Nicole Abadee talks with Kavita Bedford about her book Friends and Dark Shapes. They discuss the contours of contemporary life in the city, from insecure employment and housing, to second-generation identity, waves of migration, online dating and social alienation.

About the book:

A group of friends moves into a share house in Redfern. They are all on the cusp of thirty and big life changes. Friends & Dark Shapes is a novel of love and loss, of constancy and change. Most of all, it is about looking for connection in an estranged world.

In this Byron Writers Festival X BooksBooksBooks podcast collaboration, Pip Williams talks with Nicole Abadee about her novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words. They discuss the history of the Oxford English Dictionary, and how the exclusion of particular words inspired Williams' sweeping story of Esme as she sets about collecting the discarded vernacular of the English lexicon.

About the Book:

Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape our experience of the world.

Chris Raja talks with Sunil Badami about his insightful and moving memoir, Into The Suburbs. They discuss the roles of truth and fiction in memoir, as well as family, migration, homelands and identity.

About the book:

Exploring topical issues of race, class and migration, Into the Suburbs is an affecting portrait of one family’s search for home.

Sophie Hardcastle talks with Emily Brugman about their novel Below Deck. They discuss writing techniques and processes, as well as the characters and themes of the book, including sexual violence, trauma, nature and renewal.

About the book:

Below Deck is a heartbreakingly poetic and haunting story about the vagaries of consent, about who has the space to speak and who is believed.

Tristan Bancks, longtime Byron Writers Festival supporter and Room to Read ambassador, chairs a discussion with Sisonke Msimang, Jennie Orchard and Alice Pung about their contributions to the anthology The Gifts of Reading, including the books they all love to give.

The Gifts of Reading is an anthology of essays about the joys of reading and of giving books, from some of the world's most beloved writers, inspired by Robert Macfarlane, curated by Jennie Orchard, and published on the 20th anniversary of the global literacy non-profit Room to Read.

Fiona Murphy kept her deafness a secret for over 25 years. After an accident to her hand, she discovered that sign language could change her life, and that Deaf culture could be part of her identity. In this podcast, Fiona talks with Caroline Baum about her memoir The Shape of Sound, and her journey from a position of shame to one of pride as she navigated the world of d/Deafness and disability.

Blending memoir with observations on the health industry, The Shape of Sound is a story about the corrosive power of secrets, stigma and shame, and how deaf experiences and disability are shaped by economics, social policy, medicine and societal expectations.

Transcript available here: http://byronwritersfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-Shape-of-Sound-transcript_FM.pdf

Described as a spiky, sharp, intriguingly dark and tender book, full of pathos, fury and wit, Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss has received wide critical acclaim. In this podcast, Sarah Kanowski from Radio National’s Conversations talks with Meg about her unforgettable characters, the interplay between humour and suffering, and about her gentle rendering of mental illness.

Join celebrated Australian storyteller Jock Serong and acclaimed writer Mirandi Riwoe for a lively discussion about Jock’s new novel The Burning Island, recorded live at Lennox Cultural Centre, in collaboration with Lennox Arts Board (LAB).

Irresistible prose, unforgettable characters and magnificent, epic storytelling: The Burning Island delivers everything readers have come to expect from Jock Serong. It may be his most moving, compelling novel yet.

Yuwaalaraay writer and founding member of Indigenous folk duo Stiff Gins, Nardi Simpson talks with Bundjalung writer, editor and Byron Writers Festival board member Grace Lucas-Pennington about her debut novel Song of the Crocodile.

Full of music, Yuwaalaraay language and exquisite description, Song of the Crocodile is a lament to choice and change, and the unyielding land that sustains us all, if only we could listen to it. This debut novel is a captivating Australian saga from the winner of the 2018 black&write! fellowship.

At the close of the conversation Nardi performs her original track 'Song of the Crocodile' on ukulele.

In this conversation, recorded live as part of Byron Writers Festival's out-of-season program, author and academic Jenny Hocking joins celebrated journalist Kerry O’Brien to discuss her revealing new book The Palace Letters: The Queen, the governor-general, and the plot to dismiss Gough Whitlam. In this ground breaking account, Hocking discloses the obstruction, intrigue and duplicity she faced during her 10-year campaign to expose the truth behind the dismissal.