Best of the Festivals

Who's watching your local council, keeping you abreast of issues in your neighbourhood, and celebrating your community's achievements?  That used to be the role of your local newspaper, but now many of us don't have one. A discussion about why local news matters from the Williamstown Literary Festival in Victoria. Guests: Alice Pung , author and adjunct professor in the School of Media and Communi...

At the 2024 Sydney Writers Festival , host George Haddad is on stage with three memoirists who have mined their family's experiences in their professional lives: comedian Rhys Nicholson, writer and presenter Benjamin Law, and author and academic Dr Amy Thunig.

At the Byron Writers Festival , Radio National’s Claire Nichols spoke with Menna Kandasamy about her life growing up in a house of academics and rebels, the challenge of being an activist, and why she continues despite the threats.

At the 2024 Sorrento Writers Festival in Victoria, Australian author and poet Nam Le, speaking with Radio National’s Sarah L'Estrange about his latest literary offering 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem.

At the 2024 Sydney Writers Festival , Jemma Birrell speaks with three award-winning translators who have introduced anglophone audiences to some of the most celebrated writers in French, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. Guests: Authors Jennifer Croft, Daniel Hahn and Stephanie Smee with Jemma Birrell, the Head of Writing at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

From deep sea mining to illegal fishing on the high seas, who is the boss of the ocean? And why are scientists-turned-entrepreneurs singing the praises of seaweed? Natasha Mitchell and guests at the 2024 Ocean Lovers Festival in Bondi.

At the 2024 Sydney Writers Festival , a conversation with three authors of historical fiction: Francesca de Tores author of Saltblood , Mirandi Riwoe author of  Sunbirds and Abraham Verghese author of The Covenant of Water .

US based Nigerian born author Chigozie Obioma speaks with Radio National’s Claire Nichols about his third novel  The Road to the Country , which chronicles the Biafran War that tore through Nigeria from 1967 to 1970.

At Adelaide Writers Week , Radio National’s Sarah L’Estrange is in conversation with author Jonathan Lethem about his book Brooklyn Crime Novel -- a portrait of Brooklyn and how it's been affected by race, class and gentrification.

At the 2024 Sydney Writers Festival a conversation between writer Sisonke Msimang and Nobel Prize winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah about Afterlives  – an intergenerational portrait of love and loss under German occupation in East Africa.

Radio National’s Kate Evans in conversation about memory and fable with the writers Yumna Kassab, Zoya Patel and memoirist Abbas El-Zein.

At the Words on the Waves literary festival , Radio National’s Annika Blau talks to three women about their books:  Stephanie Wood’s Fake , about a man she thought was a sheep farmer turns out to be anything. Jeanne Ryckmans' Trust , about a fraudster who fooled central banks, elite universities, major companies. Tracy Hall's The Last Victim , about the author's fling who she found out had spent t...

Holly Ringland speaks about her new book  The House That Joy Built and finding Joy through creativity. Julia Baird’s new book Bright Shining focuses on what grace looks like in the world, and how we can nurture it. They are in conversation with Michaela Kalowski at the 2024 Sydney Writers Festival.

At the Melbourne Writers Festival, Radio National’s Sarah L’Estrange in conversation with two authors about their novels which expose the unholy connection between money, art and power.  Bri Lee’s The Work and Liam Peiper’s Appreciation .

At Adelaide Writers Week , Jonathan Rosen speaks to Radio National’s Sarah Kanowski about this recent book The Best Minds: a story of friendship, madness, and the tragedy of good intentions.  His childhood best friend Michael Laudor was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and failed by a dysfunctional system, went on to kill the person he loved most. The book chronicles their different life paths. TW: T...

At a packed Sydney Opera House , a conversation with the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry co-winner, Professor Jennifer Doudna. She talks to Radio National’s Natasha Mitchell about the huge social, ethical, and scientific implications of the CRISPR gene editing revolution.  This event was presented by the Sydney Opera House, Big Questions Institute, Sydney Writers’ Festival, and the University of Ne...

At the 2024 Sydney Writers Festival, author Viet Thanh Nguyen is in conversation with Benjamin Law talking about his memoir,  A Man of Two Faces . The book details the dual identity of a Vietnamese refugee growing up in North America. 

Robyn Davidson is the author of Tracks , which documented her 2,700 kilometre trek across the Australian desert with four camels and her dog Diggity in tow. She's now written a memoir -- Unfinished Woman -- which brings together all the threads of her life. She speaks to Radio National’s Sarah L’Estrange about the interrogation of the 'self'.

At the 2024 Sydney Writers Festival Sebastian Barry talks to Kate Evans about his novel, Old God’s Time, which is a portrait of a good man haunted by a traumatic past.  Includes a performance by members of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, bringing to life a key piece of music featured in the novel.

A panel discussion with Rosemarie Milsom about whether ethics should be considered when writing about crime. Featuring: Matthew Condon , author and journalist at The Australian. Candice Fox , crime fiction author. Benjamin Stevenson , crime fiction author and award-winning stand-up comedian.

Insects are ecological warriors and through the brilliance of biomimicry they're also inspiring all sorts of human inventions. From new medicines to air safety systems — don't underestimate the larger-than-life impact of the planet's tiniest beings.

In her novel, The Art of Breaking Ice , Rachael Mead imagines what it was like for Nel Law to become the first Australian woman to set foot in Antarctica at a time when women’s place was in the home.  At the 2024 Adelaide Writers Week, Rachael Mead speaks with Radio National’s Sarah L’Estrange.

At this event at the NSW State Library, the BBC’s flagship radio arts program Front Row arrived in Sydney for the Contains Strong Language festival, to put a spotlight on Australian poetry.  Radio National’s Michael Cathcart speaks with singer-songwriter Paul Kelly , Miles Franklin winning author Shankari Chandran , poet and filmmaker  Jazz Money , and UK Poet Laureate  Simon Armitage .

Radio National’s Claire Nichols, spoke to Samantha Shannon at the 2024 Sydney Writers Festival about how she's navigated a huge publishing deal at such a young age; the challenge of being compared to J.K. Rowling; why she is writing two fantasy series at the same time, and the complexities involved in creating these imagined worlds.

Kate Evans speaks to Tess Schofield Peters, author of Dear Mutzi and social researcher Andra Putnis, whose book is the Stories my Grandmothers Didn’t Tell Me - two books which chronicle their grandparent’s journeys from war-torn Europe to new lives in Australia.