Sydney Writers' Festival

Bob Brown led the Australian Greens from the party's foundation in 1992 until April 2012. Bob was elected to the Australian Senate in 1996. He was also the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia, and the first openly gay leader of an Australian political party. In 2012 Bob stepped down as Leader of the Australian Greens, and then retired from the Senate. Since then he has continued to campaign on conservation issues across Australia and the world. Bob discusses his life’s work and his new book Planet Earth with fellow environmental advocate Scott Ludlam. Bob’s words are a clear message on the issues facing our planet and his positive approach is an inspiration to us all.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A masterful work of emotional force from one of the greatest, most daring contemporary writers, Strange Hotel is the blistering new novel from Eimear McBride, the Women’s Prize for Fiction–winning author of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. The story follows a nameless woman as she enters various hotel suites, and is forced to reckon with the turning tides of a life she’s tried desperately to escape. Heather Rose meets the author Anne Enright has called “that old-fashioned thing, a genius”. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kay Kerr’s debut young adult novel, Please Don’t Hug Me, explores love, loss and friendship through the eyes of Erin, a young woman on the autism spectrum. Kay joins Anna Whateley, a fellow neurodivergent author, for a funny, warm and enlightening conversation about Please Don’t Hug Me, the joys and complexities of writing the teen experience, and the importance of the #ownvoices movement in YA literature. This conversation is part of our YA podcast series. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Truganini tells the haunting story of the extraordinary woman behind the myth of ‘the last Aboriginal Tasmanian’. Scholar and award-winning author Cassandra Pybus draws from original eyewitness accounts to paint a complex picture of Truganini’s remarkable life. In conversation with Jakelin Troy, Cassandra discusses her inspiring and heart-wrenching account of a lively, intelligent young woman who survived the devastating decade of the 1820s, when the clans of southeastern Tasmania were all but extinguished. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An exquisitely beautiful and deeply affecting exploration of connection and loss in an age of planetary trauma, Ghost Species is the latest novel by prize-winning author and critic James Bradley. When scientist Kate Larkin joins a secretive project to re-engineer the climate by resurrecting extinct species, she becomes enmeshed in a clandestine program to recreate our long-lost species, the Neanderthals. James talks with ABC Radio’s Cassie McCullagh about the novel that Charlotte Wood characterises as “prescient, thrillingly imaginative... urgent and frighteningly timely.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Ratline: Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive is the exhilarating follow-up to the bestselling East West Street from Philippe Sands, who sets out to uncover what happened to Nazi fugitive Otto von Wächter. Philippe – a professor of law and practising barrister who has worked on international cases involving Pinochet, Yugoslavia and Rwanda – joins Janice Petersen to discuss this page-turning detective story, which encompasses a mysterious death, spies, Nazi hunters, dark forces within the Vatican and a son grappling with his father’s sins. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An explosive and unforgettable novel, Sweetness and Light confirms Liam Pieper’s place as one of our country’s finest, sharpest writers. Racing from the beaches of Goa to the streets of Delhi and the jungles of Tamil Nadu, we meet an expat Australian grifter running low-stakes scams and an American woman in search of spiritual succour. Soon, they discover something deeply wrong inside a utopian ashram community. Winner of the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction for his novel The Toymaker, Liam talks with Roanna Gonsalves about his intoxicating new story that explores the battles between love and lust, and morality and corruption. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the newest contribution to the Writers on Writers book series, author and The Monthly's Contributing Editor Richard Cooke turns his attention to the seminal Australian travel writer Robyn Davidson. Robyn’s bestselling Tracks recounted her solo walk from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean in 1977 at the age of 27, and was later adapted into a film. Speaking with the ABC's Michaela Kalowski, Richard reflects on Robyn’s remarkable life, her relationship with place and freedom, and her singular presence in Australian letters. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The explosive second poetry collection from acclaimed Mununjali Yugambeh writer Ellen van Neerven, Throat, explores love, language and land. The winner of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers’ Prize, Ellen has been described by Maxine Beneba Clarke (The Hate Race) as a young writer who “best represents all that Australian literature was, is, and will surely be, in the decades to come”. Hear Ellen talk with Tessa Rose about their irreverent and powerful anthology, which casts a light on our country’s unreconciled past and precarious present. Supported by Australian Poetry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An ingeniously crafted novel by award-winning writer Intan Paramaditha, The Wandering is a choose-your-own-adventure story that explores the highs and lows of global nomadism, the politics and privileges of travel and desire, and the freedoms and limitations of the choices we make. Depending on which pages you turn to, you could become a tourist or an undocumented migrant, a mother or a murderer, as you meet many other travellers with stories to tell. Shirley Le talks with Intan about an electrifying novel that turns the traditional adventure story on its head. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Below Deck is the breakout novel by Australia’s newest literary sensation, Sophie Hardcastle. A heart-wrenching, poetic story about the vagaries of consent and the question of who has the space to speak, Below Deck charts several years in the life of a young woman who wakes up on a boat with no recollection of how she got there. Georgie Dent meets Sophie to discuss the novel hailed as a “tender, hopeful battle-cry” (Brooke Davis) by “a phenomenal, courageous talent” (Clementine Ford). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gomeroi poet, essayist and legal scholar Alison Whittaker takes us through the work of First Nations writers who would have joined us this week as she addresses the 2020 Sydney Writers’ Festival theme, Almost Midnight. She considers our fates – both personal and collective – in a world that feels like it's ending. She looks to the role of hope in our eleventh hour, discussing how storytelling charts triumphs and tragedies while the clock ticks on. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beach, she considered how whales could shed light on the condition of our seas. Fathoms: the world in the whale is her stunning meditation on the lives of these awe-inspiring creatures and her exploration of what they reveal about us. In the spirit of Rebecca Solnit and Rachel Carson, Rebecca – whose work has appeared in Granta and The New York Times – writes vividly about the natural world. In conversation with Angus Dalton, Rebecca asks what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two of the most acclaimed writers in fiction today, Ann Patchett (The Dutch House) and Kevin Wilson (Nothing to See Here) have been close friends for more than 20 years. In a rare and intimate glimpse into their literary and personal bond, the beloved Tennessean authors share stories of their friendship, their deep admiration of each other’s work and how they both explore the theme of family through their fiction. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Drawn from years of investigative reporting on domestic abuse, Jess Hill’s 2020 Stella Prize-winning book See What You Made Me Do vividly conjures the scale of our national emergency, evoking a sense of urgency in the reader. Rather than asking questions like, “Why didn’t she leave?”, Jess puts perpetrators – and the criminal justice system enabling them – into the spotlight. Journalist Georgie Dent speaks with Jess about her searing exposé and manifesto for change. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.