Chaired by Nicole Abadee.

Charlotte Wood and Christos Tsiolkas are two of our most acclaimed and best loved authors, rigorous, generous, and excavators of humanity’s hidden depths. In this special conversation, Charlotte and Christos draw on their most recent books – Charlotte’s study of creativity The Luminous Solution and Christos’s autofiction 7 ½ – to discuss how they function as artists, the challenges of a creative life and how they lived through the surreal ride of the pandemic.

Supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Chaired by Jane Howard.

In her warm and witty memoir, Late Bloomer, Clem Bastow writes how her life was transformed after she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder as an adult. Journalist turned academic Emma Jane’s candid and darkly humorous memoir Diagnosis Normal describes the many lives she lived with gusto before embracing a new life when she too had a late diagnosis of autism. Both books are funny, poignant and provide illuminating insight into the experience of living as a neurodiverse person in a neurotypical world.

Co-presented by Centre for Ideas, University of NSW.

Chaired by Kate Mildenhall.

Catapulted to literary stardom with her non-fiction bestseller Three Women, acclaimed for its radical candour in discussing sex, Lisa Taddeo’s debut novel is no less bold. Concerned with the link between trauma and sexual violence, Animal tells the story of voracious obsessive anti-hero Joan as she flees a dramatically failed love affair in New York to confront unfinished business in LA. Infused with bravado, psychological acuity and sly wit, and full of one-liners and simmering emotion, Animal is a sensational novel of female revenge.

Chaired by Sophie Cunningham.

Jennifer Mills follows up her Miles Franklin-shortlisted Dyschronia with the arresting The Airways, a story of memory, reality and the banality of violence. Set between contemporary Sydney and a hyper-real Beijing, The Airways is a hugely original ghost story, a powerful examination of the relationship between the body and the self, violence and the violated, marked by the sensory immersive prose that has become the hallmark of one of Australia’s most interesting and ambitious authors.

This Writers' Week session is part of our Kids' Day program.

This Writers' Week session is part of our Kids' Day program.

This Writers' Week session is part of our Kids' Day program.

This Writers' Week session is part of our Kids' Day program.

This Writers' Week session is part of our Kids' Day program

This Writers' Week session is part of our Kids' Day program.