Sydney Writers' Festival

Overview

One of 2023's new small-screen hits was a book first — and if you're keen to hear more about Lessons in Chemistry, author Bonnie Garmus is coming to Australia to chat about it. She's one of the headliners at 2024's Sydney Writers' Festival, which has unveiled a characteristically jam-packed lineup. Garmus is one of 35 international guests, too, and among nearly 300 speakers on a program that features 223 free and ticketed events.

Harbour City literary fans, rejoice. If your favourite way to spend your time is leafing through pages, this is an annual highlight on your calendar anyway regardless of the lineup — but 2024's SWF has plenty to get excited about. Book obsessives elsewhere, this fest is also still for you, because it's streaming some of its events live across four of its seven days.

The fest will run in-person from Monday, May 20–Sunday, May 26, with sessions at Carriageworks livestreamed between Thursday–Sunday. Whichever best suits you, you can check out playwright Suzie Miller chatting about her hit play Prima Facie, Nobel Prize-winner Abdulrazak Gurnah discussing Afterlives, Washington-based The Guardian World Affairs Editor Julian Borger stepping into his father's past and the Holocaust, and The Roots of Chaos' Samantha Shannon chatting fantasy.

The livestreamed talks also include Celeste Ng on Little Fires Everywhere follow-up Our Missing Hearts, journalist Alisa Sopova and photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind diving into their 5km From the Frontline project in Ukraine, a celebration of women in sport, and the closing address on the future of misogyny by philosopher Kate Manne. Also, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen — whose book The Sympathizer has been turned into a TV series, too, and arrives in 2024 — will dig into his memoir A Man of Two Faces.

Folks heading along physically have a whole heap more to look forward to. Prophet Song's 2023 Booker Prize-winner Paul Lynch, Tom Lake's Ann Patchett, Resurrection Walk author and all-round crime-fiction bigwig Michael Connelly, The Bee Sting's Paul Murray and Old God's Time's Sebastian Barry are also on the bill, as is Nobel Prize-winning scientist and A Crack in Creation: The New Power to Control Evolution scribe Jennifer Doudna.

Add in American National Poetry Slam Champion Elizabeth Acevedo, who has penned novel Family Lore; Jake Adelstein, whose Tokyo Noir is about Japan's underworld; translator Jennifer Croft, with her novel The Extinction of Irena Ray also about translators; and Lullaby and Watch Us Dance's Leïla Slimani — and the list still goes on.

Among the Australian talents, Boy Swallows Universe fans will want to check out sessions with both author Trent Dalton and actor Bryan Brown — the first talking about his latest book Lola in the Mirror; the second about his own tome The Drowning, as interviewed by fellow actor Sam Neill (The Twelve), in a reversal of a similar chat in 2023. And The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart devotees should be keen to hear from Holly Ringland, who has The House That Joy Built to discuss.

Safe Haven's Shankari Chandran, Edenglassie's Melissa Lucashenko and Wifedom's Anna Funder, all Miles Franklin-winners, will also take to the stage. So will Julia Baird about Bright Shining and Booker Prize winner Richard Flanagan to chat Question 7. And for fireside First Nations storytelling, exploring Blak criticism and more, six Indigenous-focused events also join the lineup thanks to two guest curators: Wiradjuri Nation poet and artist Jazz Money, plus Gomeroi writer Amy Thunig.

Free sessions are always a significant part of the program, too, with 2024's festival including more than 70. And, also in the same category, the spread of venues is hefty — including Carriageworks, Town Hall, City Recital Hall, State Library of New South Wales and suburban libraries across Sydney.

Images: Jacquie Manning.