Robbie Arnott writes about the Tasmanian landscape in his 2022 novel Limberlost.Peter Mathew
It’s the first program from new artistic director Ann Mossop,who replaced outgoing AD Michael Williams (now editor ofThe Monthly) in August.,Mossop outlined her vision for the festival,including inviting non-fiction writers to discuss the big issues facing Australia right now,and drawing authors and audiences to experience events in-person again:“The main thing for me will be to make sure that we have some of those international and Australian writers that readers respond to with ‘yes I’m dying to see them,’” she said.
So,what are we dying to see? What stories of the future do we need to hear? Here are our highlights.
Carriageworks Track 8,May 25,11am
The landscape has always been central to Australian writing and Robbie Arnott,Fiona McFarlane and James McKenzie Watson each tackle the experience of it through their fictional characters in very different ways in their recent novels.
Carriageworks Bay 24,May 25,11am
All of a sudden AI is everywhere and everyone’s getting nervous. In this talk,the Chief Scientist of UNSW’s new AI Institute tries to sort the wheat from the chaff and asks can we trust it?
Carriageworks Track 8,May 25,8pm
Jonathan Seidler released his memoirIt’s a Shame About Ray last year,an exploration of the power of music and how inherited mental illness can impact a family. Using the book as a jumping off point,Seidler (a trained drummer) performs a new work that mashes together jazz and metal.
Carriageworks Track 8,May 26,10am
Like Sarah Holland-Batt and the Stella,the Trinidadian-British poet won a major poetry prize,the T.S. Eliot,for his poems about his father, Sonnets for Albert. Here he discusses his poetry,fiction and his music.
Carriageworks Track 8,May 26,2pm
How do you write about Vietnam and the war? Andre Dao’s remarkable debut novel is a meditation on memory and the life of his political prisoner grandfather. Que Mai’s second novel in English looks at the fate of the children of American soldiers.
Carriageworks Bay 17,May 26,4pm
You can usually bank on Whitehead coming up with something different. AfterThe Underground Railway andThe Nickel Boys,he gave us his New York-set crime novel, Harlem Shuffle. Here he explains its genesis and why he’s written a sequel.
Carriageworks Bay 17,May 27,12pm
The cultural obsession with true crime shows no signs of abating,and often has real-world consequences. Just ask host of hit podcastThe Teacher’s Pet,Hedley Thomas. He and doyenne of Australian letters Helen Garner join Sarah Krasnostein to talk about what makes these stories so fascinating.
Helen Garner has written about true crime in her books This House of Grief and Joe Cinque’s Consolation.Mark Chew
Carriageworks Track 8,May 27,2pm
Ukranian novelist Andrey Kurkov began writing a diary in December 2021,two months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine,his entries depicting a growing sense of unease.Diary of an Invasion runs until mid-July,as he experiences the first missiles in Kyiv before fleeing the city. He appears at SWF to talk about the book live via video.
Carriageworks Bay 20,May 28,3pm
Author Tony Birch,singer Emma Donovan,musician Rulla Kelly Mansell,and director Rachael Maza come together to celebrate the extraordinary lives and legacies of the late Uncle Archie Roach and Uncle Jack Charles.
Carriageworks Bay 24,May 28,3.30pm
For 27 years,the Sydney Morning Herald has named the best young fiction writers in the country,including the likes of Gillian Mears,Christos Tsiolkas and Hannah Kent.Spectrum editor Melanie Kembrey chats to the three winners about their work and creative process.
Sydney Morning Herald subscribers can enjoy 2-for-1 tickets* to the Archibald,Wynne and Sulman Prizes exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales during June 2023..
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