Feminist Firebrands

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…

The Drowning with Bryan Brown and Sam Neill

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…

Hidden Heroines

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…

Richard Flanagan and Anna Funder on Writing

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, ex…

Dirty Laundry

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 cons…

PEN Lecture: Writing From Prison in Myanmar

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 ho…

Melissa Lucashenko: Edenglassie

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 ce…

Julia Baird: Bright Shining

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 …

The Presence of the Past

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 Fran…

Lauren Groff: The Vaster Wilds

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 settl…