Sydney Writers' Festival 2017

Overview

The 20th annual Sydney Writers' Festival will return from May 22 through May 28, with a bold 2017 lineup. This year's theme, 'refuge', is particularly timely and we're intrigued to see what new artistic director Michaela McGuire has in store. This year's festival will offer up 400 events with over 450 writers across greater Sydney, as well as 27 writing workshops.

On the docket this year are Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Susan Faludi and Thomas Friedman, 2016 Booker Prize winner Pail Beatty and The New York Times Book Review's Pamela Paul. Australian writer Saroo Brierley, the subject of recent Oscar-nominated film Lion will also be in attendance, alongside feminist writer Roxane Gay, crime writer Ian Rankin, debut novelist Brit Bennett, Slate's Culture Gabfest team Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens and Julia Turner, My Dad Wrote a Porno's Jamie Morton, novelist Ha Jin, prize-winning author Anne Enright, memoirist Hisham Mitar. Also on the bill, Clementine Ford, Candice Fox, Nikki Gemmell, Stan Grant, Andy Griffiths, Melina Marchetta and more. This year, a day of the festival will also be dedicated to young adult fiction at Parramatta's Riverside Theatres on Saturday, May 27.

If you don't live in Sydney, you can still participate through the Live and Local streaming program, which will bring the festival into an additional 30 community venues across each of Australia's states and territories. Tickets are now on sale, with nearly half of the the program free to enter.