Byron Writers Festival

Our 2025 Festival podcast series continues with the session Cherrywood. Join multi-award-winning author Jock Serong for a discussion of his new novel Cherrywood, an imaginative, darkly playful and deeply meaningful delight, a novel about legacy, community, wonder, love and reinvention. With Angela Catterns. Supported by The Book Room

Our 2025 Festival podcast series returns with a special preview of NORPA's Dinner Party at the End of the World. Join NORPA’s Artistic Director Julian Louis and Artistic Associate Heather Fairbairn for a special preview of Dinner Party at the End of the World—a powerful new work in development. This intimate, sound-infused sharing features readings by local NORPA artists, underscored live by acclaimed film and television composer Matt Blackman (Colin from Accounts). The reading combines verbatim accounts from community members affected by the catastrophic 2022 Northern Rivers flood with scenes written by renowned playwright Suzie Miller (Prima Facie). Set at an imagined gathering of strangers who share food, memory, and survival, Dinner Party at the End of the World is both tragic and tender—an exploration of community, loss, and the radical power of kindness in crisis. This session offers a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into the creative process of crafting theatre from lived experience. A panel discussion with the creative team will follow the reading. Creative Directors: Julian Louis and Heather Fairbairn | Concept by Julian Louis | Contributing Writer: Suzie Miller | Composer and Sound Designer: Matt Blackman | Image credit: Vanessa Kellas A Byron Writers Festival and NORPA collaboration, assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body.

Our 2025 Festival podcast series continues with the session Water: Our Life. From oceans to rivers, in flood and drought, for drinking, agriculture and industry, water is essential to life. Join Debra Dank (Terraglossia), Joëlle Gergis (Highway to Hell), Chris Hammer (The River) and James Sippo for an essential discussion on water and climate. With Erik Jensen. This session was supported by Southern Cross University

Our Festival 2025 podcast series continues with another feature event: Guardian Australia's Are You Game Show. Play along with Guardian Australia’s signature game show as two teams of writers – led by Guardian Australia’s TikTok queen Matilda Boseley and features editor Lucy Clark, and hosted by culture editor Steph Harmon – battle it out for the ultimate prize: bragging rights. An extremely enjoyable and deeply chaotic battle of the brains. With special guest contestants Robbie Arnott, Tigest Girma, Thomas Mayo and Michael Robotham. Presented by The Guardian ‍

Our 2025 Festival podcasts series returns with the session Political Fictions. Join multi-award-winning authors Shankari Chandran (Unfinished Business) and Malcolm Knox (The First Friend) for an exploration of their thrilling new novels, set against high-stakes backdrops of politics, intrigue and danger. With Sunil Badami. This session was supported by The Holman Family

Our Festival 2025 series returns with the session We Are The Stars with Gina Chick and Mel Bampton. Get to know the real Gina Chick, inaugural winner of Alone Australia, and the story of her extraordinary, indomitable life in one of the most powerful, moving memoirs you will ever read, We Are the Stars. With Mel Bampton. This session was supported by Organic India.

Our Festival 2025 podcast series returns with one of our Feature Events: Beyond the Lines. Featuring powerhouse performer Ziggy Ramo, writer and singer Nardi Simpson, poetic provocateur David Stavanger, acclaimed Indian poet Akhil Katyal as well as Laurie May, Bebe Oliver, Kirli Saunders and Sarah Temporal. Plus winners from the Poets Out Loud Slam and Australian Poetry Slam heat. Presented with Red Room Poetry as part of Poetry Month 2025 ‍This session was supported by Kassa-Miller Giving.

Helen Garner in Conversation by Byron Writers Festival

#BWF2024Podcast Our ABC? Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Kim Williams in conversation with Kerry O’Brien. In January 2024, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced media executive Kim Williams as the next chair of the ABC. Join Kim in conversation with Kerry O’Brien to reflect on his new role at the beloved national broadcaster and to share his vision for its future, as well as his thoughts on the current state of Australian media and the arts.

#BWF2024Podcast Prima Facie. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Suzie Miller in conversation with Steph Harmon. Drawn from the internationally acclaimed play, Prima Facie is a propulsive, raw look at the price victims pay for speaking out and the system that sets them up to fail. Join author and playwright Suzie Miller in conversation with Guardian culture editor Steph Harmon.

#BWF2024Podcast My Story. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Nicky Winmar in conversation with Gideon Haigh. Thirty years after creating one of the most memorable moments in sporting history, Indigenous AFL legend Nicky Winmar tells his story in a moving and compelling memoir, giving rare insight into his life

#BWF2024Podcast Question 7. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Richard Flanagan in conversation with Jill Eddington. Beginning at a love hotel by Japan’s Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. Join Booker Prize-winning author Richard Flanagan to discuss this love song to his island home and to his parents, in a melding of dream, history, place and memory.

#BWF2024Podcast Slick: Australia’s Toxic Relationship with Big Oil. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Royce Kurmelovs in conversation with Isabelle Reinecke. Investigative journalist Royce Kurmelovs’ Slick is a riveting expose of the global oil industry’s multi-decade conspiracy to undermine efforts to address environmental devastation. It tells the stories of fire and flood survivors, and the activists engaged in a fight for the future of Australia.

Stone Yard Devotional. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Charlotte Wood in conversation with Jill Eddington. Join Charlotte Wood to discuss her latest novel Stone Yard Devotional – longlisted for the 2024 Miles Franklin Award – a deeply moving novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be ‘good’, from the award-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.

#BWF2024Podcast Unique. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Jodi Rodgers in conversation with Mandy Nolan. In Unique, beloved star of ABC TV’s award-winning Love on the Spectrum and disability rights advocate Jodi Rodgers shares stories from her three-decade career working with the autistic community and calls for a more inclusive and accepting society.

Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with William McInnes in conversation with Mareike Hardy. Have you ever behaved like a drongo? Added mayo to a story? Lost your Reg Grundies? Join bestselling author and acclaimed actor William McInnes to discuss Yeah, Nah! – a collection of hilarious memories and moments inspired by Australia’s way with words.

#BWF2024Podcast For The Earth. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Ali Cobby Eckerman, Richard Flanagan, Sue Higginson and David Lindenmayer, chaired by Bob Brown. In this festival highlight, join award-winning poet Ali Cobby Eckermann (She is the Earth), Booker Prize-winning novelist Richard Flanagan (Question 7), ecologist David Lindenmayer (Forest Wars), and local Greens MLC Sue Higginson for a conversation about the environment and the urgent need to care for the natural world

#BWF2024Podcast Media & Justice. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Wayne Bergmann, Amy McQuire, Rob Waters, chaired by Merinda Dutton. The media’s treatment of Indigenous issues, including Black deaths in custody, legacies of the NT intervention, and treaty negotiations, shows we have a long way to go to accessing justice. Join talented writers and experts Wayne Bergmann (Some People Want to Shoot Me), Amy McQuire (Black Witness) and Rob Waters (2023 Australian Poetry Slam Champion) to explore how we can hold power to account and make the world a more equitable place.

#BWF2024Podcast It's Not Just Cricket. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Gideon Haigh in conversation with Chris Hanley. Join journalist, author and polymath Gideon Haigh for an intimate discussion of his latest works, including the moving memoir My Brother Jaz, true crime investigation The Girl in Cabin 350, and biography The One Indiscretion of His Life. Widely known as Australia’s favourite cricket writer, Haigh is one of our most prolific and insightful writers today.

#BWF2024Podcast Close To The Subject. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Daniel Browning in conversation with Rhianna Patrick. Close to the Subject is the collected works of one of Australia’s most accomplished media personalities. Chronicling his career since 2007, join Daniel Browning to reflect on his stellar career as a journalist, radio broadcaster, critic and interviewer.