With Jane Howard.

Lainie Anderson talks to Jane Howard about her immersive three-year investigation of the World War I–era story of South Australian detective duo Kate Cocks and Ethel Bromley, which resulted in her debut murder mystery, The Death of Dora Black.

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Wed 05 Mar, 12:00pm | North Stage

Place is more than a setting. It is an evocation, a provocation and possibly a temptation. In both fiction and non-fiction, Jannali Jones, Jennifer Mills and Jessica White have all written about places, real, imagined and disputed. Join them for a conversation with chair Tamara Montina about placemaking with language.

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Wed 05 Mar, 10:45am | North Stage

Can a literary journal help us understand or even change our reality? Editor of new Tarntanya-based journal Splinter, Farrin Foster, and issue one writers Hossein Asgari, Karen Wyld and Anthony Nocera, discuss the evolving purpose of literary journals and how it dovetails with their work in Splinter.

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Wed 05 Mar, 9:30am | North Stage

Be among the first to discover the 2025 Stella Prize longlist. Join the Judging Panel – Debra Dank, Astrid Edwards, Leah-Jing McIntosh and Rick Morton – for an illuminating discussion about the best literature produced in Australia.

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Tue 04 Mar, 5:00pm | North Stage

With Dr, Rachel Spencer.

Emeritus Professor Rick Sarre, in conversation with Dr. Rachel Spencer, discusses the problems with the current deterrence approach and why social justice needs to be at the heart of crime prevention – issues he details in his new book Preventing Crime.

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Tue 04 Mar, 3:45pm | North Stage

With Beejay Silcox.

What can a legendary woman from the medieval past teach us about our present? Emily Maguire, whose latest novel is Rapture, talks about ambition, power and cultural transgression – on and off the page – with critic Beejay Silcox.

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Tue 04 Mar, 2:30pm | North Stage

With Molly Murn.

The hero of Brian Castro’s 10th novel is in his mid-70s, a migrant, thrice-divorced, a one-time postman and professor, now a writer living alone in the Adelaide Hills. His days are filled with reflections on his life and what he calls “the mannered and meditative inaction of age”. Castro discusses his new novel, Chinese Postman, with Molly Murn.

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Tue 04 Mar, 1:15pm

With Sian Cain.

It is 1997 and in a small Australian town in the back of beyond, a young funeral attendant is planning her suicide. Her plans are interrupted by the discovery of a comet, a cult and a flurry of conspiracy theories. The New Yorker hailed Bright Objects as one of the best books of 2024. Ruby Todd explains more to Sian Cain.

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Tue 04 Mar, 12:00pm | North Stage

With Molly Murn.

In Bullet, Paper, Rock, award-winning author Abbas El-Zein discusses the political, linguistic and psychological conflicts that have shaped his life. He is joined in conversation by Molly Murn.

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Tue 04 Mar, 10:45am | North Stage

Join Clem Bastow and Jo Case as they talk about their co-edited anthology of autistic gender-diverse and women writers, Someone Like Me, an exploration of autistic people’s experiences and hardships.

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Tue 04 Mar, 9:30am | North Stage