Sydney Writers' Festival

Sydney Writers' Festival•www.swf.org.au

Australia's largest celebration of literature, stories and ideas. Bringing together the world's best authors, leading public intellectuals, scientists, journalists and more. Subscribe to our channel for new releases.

Last refreshed: June 30th, 2025 at 3:34 AM ⓘ

Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.

Follow on

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

RSS

Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app

Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episodes

Stories of Afghanistan

Hear from a panel of speakers whose works have, in different ways, illuminated Afghanistan’s kaleidoscopic past and present through war and unrest, but also through culture and community. Durkhanai Ayubi shares her family’s food, heritage and culture in Parwana . Zaheda Ghani speaks to her debut novel Pomegranate & Fig , a story of tradition, family, war and displacement. Andrew Quilty recounts the capture of the country’s capital in 2021 through the eyes of Afghans in August in Kabul . They...

Aug 31, 2023•56 min

Bringing RBG to Life

RBG: Of Many, One playwright and lawyer Suzie Miller ( Prima Facie ) read her way into Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s character and intellect via hundreds of pages of cases and judgements. To bring her to the stage, actor Heather Mitchell ( Everything and Nothing ) even brushed her teeth ‘as Ruth would’. Find out more about the alchemy that brought RBG to life on the page and the stage in this very special conversation between two unique artists. They are joined by Ailsa Piper. This episode was recorded ...

Aug 29, 2023•59 min

This is Their Life

Biographies of public figures are perennially popular with readers eager to gain insight into the lives and legacies of political leaders and media titans. But are they beholden to scandals and scoops, or can they bring valuable perspectives to historic events and how we see ourselves as a nation? Hear from Paddy Manning, Niki Savva and Margaret Simons about how they balance public and private as they discuss their accounts of those in public life, on stage with host Laura Tingle. This episode w...

Aug 24, 2023•55 min

Shehan Karunatilaka: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Regarded as one the great Sri Lankan novelists, Shehan Karunatilaka won the 2022 Booker Prize for his epic, searing and darkly funny satire The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida . Narrated by the ghost of a gay atheist photojournalist, it follows a week in the afterlife in which he reckons with his sexual escapades, a gambling habit, and the state-sponsored death squads he sought to expose. Shehan speaks with Michael Williams about a novel that breaks with conventional modes of storytelling to illumi...

Aug 22, 2023•58 min

Jane Harper: Exiles

Jane Harper has been hailed “the queen of outback noir” ( The Sunday Times ) for a string of crime novels that have sold more than 3 million copies in 40 territories worldwide. Her latest book, Exiles , brings back federal policeman Aaron Falk, who was first introduced in The Dry . He investigates the disappearance of a woman from a country wine festival whose infant daughter is found unharmed in her pram. Listen to Jane in conversation with Michaela Kalowski about the thrilling and final instal...

Aug 15, 2023•55 min

Michael Kirby & Bo Seo

Two-time world debating champion Bo Seo and former High Court justice Michael Kirby examine how we might better listen to and disagree with each other in an era of increasingly harsh and divisive discourse. They discuss Bo’s new book, Good Arguments , part memoir of how he discovered the art of debating as a shy, conflict-adverse child, and part treatise on why the pillars of good debate – fact finding, reason and persuasion – offer an antidote to political spin, fake news and social media slugf...

Aug 10, 2023•55 min

State of the Art

How is fiction evolving with our times? Is the novel a vulnerable art or more vital than ever? Could AI one day pen a masterpiece or do our storytellers guard an inimitable craft? Join some of the leading names in literature today – Eleanor Catton, Richard Flanagan, Tracey Lien and Colson Whitehead – for a lively discussion about the state of the novel and the future of fiction. They are joined in conversation by ABC RN’s The Bookshelf’s Kate Evans. This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Syd...

Aug 08, 2023•48 min

Crime and Justice

We are fascinated by stories of crime and how they unfold. There are no finer narrators of such stories than legendary author Helen Garner and The Teacher’s Pet podcaster Hedley Thomas, whose work explores the link between confronting terrible things that happen and the people who are involved. They sit down with Sarah Krasnostein to explore the compelling nature of crime and the pressing question of what happens when justice takes a lifetime – or if it never comes at all? This episode was recor...

Aug 03, 2023•59 min

Sri Lankan Stories

With effects rippling into the present, the Sri Lankan Civil War, lasting more than 25 years from the early 1980s until 2009, has found an important place in our current cultural canon. Join lawyer and novelist of Song of the Sun God and Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens , Shankari Chandran, author of Booker Prize–winning The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida , Shehan Karunatilaka, and Anandavalli as they discuss the island nation’s turbulent recent history and its influence in their storytelling. In con...

Aug 01, 2023•1 hr 4 min

A Life in Food: Stephanie Alexander and Maggie Beer

Culinary icons Stephanie Alexander AO and Maggie Beer have inspired generations of home cooks and fundamentally transformed how we think about food. They reflect on their decades-long friendship, and their partnership in running a cooking school for Australians in a medieval villa in Italy. They also talk about their influential books on preparing, cooking and savouring delicious food, including their co-authored Tuscan Cookbook , which was recently optioned to be made into a feature film. They ...

Jul 27, 2023•59 min

← Prev

Hosted on Omny Studio

For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android