Sydney Writers' Festival

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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). Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Sydney Writers' Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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). If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.  If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.  If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe to our channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.