Richard Powers, Hannah Kent, Elif Shafak and Michael Christie all use trees in their fiction to touch on themes of roots and connections, growth and rebirth, the family tree. But as our climate changes, is the way novelists use trees also changing to make the natural world the star of the story? 

For ABC Arts Week, we celebrate literary events at your local bookstore with a couple of conversations with Irish Australian queens of crime. 

Bestselling author of Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, Liane Moriarty, shares stories from her childhood and how growing up in a big family influenced the theme of sibling rivalry in her latest book, Apples Never Fall. This conversation was recorded at the Castlemaine Town Hall, Victoria, for a joint event between the Castlemaine State Festival and The Wheeler Centre.

Jessie Burton wasn't finished with the main characters in her bestselling debut novel The Miniaturist and returns to the 17th century Dutch setting for the sequel, The House of Fortune. Also, we visit Torres Strait Island writer and advocate for the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Thomas Mayor, at his home in Darwin and Sulari Gentill explains the origins of her playful metafictional crime novel, The Woman in the Library.

Ahead of the announcement of the winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia's most prestigious book prize, join the shortlisted authors Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Michelle De Kretser, Jennifer Down, Alice Pung and Michael Winkler to find out about their writing rituals, the importance of place in their fiction and how their novels speak to Australia now.

British author Benjamin Myers says he likes to be on the margins as a writer and his latest novel, The Perfect Golden Circle, is about the crop circles that appeared in 1989 in the English countryside and explores the type of people who created them. Also Ceridwen Dovey and Eliza Bell explain their genre-bending book, Mothertongues and Noongar author, Claire G Coleman's mysterious and unsettling book, Enclave, set in a walled Australian city.

For NAIDOC Week, three Aboriginal writers who are grappling with the past: Anita Heiss takes the 1852 Gundagai flood as the starting point for her novel Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, Tony Birch explores his family history in Dark as Last Night and SJ Norman's, Permafrost, a collection of haunted short stories.

American author Madeline Miller has found a new audience for her prize winning novel Circe on #BookTok and now she has a new offering based on Greek mythology called Galatea.Also, Lauren Chater's real life inspiration for her third historical novel, The Winter Dress and Carrie Cox asks whether relationships are really meant to go the distance in her latest novel, So Many Beats of the Heart.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brookes says she "didn't grow up as a horse obsessed girl" but rather her interest in horses was a result of a midlife crisis which led her to the history of a famous American thoroughbred that was the inspiration for her latest novel, simply called Horse.Also, John Purcell talks about his second official novel, The Lessons, and reveals his brief career writing erotica and Karen Manton explains the inspiration for her evocative novel, The Curlew's Eye, set in remote Northern Territory.

Meg Mason thought her second novel, Sorrow and Bliss wouldn't be published, it was and is now shortlisted for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction, which will be announced this week.Also Australian writer Ennis Ćehić on his playful collection, Sadvertising, and American writer Leila Motley's debut novel, Nightcrawling, which she wrote at just 17.