Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst reflects on writing about gay lives and Booker Prize shortlisted author Charlotte Wood explains what it's like to not win the prestigious prize.

British writer Alan Hollinghust won the 2004 Booker Prize for his novel The Line of Beauty about a gay man living in 1980s Britain. His latest novel, Our Evenings, is about another queer man but this story spans a much longer period of British history and follows Dave Win for 60 years as he navigates his life as a gay, biracial man. Alan was a guest of Sydney Writers Festival.

The Australian writer Charlotte Wood shortlisted for the 2024 Booker for her novel Stone Yard Devotional about an atheist woman who retreats to a nunnery in the Australian bush. It was the first time in 10 years that an Australian was shortlisted for the prize. Claire Nichols spoke to Charlotte at the Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival, WA.