Adelaide Writers' Week

Held in the Torrens Tent on Sat 04 Mar, Kids’ Day featured an all-Australian line-up of some of the brightest names in children’s literature.

Held in the Torrens Tent on Sat 04 Mar, Kids’ Day featured an all-Australian line-up of some of the brightest names in children’s literature.

Chair: Lenore Taylor

According to Armando Iannucci: “An infinite number of gag-writers, working all day in a gag factory, couldn’t come up with any of the perfectly-formed one-liners that populate Marina Hyde’s hilarious writing… But behind the wit lurks real anger, argument, exasperation and intelligence. Her writing is more than a gentle poke in the ribs: it’s a well-wrought and deftly aimed smash in the teeth." Journalist Marina Hyde joins Lenore Taylor to talk about her new book and take us on a wild ride, from David Cameron to Liz Truss, the dangerous idiocy of the Trump presidency and never-ending royal capers.

Event details: Sat 04 Mar, 5:00pm on the West Stage

Chair: Sue Turnbull

If murder, mean streets and psychopaths pique your interest, this is an unmissable conversation. Join four giants of crime writing – Dervla McTiernan, the writing duo Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, Chris Hammer and our foremost crime reviewer, Sue Turnbull, for an in-depth discussion of the genre. They’ll explore the possible end of the ’hardboiled dick’, the role of women as victims and sleuths, the rise of ’Aussie Noir’ and whether the Gone Girl publishing cliché has finally petered out.

Event details: Sat 04 Mar, 3:45pm on the West Stage

Chair: Mireille Juchau

Gail Jones' and Shirley Hazzard’s hypnotic novels describe how moments of historical intensity can shift and slow time; both attend to how art can transfigure a life. In her brilliant biography, Brigitta Olubas surveys Hazzard’s life and work with a novelist’s eye for the private and intimate. Jones’ Salonika Burning is set in Greece where four historical figures undertake caring at the frontlines of war. What craft and style decisions establish these fraught encounters? Join highly acclaimed biographer Olubas and award-winning novelist Jones in conversation with Mireille Juchau.

Event details: Sat 04 Mar, 2:30pm on the West Stage

Chair: Sean French

Shalom Auslander, author of the darkly funny Foreskin’s Lament: A Memoir and Hope: A Tragedy, turns his satiric gaze to contemporary identity politics, family relationships and cannibalism in his latest novel. The outrageous premise of Mother for Dinner serves as a clever device to interrogate these themes in sharp, entertaining and often grotesque ways. Auslander joins us to talk about tribalism, mother issues and the crippling weight of history.

Event details: Sat 04 Mar, 1:15pm on the West Stage

Chair: Jim Middleton

The TV series Succession has been appointment viewing and frequent comparisons have been drawn between the fictional Roy media empire and the real Murdoch family. Paddy Manning’s new book, The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch, could well provide background material for a future season in which the ageing, tyrannical mogul finally ’pops his clogs’. With Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who chaired the 2021 senate inquiry into media diversity, Manning will take us inside the global media empire that Lachlan Murdoch is likely to inherit.

Event details: Sat 04 Mar, 12:00pm on the West Stage

Chair: Felicity Plunkett

Sylvia Plath is a literary icon – praised and vilified in equal measure by devotees and critics. In her afterlife, the ’crazed poetess’ has become a legend and an entire industry has flourished around her life, her work and her death. There have been biographies, hagiographies, critical studies, psychoanalytical reviews and novels dedicated to Plath. Heather Clark has written the definitive biography. She and Felicity Plunkett, poet and critic, share their reflections on this remarkable writer.

Event details: Sat 04 Mar, 10:45am on the West Stage

Chair: J.M. Coetzee

British psychoanalyst Dr Paul Williams has written extensively about the human mind, including a trilogy drawing on aspects of the author’s life over three stages – childhood, adolescence and adulthood. His latest book, The Authority of Tenderness: Dignity and the True Self in Psychoanalysis, is the final in the trilogy. In a conversation with Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee, Williams reflects on the adult’s task of recollecting, rewriting and reworking psychosis and trauma. 

Event details: Sat 04 Mar, 9:30am on the West Stage

Chair: Jon Faine

After almost three decades on Australian screens, Shaun Micallef has become a cultural icon. From quiet beginnings in suburban Adelaide – an ideal place for a young boy to hone a gift for the surreal – to national stardom, his path has been an unexpected one. Micallef talks to Jon Faine about his successes, his failures, and his abiding love of comedy.

Event details: Sat 04 Mar, 5:00pm on the East Stage