Byron Writers Festival 2018 program announced
The full program for the 2018 Byron Writers Festival, which runs from 3-5 August, has been announced, featuring 140 writers, thinkers and commentators.
International guests include UK-based novelists Matt Haig (Notes on a Nervous Planet, Canongate) and Hannah Richell (The Peacock Summer, Hachette); UK poet and broadcaster Lemn Sissay; German author Bernhard Schlink (The Reader, Hachette); US author Sarah Sentilles (Draw Your Weapons, Text); Dutch author Miriam Lancewood (Woman in the Wilderness, A&U); and North Korean defector Hyeonseo Lee (The Girl with Seven Names, HarperCollins).
Local authors include Liane Moriarty, Tom Keneally, Robert Drewe, Melissa Lucasheko, Josephine Wilson, Anita Heiss, Sarah Krasnostein, Steven Carroll, Richard Fidler and Kári Gíslason, Sarah Wilson, Henry Reynolds, Bri Lee, Kon Karapanagiotidis, Clive Hamilton, Louise Milligan, and Future D Fidel. The program also includes crime writers Candice Fox, Dervla McTiernan and Jane Harper, and romance writers Rachael Johns, Victoria Purman and Christine Wells.
Among the festival’s highlights will be a discussion about coal and Adani between Greenpeace Australia Pacific CEO David Ritter and Dan Fitzgerald; journalist and academic Peter Greste in conversation with ABC reporter Jane Hutcheon; a conversation between writer Ailsa Piper and priest Tony Doherty (co-authors of The Atttachment, A&U) on their shared correspondence; a performance poem performed by Kate McDowell; and the annual Thea Astley Address delivered by former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs.
The Kids Big Day Out program will feature authors Oliver Phommavanh, Lian Tanner and Matt Stanton, among others.
Festival director Edwina Johnson said: ‘This year the stories in our program will take us from the wilds of New Zealand to North Korea, Tuscany and back home to near-by Goonengerry. We traverse much territory including anxiety, crime, the Frontier Wars, the Anthropocene, science, comedy, immigration, the wellness industry, and poetry. We explore music, whales and romance and debate whether reading can make you happier.’
For more information, visit the Byron Writers Festival website.
Category: Festivals Local news
