What happened in the outback?

Garry Disher and Gail Jones, moderated by Astrid Edwards |10:00am – 11:00am | Theatre

Join two of Australia's most highly regarded writers as they speak about the lure of the Australian outback with its landscapes, characters and unsettled complexity. Here we have different tales of desperate searches to uncover what has happened to two women in the outback. Stories multiply. Heart and horror beat in tandem. Cops try to do their best. Gail Jones (The Name of the Sister) and Garry Disher (Mischance Creek: The New Hirsch Novel) will together explore the power of beautifully written outback crime. 

End of days or start of something new?

Cadance Bell and Josephine Rowe, moderated by Kaya Wilson | 11:30am - 12:30pm | L4 Conference Room

Today we bear witness to the end of so much previous generations took for granted. Our two authors explore what it takes to stay truly human in the face of global cataclysm, or within a world shrunk to the size of a box. Josephine Rowe’s Little World examines existence from the perspective of a saint, conscious in death; and Cadance Bell imagines a life lived post humanity in Letters to Our Robot Son. Together, our authors will show us what we stand to lose, and to gain, at the end of our old world. 

Desperately seeking stoicism

Brigid Delaney in conversation with Kate Mildenhall | 11:30am - 12:30pm | Theatre

How do we live through hard times? Bestselling author of Reasons Not to Worry and Wellmania, Brigid Delaney, returns with a masterclass for us all on applying stoicism for the betterment of your life and community. In The Seeker and the Sage, a traumatised journalist is given a dream assignment: track down the mayor of a remote and mysterious town whose citizens are reported to be the happiest people on Earth. What will we learn? Join us as Kate Mildenhall (The Hiding Place) interviews Brigid and gets to the heart of the matter. No doubt she will reveal the funny side of being stoic too...

Reckoning

Kate Grenville and Paul Daley | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | L4 Conference Room

Kate Grenville’s ancestors were ‘the sharp edge of the moving blade’ of colonisation through the Hawkesbury region – the subject of her bestseller The Secret River. Now, she reflects on the reckoning that comes with truly confronting the past and her family story. She’s joined by Paul Daley, whose novel The Leap examines fear and violence in a frontier town. Two years after the Voice referendum, this timely conversation is about non-Indigenous Australians doing the work and personally reckoning with the past.

Some of my favourite books

Trent Dalton, Heather Rose and Garry Disher, moderated by Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh for ABC Radio National’s The Bookshelf |1:30pm - 2:30pm | Theatre

Join this stellar panel of authors to hear about their latest titles as well as the books that ignited their passion for writing, and those they turn back to time and again for inspiration. What are some of the books of the 21st Century they want to shout to the rooftops and celebrate? Trent Dalton (Gravity Let Me Go, Boy Swallows Universe), Heather Rose (A Great Act of Love, Bruny) and Garry Disher (the Peninsula Crimes and Hirsch series) name some of their favourites…and the titles may delight and surprise you. Hosted by Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh for The Bookshelf this is also a chance to talk about the books put forward by the public in ABC Radio National’s Top 100 Books of the 21st Century. Bring your notebook and add to your summer reading list!   

Finding Elizabeth Harrower

Susan Wyndham, with Julieanne Lamond | 1:30pm - 2:30pm | L4 Conference Room

A literary biography can be a truly fascinating exploration of the life of an author beyond their pages, and so it is with Susan Wyndham's Elizabeth Harrower: The woman in the watch tower. Harrower wrote some of the most original and highly regarded psychological fiction of the twentieth century. Then she abruptly stopped writing in the 1970s and became one of the most puzzling mysteries of Australian literature. Why didn’t she continue? What part did her circle of famous friends play? Why is her work now enjoying a remarkable renaissance? Join ANU Associate Professor of English, Julieanne Lamond and writer, journalist and former literary editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, Susan Wyndham for this conversation.

Legend, re-imagined: The Bright Sword

Lev Grossman, with Kate Cuthbert | 3:00pm - 4:00pm | Theatre

A thundering, thrilling, triumphant re-imagining of the legend of King Arthur, Lev Grossman's international bestselling The Bright Sword was chosen as one of the best books of 2024 by the New York Times, NPR, Time, People and Vanity Fair. Collum, a young man who steals armour and adopts the identity of a knight, is drawn to join the Round Table – but when he arrives, he is greeted not by dignity, but disaster and disarray. In a major coup for Canberra, Lev joins the festival to share why the allure of Camelot still shines brightly today, talk about his wider works...and maybe even provide a sneak peek at his next project.  

Wellness & Cure

Brigid Delaney and Katherine Brabon, moderated by Susannah Begbie | 3:00pm - 4:00pm | L4 Conference Room

Brigid Delaney is no stranger to the act of searching for wellness and cure. Her memoir Wellmania turned into a smash Netflix hit with a stellar cast including Celeste Barber. Alongside all the funny jokes was a poignant search for cure and meaning, subjects she has followed through in Reasons Not to Worry and now with The Seeker and the Sage. In Cure Katherine gives us profound insights on pain, faith, motherhood and love as she follows a mother and daughter as they share the experience of chronic illness and pursuit of a cure. 

Unlocking Place: From Iceland to the American southwest

Hannah Kent and Madeleine Watts, moderated by Theodore Ell | 4:30pm - 5:30pm | Theatre

What does it mean to truly know a place as a writer? From her first step into the fantastical realm of ice, rock, and shimmering aurora as a teenager, Hannah Kent formed an unbreakable bond with Iceland and the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir - and was compelled to return time and again as wonderfully told in Always Home, Always Homesick. In Elegy, Southwest Madeleine Watts puts us in the scene of wildfires raging as a couple desperately traces the Colorado River through the American southwest. Her work is an elegy for lost love and for the landscape that makes us. From different perspectives, these authors are in a position to masterfully reflect on the art of unlocking place. 

Lonely, sacred, desperate and divine

Emily Maguire and Josephine Rowe, moderated by Tabitha Carvan | 4:30pm - 5:30pm | L4 Conference Room

Something magical happens when beautiful writers approach the topic of the sacred and divine and tell a tale replete with human desire and frailty. In Little World, Josephine Rowe travels with a girl saint through North-west Australia in the 1950s all the way through to the onset of Covid in Victoria. Emily Maguire took the literary scene by storm with Rapture, the story of a medieval girl who rises to become a Pope, and all the twists and turns and qualities that would have needed to unfold in her life to make it so. 

The Long Arc: Culture, craft and creative power in Indian Australian stories

Mithila Gupta, Anupam Sharma and Urvi Majumdar | 6:00pm - 7:00pm | L4 Conference Room

What fuels the creative power behind stories that challenge, move and engage us on screen? How do Indian Australian creatives navigate the tensions between cultural heritage and mainstream storytelling, creating narratives that resonate both within their communities and beyond? This session invites you behind the scenes, exploring the breakthroughs and long arc of past and present into the future of Australian screen culture. Event supported by the High Commission of India in Australia and Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre.

Dalton defies gravity: Trent Dalton in conversation

Trent Dalton with Caroline Overington | 6:30pm - 7:30pm | Theatre

Trent Dalton shook the literary world with Boy Swallows Universe, his embellished memoir of petty crime, drug dealing and family violence in 1980s Brisbane. The way he captured doing it tough, in a uniquely Australian way, became a cultural phenomenon and the most successful Australian-made Netflix series ever.  

After a series of subsequent bestselling books, Trent returns with his most personal work yet, Gravity Let Me Go, again set in Brisbane, and about a journalist obsessed with the true-crime scoop of a lifetime. Dark, occasionally terrifying, but with wonderful moments of humour, light and Dalton-sweetness, Trent shows us again why we see ourselves in his work... could the characters be us if we'd just taken a few wrong turns? 
 

This event is being presented in partnership with the Canberra Writers Festival. The National Library of Australia is proud to be a foundation partner.