Sydney Writers' Festival

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ca...

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 ci...

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&rsq...

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...

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...

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 Herrald...

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, vic...

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...

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 an...

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 a...

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 ch...

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 Institu...

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 accel...

[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 Recogn...

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 Laur...

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 Pete...

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 a...

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 b...

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, educati...

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 w...

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 f...