By Aaron Cordy
THE Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) brings together some of the best writers and authors from Australia and the world for eight days of inspiring talks and a passion for the written word. Once again, SWF Live & Local will be streamed live and direct from the stages of Sydney to Goulburn Valley Libraries, which will be free to the public.
“We go to a lot of trouble to put together this enormous festival program, and it’s really exciting for us to be able to share it Australia-wide,” said Artistic Director Ann Mossop.
“People in Sydney can come along to the festival, in various venues and be part of it. But we have this amazing collection of international and Australian guests. So, the chance for people around Australia to see them is a fantastic thing that we really, really like to support.”
Each year, the list of SWF authors and panel discussions is an enticing smorgasbord for lovers of books, storytelling and the written word.
“We’ve got the winner of the 2025 Booker Prize, David Szalay. We’ve got, you know, visitors like Roddy Doyle, the Irish novelist, Lily King, who’s written a book called Heart the Lover, which you will see in any bookshop you go into,” said Ann.
“We’ve got some incredible, incredible panel discussions. One with Yann Martel, the author of The Life of Pi, and Roddy Doyle, Charlotte Wood and Susan Choi. A whole collection of incredible fiction writers talking about the state of the art.
“One of the most exciting sessions in the festival is in the live and local program. It’s called Fantastical Worlds. In that we have R.F. Kuang, the author of Katabasis, an American writer currently living in Australia, Lev Grossman and Australian writer Garth Nix. So that is going to be a really fantastic conversation bringing together different writers from different places, with very different kinds of works, but with this common interest in world building and writing those big fantasy stories.”
With other notable authors like Trent Dalton (Boy Swallows Universe), and the author of Captain Underpants and Dog Man, who will draw his beloved characters live in Power Up with Dav Pilkey, and much more, the SWF live-streamed into all of the Goulburn Valley Libraries is not something you want to miss.
For SWF session times, visit https://www.gvlibraries.com.au/sydney-writers-festival.
