Sydney Writers' Festival

On the International Space Station, a team of astronauts watch our big blue planet as it silently turns beneath them.  This 2024 Booker Prize–winning novel is largely observations of the astronauts as they collect data and record small, slow changes in their environment and their own bodies. Yet Samantha Harvey’s prose is expansive, delicately encompassing life and death, fragility and strength, hope and fear in concentric circles of human life. Hear Samantha discuss the profundity of this meditative novel in conversation with ABC Radio’s Claire Nichols (The Book Show). This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.  After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:Instagram: @sydwritersfestFacebook: @SydWritersFestTikTok: @sydwritersfestSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Artificial intelligence’s collision with human creativity is one of the most important stories of our time. With the accelerating impact of AI, so much of what we understand about being human is being re-written. Acclaimed writer Jeanette Winterson (12 Bytes: How artificial intelligence will change the way we live and love) sees AI changing our lives in unprecedented ways. Academic and researcher Toby Walsh (The Shortest History of AI) predicts the place AI will have in our futures. Hear Jeanette and Toby bring the perspectives of an artist and a scientist together in this important contemporary conversation. With an introduction from Verity Firth. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.  After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:Instagram: @sydwritersfestFacebook: @SydWritersFestTikTok: @sydwritersfestSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Local treasure Dylin Hardcastle and international gems Alan Hollinghurst and Yael van der Wouden trace love, longing and queer experience through the decades in their heartfelt new novels. In Dylin’s A Language of Limbs and Yael’s The Safekeep, teenage girls and women navigate unexpected Sapphic desires, while Alan paints a portrait of one man’s journey of self-discovery from childhood into adulthood in Our Evenings. Discover how these intimate yet expansive queer histories came to be in this discussion with host Maeve Marsden. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.  After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:Instagram: @sydwritersfestFacebook: @SydWritersFestTikTok: @sydwritersfestSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Festival favourite State of the Nation returned bigger and better than ever this year for an Australian post-election wrap-up.  Assess the state of Australian politics in this panel discussion featuring broadcaster and Walkley Award–winning journalist Waleed Aly, Prime Minister’s Literary Award– and Walkley Award–winning journalist George Megalogenis, The Australia Institute’s chief political analyst Amy Remeikis and Melbourne Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award winner Niki Savva. They join veteran political journalist and former host of Insiders and Offsiders Barrie Cassidy. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.  After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:Instagram: @sydwritersfestFacebook: @SydWritersFestTikTok: @sydwritersfestSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We closed out the 2025 Festival with an address from award-winning Australian writer Anna Funder. As a writer who places being human at the centre of her work, Anna (Wifedom, Stasiland) has explored the best and worst that humans are capable of – surveillance, fascism and the tyranny of patriarchy – and the many forms of human courage and resistance. As artificial intelligence accelerates and patriarchy takes the gloves off, the world of bots and tech bros sees humans as raw material – free data they can profit from – in the same way that men have profited from women’s work for so long. How can we resist this exploitation of our humanity? Hear how Anna sees the future of tech’s role in our lives in a formidable Closing Address. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.  After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:

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[Content warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners should be aware that this podcast contains reference to deceased persons.] The fight for First Nations rights in Australia is ongoing, most recently frustrated by the lost 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum. Indigenous leader and author Thomas Mayo’s newest work, Always Was, Always Will Be: The Campaign for Justice and Recognition Continues, is a guidebook to action for Indigenous recognition and a rallying cry for those working to close the gap.Historian Clare Wright’s conclusion to her democracy trilogy, Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy, tells the story of how the Yolŋu of Arnhem Land created the Yirrkala Bark Petitions in 1963 and gave birth to the land rights movement. Join Thomas and Clare as they explore these important struggles and what we can learn from them. With host Lorena Allam. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.  After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:Instagram: @sydwritersfestFacebook: @SydWritersFestTikTok: @sydwritersfestSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join Charlotte Wood, a Booker Prize-nominated author, and Colm Tóibín, Irish Fiction Laureate, as they interrogate the literary landscapes of Australia and Ireland. They discuss the challenges of growing as a writer in a country that inadequately supports its creative voices. The conversation dives into personal anecdotes that shape their identities, the transformative process of editing, and the urgent need for arts funding. With a touch of humor, they passionately advocate for reading and nurturing young talent in a vibrant literary community.

The novel has continued to evolve since its inception as a major literary form centuries ago. It has seen styles and genres come and go, adaptation and translation between languages and cultures and countless publishing trends and cycles. In this panel discussion featuring four extraordinary novelists, Rumaan Alam (Entitlement), Robbie Arnott (Dusk), Samantha Harvey (Orbital) and Torrey Peters (Stag Dance), join host Kate Evans (ABC Radio National’s The Bookshelf) to consider the novel, its place in contemporary times and how their work fits into the larger literary landscape. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:Instagram: @sydwritersfestFacebook: @SydWritersFestTikTok: @sydwritersfestSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join Benjamin Law and Artistic Director Ann Mossop as they discuss the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival program. The pair talk about the 2025 Festival theme, In This Together, and how books bring us closer to one another, our planet and ourselves. The 2025 Sydney Writers' Festival is out now. Head to our website to explore the program: https://www.swf.org.au/ Tickets on sale Saturday 15 March at 10am. Thank you to 2SER for facilitating the recording of this podcast.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bruce Pascoe and Lyn Harwood invite us onto the Country they call home in Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra, reflecting on life after publishing Dark Emu. In the aftermath of devastating bushfires in north-eastern Victoria, the couple rebuilt their farm. Here, they run the Aboriginal social enterprise Black Duck Foods, committed to traditional food-growing processes that care for Country and give back to the community. Sit down with Bruce and Lyn, in conversation with Kerry O’Brien to explore how Australian agriculture can be transformed through the practices of the past. This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.  Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.  After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:Instagram: @sydwritersfestFacebook: @SydWritersFestX (Twitter): @SydWritersFestTikTok: @sydwritersfestSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.