Sydney Writers' Festival

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 consequences and ramificat

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 hold for the return of d

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 centuries apart. In both

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 recognise it, nurture i

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 Franklin Award winner Shan

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 settlement in the Americas.