Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver and British author Max Porter turn their attention to lost boys failed by society.

My Own Sweet Time was a memoir said to be written by Wanda Koolmatrie, a member of the Aboriginal stolen generation. But it was a hoax and this final episode of Fakes and Frauds explores its long lasting impacts. Plus, American author Don Winslow explains why he's stepping away from writing fiction. 

Richard Powers, Hannah Kent, Elif Shafak and Michael Christie all use trees in their fiction to touch on themes of roots and connections, growth and rebirth, the family tree. But as our climate changes, is the way novelists use trees also changing to make the natural world the star of the story? 

The latest episode in our Fakes and Frauds series is about the biggest recent book scandal of all, the Helen Demidenko affair. Also Shirley Le discusses her debut Funny Ethnics.

Cannibalism, telepathy and celibacy are just some of the false claims Marlo Morgan made in her 1990s new age hit, Mutant Message Down Under, meet the Indigenous activists who campaigned against the book in the latest episode of Fakes and Frauds. And Eleanor Catton on her Macbeth inspired satire, Birnam Wood. 

Find out how to catch a con-artist in this episode of Fakes and Frauds that delves into the fake memoir of Norma Khouri. And American author Curtis Sittenfeld on the Saturday Night Live inspiration for her latest novel, Romantic Comedy.

Find out how to catch a plagiarist in the first of our series Fakes and Frauds - the book scandals that rocked Australia. And Australian prize winning author, Alexis Wright on her new novel Praiseworthy, an epic Aboriginal fable. 

Australian authors Chloe Hooper, Alice Pung and Larissa Behrendt reveal the complex and complicated mums in their lives and on the page.

British Booker winner Julian Barnes's latest novel, Elizabeth Finch, is about a life-changing teacher and he tells the audience at the Sydney Writers Festival that "you become a writer by not being the child of a writer".

The smell of books and Italian cooking are celebrated in the latest novels by bestselling Australian authors Pip Williams and Dominic Smith. Pip Williams' follow up to The Dictionary of Lost Words revisits Oxford as the setting for her wartime drama, The Bookbinder of Jericho. And Dominic Smith's Return to Valetto explores the people who choose to stay in crumbling Italian ghost towns.