Sydney Writers’ Festival will return to the festival hub at Carriageworks from April 29th – May 5th with talks and insights from some of the world’s most exciting writers.
The program for Australia’s biggest celebration of writing and ideas has already got us talking. As the Principal Partner of Sydney Writers’ Festival, ARA is proud to announce that we are sponsoring a number of author talks and panel discussions that are set to provoke and engage us on the theme of this year’s festival: ‘Lie to Me’. Edward Federman, ARA’s Executive Chair and Managing Director, is looking forward to yet another season of thought-provoking talks and insights from some of the most exciting writers from Australia and abroad. Ed’s love of reading has led to an important partnership with one of the most iconic events in Sydney’s cultural calendar, and ARA’s support for the arts sector has flourished as a result.
Over 400 Australian and international authors will gather to discuss their latest novels and spark our imagination as they explore, in the words of the Festival’s Artistic Director, Michaela McGuire, “the white lies and deceptions that are necessary for survival, and malicious lies that are spun with darker intent”. Hundreds of events are set to take place across Sydney and the Greater Sydney region for audiences of all ages, and over a quarter of the events are free.
As an ongoing supporter of Sydney Writers’ Festival and their Russ the Story Bus initiative, we value the contribution that SWF makes to our society by creating opportunities for readers and writers to critically engage with books and ideas on such a large scale. We encourage you to explore this year’s program, which is sure to get you thinking.
Take a look at some of the events we are supporting:
Truth 2, Lies 1 – Leigh Sales, Annabel Crabb, Michael Williams and Benjamin Law
Sales, Crabb, Williams and Law will come prepared to talk about three books that they hold dear – that is, until the guessing begins as to which one of these books they are lying about having read!
Meg Wolitzer – The Female Persuasion
Distinguished US author of The Interestings and The Wife, Meg Wolitzer, chats with Angela Ledgerwood about her latest book, The Female Persuasion, and the course of women’s lives from the 1970s to current day.
George Saunders in conversation with Paul Holdengraber
Man Booker Prize winner George Saunders talks with Paul Holdengraber and explores his genre-bending body of work, including celebrated short story collections The Tenth of December and his Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo.
This event is Auslan-interpreted.
Rebecca Makkai, Alexander Chee and Annamarie Jagose – Notes on a Crisis: The Literature of Love, HIV and AIDS
Professor Annamarie Jagose joins acclaimed authors Alexander Chee and Rebecca Makkai to reflect on writing as an act of remembrance that moves beyond the easy clichés of victimhood in their portrayals of mortality, rage, love and loss in Chee’s collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel and Makkai’s The Great Believers.
Aaron Blabey: The Bad Guys, Pig the Pug and Thelma the Unicorn, hosted by Oliver Phommavanh
A rare opportunity to see one of Australia’s favourite children’s authors, The New York Times bestselling author Aaron Blabey, live on stage at Sydney Town Hall. Joined by Oliver Phommavanh, Blabey will be offering us a sneak peek at some of the new stories he’s been working on. Recommended for ages 5+.
Max Porter: Lanny, hosted by Wheeler centre Director, Michael Williams
Lanny is the story of an English boy who attracts the attention of a mythical, menacing force. Michael Williams talks with Max about his pulse-racing warning about what we stand to lose and a hymn to everything we will never fully understand.
