This year's Sydney Writers' Festival looks to be one of the best yet, with hundreds of guests from here (of which I'm thrilled to be one) and overseas. To find out a little more, and hear about some of the big names coming (THE Molly Ringwald amongst them), read Artistic Director Jemma Birrell's festival welcome here. Details of the sessions I'll be appearing at are below and on my Events calender. See you there!
HISTORICAL FACT AND FICTION - 23 May 2.30pm - 3.30pm at Sydney Theatre
Edward Rutherfurd, one of the world’s greatest historical novelists, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, author of the intricately researched The Origins of Sex, and Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites, set in historic Iceland, discuss their research and the differences between historical fact and fiction, with Miriam Cosic. What are the boundaries? Where do they blur? If fiction and non-fiction discover different truths, what can novelists learn from historians, and vice versa?
STELLA PRIZE TRIVIA - 25 May 2.30pm - 3.30pm at Pier 2/3 Club Stage
Join MC Sally Warhaft as some of your favourite Australian authors battle it out in an afternoon of trivia and laughs, celebrating the writing of Australian women, past and present. There'll be audience prizes of great Australian works and many opportunities to show off your prodigious store of manuscript minutiae. It’s like RocKwiz, but with books! So gather your literature-loving friends and head to the Club.
Your all-star cast will include Jesse Blackadder, Georgia Blain, Jane Caro, Sophie Cunningham, Monica Dux, Rebecca Giggs, Ashley Hay, Cate Kennedy, Hannah Kent, Margo Lanagan, Melissa Lucashenko, Caroline Overington and Josephine Rowe. Guest starring the inimitable Richard Glover as roadie.
LOVE LETTER TO ICELAND - 26 May 11.30am - 12.30pm at Pier 2/3 The Loft
In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men. Agnes is sent to wait out the months leading up to her execution on the farm of district officer Jón Jónsson, his wife and their two daughters. Hannah Kent talks with SMH Literary Editor Susan Wyndham about her powerful debut, Burial Rites, which has been sold around the globe and is one of this year's most talked about novels.