Canberra Writers Festival 2023 program announced
Canberra Writers Festival (CWF) has announced its 2023 program to be held 16–20 August in Canberra/Kamberri under the theme of ‘Power Politics Passion’.
The opening night will feature a curated dinner with storytelling by celebrity chef Elizabeth Chong in conversation with Joanna Savill at National Museum of Australia. At a limited-ticket two-course literary lunch at the Ambush Gallery, author Thomas Keneally will speak in conversation with literary journalist Stephen Romei. Muse Bookshop will hold longtable lunches on two days, with one featuring Maggie Mackellar talking about her book Graft: Motherhood, family and a year on the land (Hamish Hamilton) and another with Edwina Preston talking about Bad Art Mother (Wakefield).
British science journalist Angela Saini, author of The Patriarchs: How men came to rule (Fourth Estate), will give an address at the National Press Club. A panel of speakers inspired by Michelle Arrow’s book Women and Whitlam (NewSouth)—including Arrow, Gillian Appleton, Cathy Eatock, Gail Radford, Elizabeth Reid, Biff Ward and moderator Virginia Haussegger—will tell the stories of radical feminist reforms.
A ‘live’ episode of the ABC’s Insiders will be filmed with host David Speers, along with Sam Maiden, Amy Remeikis and Dan Bourchier. Journalists Michelle Grattan, Mark Kenny and Speers with moderator Tracey Kirkland will talk about the changing face of journalism at the Museum of Australian Democracy.
First Nations authors Debra Dank, Evelyn Araluen, Ellen Van Neerven and Yasmin Smith will talk on the First Nations Classics series by University of Queensland Press. A discussion of the First Nations LGBTQIA+ poetry collection Nangamay Mana Djurali (Dream Gather Grow, Blackbooks) will feature Bebe Backhouse, John ‘Mukky’ Burke, Lay Maloney, Ellen Van Neerven and moderator Alistair Ott.
Engineer and former Bhutan refugee Om Dhungel will speak about his book Bhutan to Blacktown: Losing everything and finding Australia (NewSouth) in conversation with journalist Fran Kelly. London professor of political theory Lea Ypi will discuss Free: Coming of age at the end of history (Penguin Press) with author and academic Clare Wright. Authors Lucina Ward and Angela O’Keeffe and moderator Theodore Ell will speak about the ‘perils of musehood’.
Lucinda Holdforth, speechwriter and author of 21st-Century Virtues: How they are failing our democracy (Monash), will talk in conversation with author Charlotte Wood on authenticity, vulnerability, humility and transparency. Author Kate Grenville will discuss Restless Dolly Maunder (Text), the novel about her grandmother, in conversation with Nicole Abadee. Kirstin Ferguson, author of Head and Heart: The art of modern leadership (Viking), and speaker, filmmaker and writer Sasha Kutabah Sarago will talk with moderator Abadee about leadership.
Festival speakers will divulge their personal epiphanies—from the profound to the profoundly funny—at the closing night event, Light Bulb Moment, which includes Keneally, Romei, Ypi, Dhungel, Ferguson, Robbie Arnott, Neela Janakiramanan, Peter Papathanasiou and Tracey Spicer.
A series of masterclasses will include Kris Kneen on memoir writing, Mirandi Riwoe on writing historical fiction, Alice Grundy on sculpting sentences and Eloise Grills on using graphics within stories.
Incoming artistic director Beejay Silcox writes that the program is ‘a love letter to this city. My city.’ Silcox says, ‘Creating the program for CWF23 has been one of the great joys of my literary life. And that word—joy—has been at the front of my mind as the program has taken shape. After years of pandemic isolation and upheaval, I wanted this year’s festival to feel gleeful and indulgent—a celebration of the ambition, variety, heft and craft of Australian storytelling.
‘I am excited about the story CWF23 is telling about who we are, and who we could be. My excitement has become a running joke among the CWF team as the festival draws closer and I fumble to describe the shape and force of my enthusiasm. Deeply excited. Profoundly excited. Monumentally excited. By the time you read this, I’ll be indescribably excited. But even more than excited, I am hopeful—hopeful that the readers of Canberra/Kamberri will see themselves reflected here.’
See the full program on the festival website.
Category: Local news
