Sydney Writers Festival 2015 program launched

Friday, 27 March 2015 Books+Publishing

The 2015 Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) program has been launched and is now available on the website.

Forty-five international authors will attend this year’s festival, which will be held from 18-24 May, including bestselling author James Patterson, who will speak at an early festival event on 8 May; actor Alan Cumming, author of the memoir Not My Father’s Son (Canongate); mortician Caitlin Doughty, author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory (Canongate); novelist David Mitchell, who will be discussing his latest novel The Bone Clocks (Sceptre); Douglas Coupland, author of Generation X (Abacus); novelist and short-story writer Amy Bloom; Ben Okri, author of the Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road; and thriller writer Michael Connelly. Among the international children’s authors attending the festival are David Walliams, Laurie Halse Anderson and Anthony Horowitz.

More than 400 Australian writers will also participate in the festival, including Robyn Cadwallader, Brooke Davis, Steve Toltz, Ellen van Neerven, Richard Flanagan, Sonya Hartnett, Joan London, David Malouf, Liane Moriarty, Les Murray, Debra Oswald, Michael Robotham and Helen Garner.

This year’s festival theme is ‘How to Live’, and the festival will begin with an opening address from Pakistani novelist and essayist Mohsin Hamid, who will speak on the topic ‘Life in the time of permawar’. Author of acclaimed memoir H is For Hawk (Vintage), Helen McDonald, will give the closing address looking at nature.

The festival will host events in more than 50 suburban and regional venues, including the Thinking Season events in Western Sydney with authors Michael Connelly, Andy Griffiths, Hugh Mackay, Liane Moriarty, Graeme Simsion and others. Live sessions will also be streamed to regional audiences at events in Albury, Armidale, Bathurst, Byron Bay, Port Macquarie, Taree, Tamworth and Wollongong.

A Family Day will be held on Sunday 24 May, and will include the inaugural ‘TeenCon’ event, which will preview forthcoming YA releases from publishers.

Several of the international authors at SWF will also be participating in events at Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre, including David Mitchell, David Walliams, Ben Okri and Claire Tomalin.

To book tickets, visit the SWF website here.

Category: Local news