Sydney Writers' Festival

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.  If you enjoyed t...

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....

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 , Abdulraza...

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 Gre...

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, 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...

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, Rich...

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 h...

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,...

[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 hers...

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 or...

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 d...

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...

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...

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...

“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...

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...

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 front...

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 w...

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 b...

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...

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....

“ 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 . Celebra...

“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 conscio...

“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 medita...

[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 st...