people who have died.
“That sense of loving does not mean silence. It doesn’t mean acceptance...When you love something, you’re not silent about it.” – Vicky Shukuroglou
Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred Australia is a guidebook by Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe and co-author and photographer Vicky Shukuroglou. It offers a new way to explore and fall in love with Australia by seeing it through an Indigenous lens. The duo speaks with ABC Radio National’s Daniel Browning about their beautifully designed road map that celebrates some 65,000 years of inhabitancy, including the fish traps at Brewarrina and rivers that feed the Great Barrier Reef, and the need to love and protect Country amidst the recent and ongoing destruction and devastation of sacred sites in this land.
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Hear from two acclaimed novelists as they discuss their captivating new works of historical fiction set against the backdrop of our colonial past. Based on devastating true events in 19th-century Wiradjuri Country, Anita Heiss’ Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) is an epic story of love and loss centred on a young couple’s search for home. Meg Keneally’s novel The Wreck follows a young woman fleeing London for Sydney after a failed rebellion in 1820, and is a moving tale of treachery and courage that is rich in history. The two are joined by Roanna Gonsalves for this fascinating discussion on the power of naming, voice and language, the writing process and how history holds a mirror.
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“The point of conversations like these is to counter the unbelievable gaslighting of the rest of the world. That is the point of feminist writing. It’s saying again and again and again that rage is appropriate and that everything is not okay.” – Laurie Penny
Twenty-five years ago, award-winning journalist Virginia Trioli tried to get to the bottom of questions about sex and power in Australian public life in her book Generation F. In a new edition published in 2019, Virginia revisited the horrifically – and historically – polarising conversation on appropriate responses to sexual abuse and harassment that continues today. Activist, journalist and author Laurie Penny is a powerful voice in global feminism. Their 2017 book Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults applied dark humour and urgent provocations to hard conversations on online harassment, the transgender rights movement and other definitive issues of our time. With author Sisonke Msimang, the pair tease out the shifts and faultlines of being a feminist in public life.
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that this podcast episode contains the names of people who have died.
“I’m no longer exhausting my labour on appealing to a people whose existence is predicated upon me not existing because it’s tiring work and they don’t believe us anyway, no matter how sophisticated our tools are, no matter how articulate our storytelling is. The power of the black story and the real black story is the story that’s told to black people by black people.” – Chelsea Watego
Sydney Writers’ Festival Guest Curator Nayuka Gorrie speaks with Chelsea Watego, Amy McQuire and Veronica Heritage-Gorrie about writing from the front lines, bearing witness in a way no one else can. From young black women telling Pauline Hanson she’s not Indigenous to speaking back to the archive. As Nayuka says, “In the colony, it is the black woman who speaks truth to power and sees this colony for what it really is.”
Please note, this episode contains references to topics such as the Stolen Generations and Aboriginal deaths in custody.
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“I think that’s where we see the limits of our compassion. It’s always tempered by the biases that we are comfortable continuing with and not interrogating.” – Kishor Napier-Raman
The myth that Australian society is egalitarian enough to give everyone a ‘fair go’ is pervasive. Supposedly, if you have a go, you’ll get a go. Yet it’s an idea rarely reflected in our economic policies. Welfare recipients are demonised as dole bludgers, wealth is protected and the divide between rich and poor feels ever more acute. Two of our finest economic and political commentators, Rick Morton (On Money) and Kishor Napier-Raman, examine where money meets policy – from their predictions on the then-upcoming COVID vaccine roll-out to housing affordability – with Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Sydney, Mark Scott.
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"Hold on to the goodness this country offers. Because the only other option is to fall into despair and given the stakes, that’s not actually an option." – Benjamin Law
What a lucky country we are – sunburnt, egalitarian, no worries. But look beyond the marketing slogan and you may start to wonder: where the bloody hell are you? In this special highlight from the SWF Great Debate – moderated by the unsparing Jennifer Byrne – journalist, columnist, TV screenwriter and author Benjamin Law argues that maybe Australia isn’t so bad. After all, there’s universal healthcare, gun control, MasterChef…it’s enough to make Benjamin strip down on stage at Sydney Town Hall to reveal a Southern Cross ‘tattoo’.
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“Our transgender kids need their rights, they need access to healthcare, mental health care, they need to be cared for. But they also need boots that withstand 400 degrees because people are throwing fire at them.” – Kaya Wilson
Sarah Dingle and Kaya Wilson’s memoirs explore the discovery of long-held family secrets and their resounding intergenerational effects. When Kaya came out to his parents as transgender, a year after a near-death surfing accident, he was met with a startling family history of concealed queerness. Sarah was 27 when she found out she had been conceived via a sperm donor, but when she began digging she only discovered destroyed records and dead ends. With Maeve Marsden, Sarah (Brave New Humans) and Kaya (As Beautiful As Any Other) discuss Australia’s troubling treatment of donor-conceived and transgender children and adults.
Please note, this episode contains references to sexual assault and suicide.
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"Words are what she has left us. They were her glory. They must be our consolation." – Michelle de Kretser on Elizabeth Harrower
When a beloved author dies, there is consolation in knowing that their books – the culminated words of a lifetime in letters – outlive them and tether us to their memory. However, the beauty of those words isn’t simply a static point in time; it continues to evolve in the minds of the writers and thinkers who follow them. Four Festival guests join Chris Taylor to reflect on the powerful work of four writers taken from us: Michelle de Kretser on Sydney literary great Elizabeth Harrower; Kerry O’Brien on legendary political reporter Mungo MacCallum; Michael Robotham on spy master John le Carré; and Sally Warhaft on renowned historian and travel writer Jan Morris.
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that this podcast episode contains the names of people who have died.
Thomas Keneally reflects on The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith in conversation with his long-time friend, Stan Grant. Thomas’ 1972 Booker Prize–nominated story of a black man’s revenge against an unjust society, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, was a formative novel for Stan, helping the young reporter recognise the contradictions at the heart of our national identity. Stan has written the latest instalment of the Writers on Writers series on Thomas. The two continue a long-running conversation about their body of work and friendship, and this land’s history, stories and peoples.
Please note, this episode contains references to topics such as the Stolen Generations and abuse.
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For generations of readers, Judy Blume is an icon. Beginning in the late 1960s, her celebrated novels were formative for young readers and future writers alike. Her children’s stories, including Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, are funny, irreverent and riotous precursors to the blockbuster kids’ series of today. While her young adult books were beloved – and sometimes banned – for their free and frank depictions of puberty and sexuality. Judy joins the Festival from America to speak with Sophie Black about her books, which changed the lives of so many – including her own, the new challenges presented to young people today, and her life now happily running a bookstore on an island in Florida.
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In an age of celebrity endorsements, book-club picks and Amazon reviews, what is the state of once-vital literary criticism? How has the importance of robust and informed evaluation changed in an ever-crowded publishing market and an online sphere where everyone is potentially a critic? In this two-part series, Sydney Review of Books editor Catriona Menzies-Pike interviews four renowned critics about the future of literary criticism. In this episode, Catriona speaks with bestselling author, critic and New York Review of Books Editor-at-Large Daniel Mendelsohn and winner of the Kill Your Darlings New Critic Award, Michael Sun.
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A. C. Grayling is one of the world’s most widely read and celebrated philosophers. This year, the long-time Sydney Writers’ Festival favourite transcended the barriers of distance and the disruption of the global pandemic to join us from the UK to discuss his latest work, The Frontiers of Knowledge, with host of ABC Radio’s Conversations, Richard Fidler. In his inimitable style, this exploration of the paradox of knowledge – that the more we know, the greater our ignorance – reflects on the importance of education and culture to connect us to one another, to new ideas and to different branches of knowledge that can help us understand who we are in the world.
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Veronica Heritage-Gorrie and Kathryn Heyman share insights into their powerful memoirs of adversity and perseverance with the author of Who Gets To Be Smart, Bri Lee (and another special guest: Veronica’s grandchild). Veronica’s Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience tells of her experiences as an Aboriginal police officer fighting for justice within and beyond Australia’s deeply compromised law-enforcement system. Kathryn’s Fury is the account of her year-long stint as a fishing trawler deckhand in the Timor Sea, which reshaped a life marked by poverty and abuse. Together, they explore the transformative power of giving form to your experiences.
Please note, this episode contains references to topics such as the Stolen Generations and sexual assault.
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Poets have been shaping societies for generations. Sometimes painfully, other times joyously reflecting back the worlds they live in and helping us make sense of who we are. In this podcast episode, hear from some of the finest working poets in Australia right now who are defining our place in the world, deepening our understanding of our relationships, setting the agenda and envisioning our future. From a moving tribute to Kate Jennings to a tongue-in-cheek guided ASMR meditation about the end of the world, listen to Eileen Chong (A Thousand Crimson Blooms), Maxine Beneba Clarke (Carrying the World), Ellen van Neerven (Throat), Erik Jensen (I said the sea was folded), Felicity Plunkett (A Kinder Sea), Omar Sakr (The Lost Arabs) and Alison Whittaker (Blakwork) as they read their work, with writer and critic Declan Fry.
Please note, this episode contains references to topics such as sexual assault and slavery.
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Rachel Cusk is a true original. Her Outline Trilogy attracted acclaim and a legion of readers because it felt like something new from a voice in fiction we hadn’t heard before. Writing across fiction, memoir and essay, this award-winning chronicler of the personal is renowned for her coolly glittering prose and astute examination of women’s lives. Rachel (from the UK) speaks with Annabel Crabb about her extraordinary career in writing and Second Place, her latest fable of human destiny and decline.
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Judith Lucy is known as a performer for her radical, even brutal honesty. Over a celebrated career as one of this country’s finest stand-ups, she’s sardonically laid herself bare in the name of laughs. But as an author she’s equally forthcoming, with her memoirs The Lucy Family Alphabet and Drink, Smoke, Pass Out both bestsellers. Now she’s back with her new book Turns Out, I’m Fine. Judith joins Walkley Award–winning reporter Jan Fran for a heart-wrenching and hilarious discussion about disappointing relationships, giving up on men, the life-changing impact of introspection and what it actually means to be fine.
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Lawyer Bernard Collaery faces jail for allegedly helping his former client, intelligence officer Witness K, expose Australia’s bugging of the East Timorese government to gain the upper hand during oil and gas negotiations. His ongoing legal case has been described as a grave threat to freedom of speech at home. Discussing his new book, Oil Under Troubled Water: Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue, Bernard appears alongside Julian Burnside, with host Eleanor Hall, to explore the fragile, fraught and vitally important relationship between our government, the legal system and whistleblowers.
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Join three memoirists who have tackled difficult and taboo topics – ranging from grief and trauma to the challenges of motherhood and alcoholism – and found beauty, humour and even redemption by telling it exactly like it is.
Lech Blaine’s Car Crash is a heart-wrenching and darkly comic story of perseverance in the face of unthinkable tragedy. Ashe Davenport’s Sad Mum Lady is a savagely amusing memoir of motherhood and depression. Comedian Fiona O’Loughlin’s Truths from an Unreliable Witness chronicles a secret addiction to alcohol with gallows humour.
The trio join interviewer and moderator Michaela Kalowski for a deeply moving yet humorous conversation about making monsters dance and muffling their voices between the pages of a book.
Please note, this episode contains discussion of sensitive topics such as suicidal thoughts and sexual assault.
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One of the greatest directors of all time, George Miller AO, joins actor, writer and comedian Tim Minchin (Matilda) to discuss his formidable track record of trailblazing, record-breaking films that have defined Australian cinema. With two films in the top ten highest selling Australian films at the Australian box office (Babe, Happy Feet), and the most nominated and most awarded Australian film ever at the Oscars (Mad Max: Fury Road) – George is a legend of cinema. Join one of this country’s most revolutionary, innovative creative figures for an unforgettable conversation about the art of storytelling, screenwriting and adaptation.
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In an age of celebrity endorsements, book-club picks and Amazon reviews, what is the state of once-vital literary criticism? How has the importance of robust and informed evaluation changed in an ever-crowded publishing market and an online sphere where everyone is potentially a critic? In this two-part series, Sydney Review of Books editor Catriona Menzies-Pike interviews four renowned critics about the future of literary criticism. This episode, Catriona speaks with award-winning literary critics Bernadette Brennan (A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work) and Declan Fry – writer, poet, essayist and proud descendant of the Yorta Yorta.
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What a lucky country we are – sunburnt, egalitarian, no worries. But look beyond the marketing slogan and you may start to wonder: where the bloody hell are you? In this special highlight from the SWF Great Debate – moderated by the unsparing Jennifer Byrne – Nakkiah Lui, writer, actor and Gamillaroi/Torres Strait Islander woman, questions just how good is Australia in this hard-hitting and hilarious speech with the best use of anaphora we’ve ever heard.
Please note, this podcast episode contains explicit language.
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While the external assaults on journalism and newsrooms – politicised attacks on ‘fake news’ or an ‘enemy of the people’ – have a damaging effect on confidence and trust, the internal battles in mastheads and media companies are proving even more explosive. Often presented as a generational divide, questions around the role and responsibilities of journalism are acute. A panel of journalists and media experts – Ariel Bogle, Osman Faruqi and Alan Sunderland – come together with host Erik Jensen to thrash out the differences in sensibility and mores that are causing conflict within media organisations.
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Sure, heroes are great and they save the day, but what is it about a TV villain that we can’t get enough of? From Succession’s Kendall Roy and Breaking Bad’s Walter White to Veep’s Selina Meyer, the baddies tend to steal the show. Acclaimed writers Benjamin Law (The Family Law) and Melina Marchetta (Looking for Alibrandi) join The Chaser’s Chris Taylor to discuss what makes their favourite TV rogues and cringe-worthy wrongdoers so compelling in this riotous conversation that ranges from Fleabag to The Office.
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In Watsonia, decades of Don Watson’s writing – history and journalism, reflections and fragments – have been gathered together for the first time, providing a snapshot of a writer and of a nation. Rick Morton (My Year Of Living Vulnerably) joins Don to discuss the real radical position in politics, bringing back knighthoods, the republic movement, snakes, mateship and not being a public intellectual, as well as the many speeches, essays, books and words that he’s devoted himself to as part of making sense of the world.
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Hear two celebrated Australian writers discuss their heart-rending and lyrically drawn new novels with writer and podcaster Nicole Abadee. Globally bestselling author Nikki Gemmell offers insights into The Ripping Tree, her gripping novel of survival that examines the dark heart of early colonisation in characteristically evocative prose. Miles Franklin Award winner Sofie Laguna talks about Infinite Splendours, an incandescent tale of art and nature, and the lasting impact of childhood trauma.
Please note, this podcast episode contains discussion of sensitive subjects some listeners may find distressing, including domestic violence and sexual assault.
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Award-winning author Nam Le (The Boat) speaks with Rebecca Giggs about her narrative non-fiction debut Fathoms – a powerful, surprising and compelling view of some of the most urgent issues of our times. “What I love about Fathoms is its language: the wonder in it, and of it,” said Nam. “I found it a book of rare beauty and ambition.” Enjoy this poetic and immersive discussion into the art of writing about the world and those animals that magnetise our imaginations and which we fill with stories.
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After last year’s devastating bushfires brought the climate crisis home for many Australians, calls for action were soon drowned out by the COVID-19 pandemic. Hear a panel of our sharpest minds draw focus to the growing spectre of global warming, unpack the political roadblocks and consider how to achieve real progress. Featuring journalist Paddy Manning (Body Count: How climate change is killing us), documentarian Craig Reucassel of The Chaser (Fight for Planet A), and Walkley Award–winning journalist Marian Wilkinson (The Carbon Club), in conversation with author, researcher and broadcaster Rebecca Huntley (How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference).
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Hear a panel of leading technology experts discuss the "horrifying, beautiful, wonderful, terrifying reality of big tech” (Rae Johnston). Together, they tackle questions about who owns what on the internet, the right to privacy, digital threats to democracy, Australia’s legislative showdown with Silicon Valley, the sinister impact of the algorithm and more. Award-winning STEM journalist and proud Wiradjuri woman Rae Johnston speaks with tech reporter Angharad Yeo, cyber policy analyst Ariel Bogle, Reset Australia Executive Director Chris Cooper and Technology Editor for The Australian Financial Review Paul Smith about the role of big tech in our lives – online and off.
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Mehreen Faruqi (Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud) was the first Muslim woman to become a senator in Australia. A life-long feminist and anti-racism activist, she received the Edna Ryan Grand Stirrer Award in 2017, which recognises those who boldly challenge the status quo. Osman Faruqi is the Editor of 7am, Schwartz Media’s daily news podcast. Previously a reporter with the ABC, he’s an award-winning, respected and fearless commentator and has his first book – on race relations in Australia – on the way. He is also Mehreen’s son. Sally Rugg (How Powerful We Are) leads this riveting conversation on politics, media – and some affectionate roasting – between two grand stirrers.
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Meg Mason (Sorrow and Bliss) and Ewa Ramsey (The Morbids) wrote two of the biggest literary hits of the past twelve months, with novels acclaimed for their razor-sharp wit and canny sense of humour. Meg’s Sorrow and Bliss circles the breakdown of a marriage, retracing a history of hurts, failures and disappointments to manage a path through family and selfhood. And Ewa’s titular ‘Morbids’ are a support group for people with death anxiety. Her novel follows a member of the group, Caitlin, as she comes to terms with her past and learns to start living again. Meg and Ewa discuss their novels that both explore the nuances of mental illness with compassion and a dry sense of humour with The Guardian’s Bridie Jabour.
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Greatly missed on TV screens, the nation’s favourite film critics Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton reunite in this special conversation on Australian movie adaptations of books. The famously sparring duo settle back into their critics’ chairs to discuss and debate Neil Armfield’s Candy (starring Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish), Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, Simon Baker’s Breath (based on Tim Winton’s Miles Franklin Award–winning novel of the same name), Bruce Beresford’s Ladies in Black, Robert Connolly’s The Dry and Peter Weir’s classic Picnic at Hanging Rock. Discover which films Margaret and David believe did justice to the original text, bested the books or lost their lustre when transposed from page to screen.
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Beloved author Christos Tsiolkas speaks with Jessie Tu about her debut novel, A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing, a story of female desire and the consequences of wanting too much and never getting it. “As soon as I started reading Jessie Tu’s A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing, it was like a drug rush,” said Christos. “I experienced what all of us who love reading desire: to hear a voice – bold and coherent – that we have not heard before. I was elated.” Enjoy this wide-ranging conversation reflecting on respecting the ones who came before, a shared love of American fiction, writing about anger and the craft of storytelling.
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If you find yourself in dire straits, whether or not you’re rescued may come down to where you are in the world. One of the great international divides, the duty to rescue others is a truly curious product of common law. Continental Europe: you’re obligated to reasonably help, no matter how late you’re running. In the UK...carry on. Throughout his career as a solicitor, barrister and politician, Bernard Collaery (Oil Under Troubled Water) has been a fearless advocate for human rights, specialising in litigation in some of Australia’s highest profile catastrophic personal injury cases. In this Curiosity Lecture, hear Bernard explore where Australia sits on this legal sliding scale of saving.
This session was recorded live outside at the Blacksmiths’ Workshop, Carriageworks for Sydney Writers' Festival 2021.
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Extraordinary times call for extraordinary leadership, but as the planet warms and the pandemic persists, democracies are faltering and true accountability seems somewhat lacking. Triple J Hack’s Shalailah Medhora leads a panel of renowned journalists in a conversation ranging from how governments do (and don’t) take responsibility when things go bad to accountability in the face of reporting sexual misconduct and leaders’ divergent responses to COVID-19. Ultimately, they ask: who’s in charge? And where does the buck stop? Featuring The Guardian’s David Marr, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Kate McClymont (Dead Man Walking) and The Monthly’s Nick Feik.
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Australia’s unofficial poet laureate Paul Kelly has spent a career putting words to – and making poetry of – our lives. His ‘mongrel memoir’ How to Make Gravy was described as “a manual on how to look at things, how to pay attention” (Australian Book Review) while his anthology Love is Strong as Death collects those poems that inspire and challenge him – and in turn, inspire us. Paul joins Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi writer Stan Grant (With the Falling of the Dusk) for a memorable conversation about the role of literature and poetry in their lives and the power of a story sung well.
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Getting lost in a book is more than just a turn of phrase; a great read can transport us to continents and cultures far beyond our own. In lieu of travel, what books can we count on to carry us across the globe or to different times? Join a panel of renowned guests and literary travellers as they celebrate the escapist joys of reading and reveal the writers they rely on to whisk them away from their reading nooks to far-flung locales. Featuring Tegan Bennett Daylight, Richard Fidler, Heather Rose and Maxine Beneba Clarke in conversation with ABC RN’s Kate Evans.
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Exploring who you are takes a lot of courage. Yuin writer Gary Lonesborough’s first book The Boy from the Mish is a funny and big-hearted queer Indigenous young adult novel set in a rural Australian community. It’s a branch of hope extended to teenagers who think they’re alone. Benjamin Law speaks to Gary about this beautifully written story about finding love – and yourself.
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‘Guwayu’ is a Wiradjuri word meaning ‘still and yet and for all times’. Guwayu – For All Times is a groundbreaking collection of 63 poems from 36 First Nations poets in 12 First Nations languages. Commissioned by Red Room Poetry, this collection – 16 years in the making – is an exquisite expression of living First Nations culture, with the diversity of languages represented unprecedented in publishing. Hear from the remarkable poets and contributors to the anthology, Ellen van Neerven, Nardi Simpson, Kirli Saunders and Joel Davison, in conversation with ABC Radio National’s Daniel Browning.
Presented in partnership with Red Room Poetry.
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Although one in five Australians live with disability, people with disabilities remain under-represented in our literature. Growing Up Disabled in Australia is an urgent anthology of first-person stories described by The Sydney Morning Herald as “gripping the reader by the collar while pulling the rug out from under their feet”. Hear from four of the collection’s contributors – Fiona Murphy, Alistair Baldwin, Gayle Kennedy and Belinda Downes – as they speak with its editor, Carly Findlay, about navigating disability and what it means to be regarded as ‘different’.
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This year marks 100 years since the first woman was elected to Australian parliament. Despite significant gains for women in politics, recent history leaves us in no doubt of the volatile, hostile and harmful environment politics can be for women. The numbers in federal parliament speak for themselves, while reports of sexism and harassment abound.
Labor MP Kate Ellis (Sex, Lies and Question Time: The Successes and Struggles of Women in Australia’s Parliament), Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, former independent MP Cathy McGowan (Cathy Goes to Canberra: Doing Politics Differently) and journalist Annabel Crabb talk about how the gender divide runs deeper than party lines and the structural change needed to address its harsh costs, with historian Clare Wright (You Daughters of Freedom).
Please note, there is some minor background noise during the first few minutes of this podcast episode that later resolves.
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From 9/11 to Hurricane Sandy, we’ve seen New York weather many storms, the city an indestructible icon in our global imagination. But when COVID swept through Manhattan and surrounding boroughs, bustling restaurants, theatres, subways and sidewalks were forever changed.
Renowned writer and photographer Bill Hayes has been hailed by Edmund White as “the great poet of the everyday”. When the world came to a halt, Bill took to the streets of Manhattan to document the lockdown. The resulting collection of poetry and images, How We Live Now: Scenes from the Pandemic, is reminiscent of Insomniac City, Bill’s tender ode to New York and his partner, the late Oliver Sacks. It celebrates the shared humanity that emerged during a time of unanticipated catastrophe.
In this podcast episode, Bill shares anecdotes and experiences from during the pandemic and beyond with journalist Anton Enus.
Please note, photographs from How We Live Now were shown during this special immersive event.
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Legend of theatre John Bell and stellar reporter ABC Melbourne’s Virginia Trioli come together to exchange their unique insights into leadership. John, an award-winning actor and director, and founder of Bell Shakespeare, sheds light on his new book Some Achieve Greatness: Lessons on leadership and character from Shakespeare and one of his greatest admirers. John’s book distils valuable lessons on leadership gleaned from some six decades spent bringing complex and fascinating characters to life (and death) on stage. Virginia brings her perspective as one of the country’s most formidable journalists, famed for cutting through scripted spin to find out what makes political leaders tick (and sweat).
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Richard Flanagan is a legend of Australian letters. His much-lauded novels are published in 42 countries. He won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the Commonwealth Prize for Gould’s Book of Fish. His latest novel, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, offers a tender, haunting portrait of a world disappearing around us. With Laura Tingle, he reflects with characteristic eloquence on the purpose of literature, the nature of time, the democratic freedom of the novel and the truths of our world.
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While the climate crisis and pandemic have – in some respects – heightened our sense of the truly international nature of the challenges we face, the human consequences of global instability are too often overlooked, and the horrors faced by displaced people around the world both taken for granted and invisible. Zoe Holman (Where the Water Ends), Behrouz Boochani (No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison), Adama Kamara from the Refugee Council of Australia, and human rights advocate Zaki Haidari speak with The Guardian’s Ben Doherty about the struggle faced by so many to find a safe, permanent home.
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Norman Swan and his son Jonathan Swan are two of Australia’s most discerning and dedicated journalistic minds. Over the past year, Australian audiences have looked to Norman, renowned physician, journalist, broadcaster and host of ABC Radio National’s Health Report and ABC’s Coronacast, and Jonathan, former Sydney Morning Herald reporter and now National Political Correspondent at Axios in the US – and host of that viral Trump interview from 2020 – as guiding voices of reason. In this special podcast, they discuss their careers in journalism and whether there’s a Swan family secret to great reporting, with ABC’s Geraldine Doogue.
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After the runaway success of Sarah Krasnostein’s debut The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in Death, Decay & Disaster, Sarah spent time in Australia and the US talking to six extraordinary people who held fast to a belief even though it rubbed against the grain of conventional wisdom. Her research culminated in The Believer: Encounters with Love, Death & Faith, a deeply humane and deftly drawn enquiry into the power of belief. Sarah is joined by author of Axiomatic, Maria Tumarkin, to explore the writing process behind her remarkable works, the tension between non-fiction and confession, and the ceaseless lure of curious subjects.
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Literature has played a significant role in the colonial imagination and the domination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Bundjalung author and Miles Franklin Award winner Melissa Lucashenko (Too Much Lip) and Yuwaalaraay musician and author Nardi Simpson (Song of the Crocodile) have a profound discussion on writing Country with Festival Guest Curator, Gunai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta writer, Nayuka Gorrie. As Nayuka reflects, “The way our land and non-human kin have been written formed part of the justification for the control and brutalisation of Country. This is in stark contrast to the way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people write of Country. No one writes Country like we do.”
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Australian authors Kylie Maslen, Fiona Murphy and Jacinta Parsons discuss their memoirs of living with invisible disabilities or chronic conditions and navigating the healthcare system. Kylie’s wry and incisive Show Me Where it Hurts: Living with Invisible Illness details life with chronic pain and mental illness, and was named a stand-out book of 2020 by Guardian Australia. Fiona’s The Shape of Sound chronicles how she overcame shame and secrecy to claim her Deaf identity, drawing praise from Helen Garner, who said, “I devoured this in a day, fascinated, enlightened, moved”. Jacinta’s Unseen trains a microscope on the unique challenges of living with an invisible condition and was dubbed “a generous, brave, moving and deeply insightful work that will change lives for the better” by Clare Bowditch. The three speak with writer, producer, podcaster and illustrator Chloe Sargeant, co-host of the podcast Chronically Fully Sick.
Please note that towards the end of this podcast episode, there is a discussion around euthanasia.
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Few authors wield the skill, consistency and imagination of two-time recipient of the Booker Prize, Peter Carey. A consummate writer and keen observer of life, Peter’s novels span continents and centuries, often zeroing in on Australian identity and the cruel and complex history that formed it. His 14 books include award-winning titles such as Oscar and Lucinda, Bliss, Jack Maggs and True History of the Kelly Gang. Hear one of modern fiction’s most celebrated novelists discuss his – and Ned’s – curious and compelling past, the writers he loves and his storied life in writing with Sarah Krasnostein (acclaimed author of The Believer: Encounters with Love, Death & Faith).
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Three of Australia’s most admired and influential writers from across three generations deliver an extraordinary Opening Night Address. Miles Franklin Award winners Melissa Lucashenko (Too Much Lip) and Tara June Winch (The Yield), and debut poet and essayist Evelyn Araluen (Dropbear), reflect on literature, who gets a voice, and the ways that stories define and shape us as a culture. Together, they invite us to consider what worlds the right words can bring within reach.
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Join Annabel Crabb and Sydney Writers’ Festival Artistic Director Michael Williams for a special unveiling of the 2021 Festival program. The pair discuss this year’s Festival theme then Michael introduces the Festival’s Guest Curators, the acclaimed writers in the Opening Address, exciting new events and what he’s most looking forward to. Prepare to have a reading list a mile long after listening.
Thank you to 2SER for facilitating the recording of this podcast.
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2020 Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart discusses his modern masterpiece, Shuggie Bain. Douglas has been compared to Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, Hanya Yanagihara and countless others, but this extraordinary debut makes it clear that he is a true original, and there is only one Shuggie Bain. Douglas is joined by Benjamin Law.
This recording was taken from a live Sydney Writers' Festival event in January 2021 as part of Sydney Festival.
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We asked some of Australia's smartest, most thoughtful, most imaginative writers to turn their thoughts to what we might reasonably expect from the next 12 months. In their areas of expertise, RN’s Health Report and Coronacast host Norman Swan, acclaimed Indigenous author Gayle Kennedy, award-winning writer Maxine Beneba Clarke, leading investigative journalist Kate McClymont and award-winning journalist and broadcaster Jan Fran read the tea leaves, take some temperatures and share with us their account of things to come.
This recording was taken from a live Sydney Writers' Festival event in January 2021 as part of Sydney Festival.
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Set across the far-flung reaches of the universe, The Old Lie, by Stella Prize–shortlisted novelist Claire G. Coleman, examines Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander soldiers after World War II. Hailed by Gomeroi poet Alison Whittaker as “a hoot [and] a rollick through both sci-fi and speculative fiction”, The Old Lie takes us to a futuristic yet familiar world to ask what we have learned from the past. It holds a mirror up to colonialism and the erasure of Indigenous peoples’ stories from history. Claire speaks with Declan Fry about her ambitious follow-up to the prize-winning Terra Nullius.
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The searing debut novel of one of Australia’s most lauded journalists, Act of Grace bears the same passion and political fire as Anna Krien’s non-fiction works, Night Games and Into the Woods. Told through the eyes of a returned Australian soldier, a young Indigenous woman and an Iraqi refugee formerly embroiled in the atrocities of Saddam Hussein’s reign, Act of Grace has been hailed as “breathtakingly humane” by Anna Funder and “a work of stunning virtuosity” by Ceridwen Dovey. Catherine Keenan AM speaks with Anna about the damage one generation bestows upon the next, and the potential for transformation.
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A master of popular criticism, The New York Times have christened Daniel Mendelsohn “our most irresistible literary critic”. In The Bad Boy of Athens: Classics from the Greeks to Game of Thrones, Daniel uses the ancient past as a lens to examine modern culture in a collection of essays that traverse everything from Sappho’s sexuality and the feminism that can be found in Game of Thrones, to the unexpected connections between Homer and robots. Daniel is joined by Tali Lavi.
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Charlotte Wood has captured the feminist zeitgeist once again with The Weekend, her sharply observed and excruciatingly funny follow-up to the Stella Prize–winning The Natural Way of Things. When three lifelong friends in their 70s meet at a beach house owned by a fourth friend who has just died, old conflicts resurface and a secret threatens their bond. The Weekend is about growing old and growing up, and uncovering the lies we tell ourselves. Charlotte appears in conversation with Lucinda Holdforth to discuss her masterful and tender celebration of friendship.
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One of the most talked-about books of the year, Julia Phillips’s powerful debut thriller Disappearing Earth has been hailed as “daring, nearly flawless” (The New York Times Book Review). When two sisters disappear from a beach on the far-flung Kamchatka Peninsula in northeastern Russia, readers are drawn into an astonishing cast of characters connected by an unfathomable crime. Shortlisted for the 2019 National Book Award, Julia joins Tam Zimet to discuss this unusual, cleverly constructed novel that illuminates the themes of ethnicity, gender, hearth and kin.
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In The White Girl, Miles Franklin Award-shortlisted author Tony Birch shines a spotlight on 1960s Australia and the then-government’s devastating policy of taking Indigenous children from their families. Set in a fictional Australian town at the tail end of the Menzies era, The White Girl is a captivating allegory of good and evil. Through the strong black women at the story’s core, Tony explores the legacy of Australia’s colonial past. Tony, who received the Patrick White Award for his contribution to Australian literature and culture, speaks with Evelyn Araluen about his acclaimed new novel.
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In this special Sydney Writers' Festival edition of Guardian Australia’s monthly book club, Helen Garner discusses the second volume of her diaries, One Day I’ll Remember This, which tracks a particularly tumultuous decade of her life: it begins with a love affair in 1987, and ends with the 1995 publication of The First Stone. The author of Monkey Grip, Joe Cinque’s Consolation and This House of Grief speaks about her work and life, and how the process of diarising can make an impact on both, in conversation with our Artistic Director Michael Williams.
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As part of Cheltenham Literature Festival, Sydney Writers' Festival co-presented a special conversation between Wiradjuri author Tara June Winch (The Yield) and Kurdish film-maker, writer and refugee Behrouz Boochani (No Friend but the Mountains). Now released as a podcast, the award-winning pair discuss their powerful works with shared themes of language, colonial violence and writing about Australia from the outside.
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Trent Dalton's novel, All Our Shimmering Skies, is an exhilarating tale of love, friendship and gifts that fall from the sky. Set in the Northern Territory during World War II, it’s filled with Trent’s typically acute observations, larger-than-life characters and moments of both pure joy and heartbreaking sadness. In conversation with Annabel Crabb, Trent discusses his extraordinary rise to literary acclaim, the much-loved international phenomenon, Boy Swallows Universe, and the new book he calls a love letter to Australia.
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Step behind the clichés about silver tsunamis to explore the power and politics, lives and loves, losses and salvations that define who we are and how we live as we get older. Griffith Review’s Getting On explores the themes of aging, mortality and maturity through fiction, memoir, essay and reportage, revealing the complexities of lives lost and found. Join Tony Birch, Andrew Stafford and Jane R. Goodall in conversation with Griffith Review editor, Ashley Hay.
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For some, DNA testing is a harmless foray into their family’s past. But for others, it can be life-changing. The increase in popularity of DNA testing means thousands of people all over the world are unearthing long-held secrets, opening up a floodgate of questions for their families and our society. With donors often shielded by non-disclosure and anonymity laws, for many, the results of these tests can start a lifelong struggle with laws that protect the interests of parents – but not their children. Bri Lee joins author Dani Shapiro (Inheritance) to explore the complex questions surrounding our right to know our own identity.
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First published when she was a teenager, Alice Oseman has grown up alongside her readers. With an extraordinary seven books now under her belt, her heartfelt stories of fandoms, friendship and love continue to obsess and delight the YA world. Join Alice for a fascinating discussion with Jes Layton on how she has changed over her writing career; the importance of writing stories inspired by your own life – and choosing the right form for them; her graphic novel series Heartstopper; and her most personal work to date, Loveless.
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In Stone Sky Gold Mountain Mirandi Riwoe evokes the rich, unfolding tapestry of Australian life 150 years ago in the township of Maytown, Far North Queensland. Displaced siblings Ying and Lai Yue, forced to flee their home in China, soon find themselves abandoning work on the goldfields only to become embroiled in a community trying to make sense of a violent crime. Racial tension and suspicion quickly place all those considered outsiders at the centre of this poignant and enduring tale. Mirandi joins Rashida Murphy to discuss the impetus and inspiration behind her new novel.
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There Was Still Love, the profoundly moving new novel from Miles Franklin Award–shortlisted author Favel Parrett, follows twin sisters separated at 15 by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and kept apart by the Cold War. Tender and beautifully told, the story reads as a love letter to strong women who bind families together. Elizabeth McCarthy speaks to Favel to reflect on a novel that explores what it means to make a home, and how a person might secure freedom in a world ruptured by political and personal upheavals.
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ARIA award-winning triple j host Alex Dyson talks to fellow YA author Will Kostakis about his debut YA novel, When it Drops. Sixteen-year-old Caleb is a socially awkward outcast dealing with the death of his father by secretly making music in his bedroom until he becomes suddenly, and reluctantly, famous. When it Drops is a hilarious and touching coming-of-age story about family, friends, fame, and the importance of never leaving your computer unattended.
This conversation is part of our YA podcast series.
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Part political thriller, part family saga and part love letter to Tasmania, Bruny is the most ambitious novel yet from the Stella Prize– and Christina Stead Prize–winning author of The Museum of Modern Love. Opening with an explosive terrorist act, Bruny immerses us in a future where America has withdrawn from the UN, a king sits on the British throne and China is building a bridge between Hobart and Bruny Island. Heather Rose discusses her subversive tale of a new world order with Suzanne Leal.
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From the award-winning novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn, Patsy is the brave and stirring saga of a Jamaican woman who upends her life for a new start in America, leaving her young child behind. Fellow author Alexander Chee calls Pasty a “stunningly powerful intergenerational novel about the price – the ransom really – women must pay to choose themselves, their lives, their value, their humanity”. Nicole joins Santilla Chingaipe to discuss her portrait of a queer black woman grasping for self-determination. A passionate and fiercely urgent story, Paty traces the silent threads of love that stretch across years and oceans.
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From summer flings and first crushes to slow-burning romances – these three authors know what it takes to write a nuanced queer love story. Sophie Gonzales (Only Mostly Devastated) and Anna Whateley (Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal) have written warm, funny and occasionally awkward stories of LGBTIQA+ teens figuring life out. They join Erin Gough to discuss queer perspectives on love story clichés and why their depictions of high school life have resonated so strongly with a new generation of readers.
This conversation is part of our YA podcast series.
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A masterful collection of horizons, departures, heartbreaks and seductions by one of Australia’s short-fiction greats, Josephine Rowe’s Here Until August spans Montreal and Western Australia. It follows the fates of characters who, by choice or by force, are travelling beyond the boundaries of their known worlds. It has been widely lauded, including by Miles Franklin Award–winner Michelle de Kretser, who wrote, “In their steady excavation of intimacy, these spacious stories bring Alice Munro to mind”. Stephanie Bishop meets Josephine to discuss this lyrical, nuanced and scintillating collection.
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From F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby to Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, there’s a long tradition of writing about eventful summers where personal crises unfold across long days and languid nights. Ronnie Scott’s The Adversary is a summer novel about young people exploring their sexuality and sociability. Madeleine Watts’s The Inland Sea is the story of a young woman’s fraught final summer in Sydney. Rebecca Harkins-Cross asks two these exciting young authors about how the intensity, transience and torpor of the season plays a role in their new novels and in literature at large.
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An exposé by Disaster Capitalism author Antony Loewenstein, Pills, Powder, and Smoke traverses the streets of London, the killing fields of Central America and the cocaine routes of West Africa to uncover a failed policy and ask who it really profits. According to journalist Johann Hari, “anyone who cares about the war on drugs … should read this superb book right away”. With George Dertadian, Antony discusses how the war on drugs focuses on controlling markets and people rather than ending addiction, and argues for a more humane approach.
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In Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s Stella Prize-winning memoir The Erratics, two sisters reckon with the convalescence and death of their outlandishly tyrannical mother and the care of their psychologically terrorised father. Darkly comic and savagely honest, The Erratics possesses the tightly coiled, compressed energy of an explosive device. A debut author in her 70s, Vicki Laveau-Harvie talks with ABC’s Ange Lavoipierre about this true story set against the natural beauty of remote Canada, which shatters precedents of grief, anger and family trauma with surprising tenderness and humour.
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Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s I Choose Elena and Ellena Savage’sBlueberries interrogate what it means to make one’s way through the world as a woman, within its structures of power and oppression. Lucia's powerful memoir explores how trauma affects the body, bringing to our attention its cyclical, intergenerational nature. Ellena’s blend of personal essay, polemic, prose poetry, true-crime journalism and confession considers class and capitalism versus art and freedom. These two exciting young Australian authors discuss their work with Maeve Marsden.
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Uncanny Valley is Anna Wiener’s prescient, page-turning account of our digital age. Set against the backdrop of our generation’s very own gold rush, Anna retells her days in San Francisco’s 2010s Silicon Valley culture, which Rebecca Solnit describes as “like Joan Didion at a startup”. Now a contributor to The New Yorker, Anna joins NITV’s Science and Technology Editor Rae Johnston to discuss a debut that is at once a bitingly funny critique of Silicon Valley and a disarmingly honest account of the tensions between old and new, art and tech, the quest for money and the quest for meaning.
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Mainstream media has long been guilty of not giving enough exposure to Indigenous stories and failing to prioritise the voices of Indigenous reporters. In this podcast from the Stories Worth Telling series, hear from a panel of leading journalists as they celebrate excellence in Indigenous reporting around the world and consider what changes are needed to see better First Nations representation in leading media networks. Featuring Warlpiri journalist and co-host of NITV’s The Point Rachael Hocking, Anishinaabe and Polish Canadian journalist and All Our Relationsauthor Tanya Talaga in conversation with Kamilaroi/Dunghutti journalist and co-founder of the Tiddas4Tiddas podcast Marlee Silva.
Stories Worth Telling is a series created by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas and Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Fascists Among Us by Walkley Award–winning writer Jeff Sparrow is the first book to trace the Christchurch massacre’s roots. Jeff untangles the history of the far right to show how fascists have adapted to 21st-century politics, and argues that the mosque killer represents a frightening new phenomenon: decentralised right-wing terrorism that recruits by committing atrocities, feeds on itself and spreads from country to country. Jeff speaks with Antony Loewenstein about his compelling, urgent call for a new response to an old menace.
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As part of the Stories Worth Telling series, two of Australia’s most beloved and acclaimed magazine writers, The Australian’s Trent Dalton and Good Weekend’s Jane Cadzow, join editor Katrina Strickland to discuss the history and continued relevance of the form. Trent and Jane open up about how they research, prepare for and write long-form profiles, how they handle tricky interview subjects, and share how their craft has evolved over the course of their long careers.
Stories Worth Telling is a series created by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas and Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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