Byron Writers Festival

Our 2025 Festival podcast series returns with a special preview of NORPA's Dinner Party at the End of the World. Join NORPA’s Artistic Director Julian Louis and Artistic Associate Heather Fairbairn for a special preview of Dinner Party at the End of the World—a powerful new work in development. This intimate, sound-infused sharing features readings by local NORPA artists, underscored live by acclaimed film and television composer Matt Blackman (Colin from Accounts). The reading combines verbatim accounts from community members affected by the catastrophic 2022 Northern Rivers flood with scenes written by renowned playwright Suzie Miller (Prima Facie). Set at an imagined gathering of strangers who share food, memory, and survival, Dinner Party at the End of the World is both tragic and tender—an exploration of community, loss, and the radical power of kindness in crisis. This session offers a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into the creative process of crafting theatre from lived experience. A panel discussion with the creative team will follow the reading. Creative Directors: Julian Louis and Heather Fairbairn | Concept by Julian Louis | Contributing Writer: Suzie Miller | Composer and Sound Designer: Matt Blackman | Image credit: Vanessa Kellas A Byron Writers Festival and NORPA collaboration, assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body.

Our Festival 2025 podcast series continues with another feature event: Guardian Australia's Are You Game Show. Play along with Guardian Australia’s signature game show as two teams of writers – led by Guardian Australia’s TikTok queen Matilda Boseley and features editor Lucy Clark, and hosted by culture editor Steph Harmon – battle it out for the ultimate prize: bragging rights. An extremely enjoyable and deeply chaotic battle of the brains. With special guest contestants Robbie Arnott, Tigest Girma, Thomas Mayo and Michael Robotham. Presented by The Guardian ‍

Our Festival 2025 series returns with the session We Are The Stars with Gina Chick and Mel Bampton. Get to know the real Gina Chick, inaugural winner of Alone Australia, and the story of her extraordinary, indomitable life in one of the most powerful, moving memoirs you will ever read, We Are the Stars. With Mel Bampton. This session was supported by Organic India.

Helen Garner in Conversation by Byron Writers Festival

#BWF2024Podcast Prima Facie. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Suzie Miller in conversation with Steph Harmon. Drawn from the internationally acclaimed play, Prima Facie is a propulsive, raw look at the price victims pay for speaking out and the system that sets them up to fail. Join author and playwright Suzie Miller in conversation with Guardian culture editor Steph Harmon.

#BWF2024Podcast Question 7. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Richard Flanagan in conversation with Jill Eddington. Beginning at a love hotel by Japan’s Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. Join Booker Prize-winning author Richard Flanagan to discuss this love song to his island home and to his parents, in a melding of dream, history, place and memory.

Stone Yard Devotional. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Charlotte Wood in conversation with Jill Eddington. Join Charlotte Wood to discuss her latest novel Stone Yard Devotional – longlisted for the 2024 Miles Franklin Award – a deeply moving novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be ‘good’, from the award-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.

Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with William McInnes in conversation with Mareike Hardy. Have you ever behaved like a drongo? Added mayo to a story? Lost your Reg Grundies? Join bestselling author and acclaimed actor William McInnes to discuss Yeah, Nah! – a collection of hilarious memories and moments inspired by Australia’s way with words.

#BWF2024Podcast Media & Justice. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Wayne Bergmann, Amy McQuire, Rob Waters, chaired by Merinda Dutton. The media’s treatment of Indigenous issues, including Black deaths in custody, legacies of the NT intervention, and treaty negotiations, shows we have a long way to go to accessing justice. Join talented writers and experts Wayne Bergmann (Some People Want to Shoot Me), Amy McQuire (Black Witness) and Rob Waters (2023 Australian Poetry Slam Champion) to explore how we can hold power to account and make the world a more equitable place.

#BWF2024Podcast Close To The Subject. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Daniel Browning in conversation with Rhianna Patrick. Close to the Subject is the collected works of one of Australia’s most accomplished media personalities. Chronicling his career since 2007, join Daniel Browning to reflect on his stellar career as a journalist, radio broadcaster, critic and interviewer.

#BWF2024Podcast For Life. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival with Aisla Piper in conversation with Charlotte Wood. When her husband doesn’t answer his phone, Ailsa Piper knows something is wrong. For Life is an unforgettable and moving insight into loss, hope and starting again, aided by the incredible healing power of nature and a community of unexpected angels.

#BWF2024Podcast Always Will Be. Head back to the 2024 Byron Writers Festival and join Mykaela Saunders in conversation with Daniel Browning. In her stunningly inventive and thought-provoking collection Always Will Be, Mykaela Saunders poses the question: what might country, community and culture look like in the Tweed if Gooris reasserted their sovereignty?