Over a masterful career spanning 10 novels, a memoir and various children’s books, Maggie O’Farrell has established herself as a modern literary monument.

Her two latest novels, Hamnet, inspired by Shakespeare’s family, and The Marriage Portrait, set in 16th-century Italian court, represent a turn into historical fiction. The former won the UK’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, while the latter was shortlisted for it.

In conversation with Kate Evans, Maggie teases out the details of her writing life, including her interest in the depth of women’s stories and the intricate intimacy of families, and the wild popularity of Hamnet.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

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Undercover agents aren’t just the stuff of stories for writers Jack Beaumont and Ben Macintyre.

A French intelligence officer turned spy thriller writer, Jack (Dark Arena) has all the insider knowledge to craft true-to-life operations in his novels. Ben (The Siege) is an espionage expert and he’s written the definitive account of the siege that put the SAS on the world stage.

Hear these two connoisseurs of the clandestine share the truth behind the spy stories that thrill us. With Michael Williams.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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Myths of cryptid big cats stalking the Australian landscape are as old as colonisation.

In Dusk, the puma hunting Tasmania’s lowlands has left enough evidence – in the form of dead and missing men – to prove her existence.

Two-time winner of The Age Book of the Year and winner of the Voss Literary Prize Robbie Arnott returns with another immanently beautiful story of loss and redemption.

Hear Robbie discuss his new novel, told with his renowned mastery of language, and the gothic myths of beasts and prey that underpin it. In conversation with Michaela Kalowski.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

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Zoë Foster Blake is a multi-talented and ambitious novelist, beauty journalist and skincare entrepreneur whose bio is long enough to leave you wondering how she does it all.

Channelling that can’t-stop, won’t-stop energy is Kit, a thriving hairstylist and the protagonist of Zoë’s latest novel, Things Will Calm Down Soon. Kit has itchy feet and always wonders what’s next. So when she can’t find the perfect product for a look, it makes sense for her to make it herself, right?

Sit down with Zoë, in conversation with Mamamia’s Holly Wainwright, for a breather and reminder that things will definitely calm down soon.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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On 30 April 1980, armed gunmen stormed the Iranian embassy in London and took 26 hostages in what would become a six-day siege.

Millions around the world were glued to their TVs as the previously secret SAS planned and executed a rescue mission. Ben Macintyre’s The Siege: The Remarkable Story of the Greatest SAS Hostage Drama recounts minute-by-minute the negotiations, media frenzy and cutting-edge intelligence work that changed a nation forever. It draws on unpublished source material and interviews with members of the SAS, hostages and witnesses, providing unprecedented insight.

Join Ben as he discusses his definitive account of this astonishing event. In conversation with Richard Fidler (ABC Radio National’s Conversations).

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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As politicians and analysts attempt to manoeuvre with the global superpower, these writers reflect on how the 20th century got the nation where it is today.

Bombard the Headquarters!: The Cultural Revolution in China is Linda Jaivin’s account of the ideological quarrels and personalities that underpinned the violent beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Louisa Lim’s Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong and Edward Wong’s At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China mix national history with personal archives to paint detailed portraits of Hong Kong and China, respectively.

Hear Linda, Louisa and Edward in conversation with Peter Hartcher as they discuss the crucial history that made China what it is today.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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Commonwealth Writers’ Prize winner Catherine Chidgey’s 9th novel, The Book of Guilt, sparked an international bidding war.

With undertones of Shirley Jackson and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, the story’s teenage triplets discover – when the government decides to shut down their home – that some lives are valued more than others in this dystopian 1970s England.

Join Catherine, in conversation with Beejay Silcox, to hear about her deeply unnerving new novel.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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This trio of Australian literary talents make writing a family affair.

The Moriarty sisters, Jaclyn (the Kingdom and Empires series), Liane (Here One Moment, Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers) and Nicola (Every Last Suspect and The Fifth Letter) have decades of writing experience between them. Their achievements include international bestsellers, film and television adaptations and prestigious awards.

In this panel discussion, they reflect on their career beginnings – including how they used to earn pocket money for writing stories – their different publishing paths and their many successes over the years. Hosted by writer and broadcaster Sarah Macdonald.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

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Every family has a secret but not every family has a memoirist to reveal it to the world.

Writer and former restaurant reviewer Candice Chung’s memoir Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You is a tender account of reconnecting with her family and breaking down the barriers of cultural taboos. Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars is award-winning writer Peter Godwin’s exploration of his changing relationship with his mother, his sister and his ex-wife and the winding histories that got them where they are now. Journalist Michael Visontay in Noble Fragments unravels a rare-book mystery linked by a legal document to his family’s history.

Hear Candice, Peter and Michael in conversation with Georgina Godwin reveal the tender underbellies of their family memoirs.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel. Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:

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Space, in all its awe-inspiring, mind-blowing expanse, is still the final frontier.

Its greatness and grandness force us to reflect on our humanity, our existence and our place within the universe.

In Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize–winning Orbital, six astronauts contemplate the Earth and its inhabitants from the International Space Station. Ceridwen Dovey’s newest short story collection, Only the Astronauts, imagines the perspectives of non-humans in space, from an abandoned mannequin orbiting the Sun to a team of ‘tamponauts’ journeying to Mars.

Consider the limits of humanity in the universe with Samantha and Ceridwen in conversation with host Ashley Hay.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and follow our channel.

Sydney Writers’ Festival podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms. 

After more? Follow Sydney Writers’ Festival on social media:
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.