Newcastle Writers Festival

This is a reading of the 2024 Newcastle Writers Festival program for Friday, 5 April 2024. Thank you to ABC Newcastle's Dan Cox for assisting. This is a condensed version and more detail can be found on the website. If you would like to contact our accessibility coordinator please email access@newcastlewritersfestival.org.au  

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This is a reading of the 2024 Newcastle Writers Festival program for Sunday, 7 April 2024. Thank you to ABC Newcastle's Dan Cox for assisting. This is a condensed version and more detail can be found on the website. If you would like to contact our accessibility coordinator please email access@newcastlewritersfestival.org.au  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this session, which was recorded at the 2023 festival, University of Newcastle researcher Phillip McIntyre discusses with Scott Bevan his most recent book Paul McCartney and His Creative Practice. Phillip shares fresh insight into the creative practice developed by Paul McCartney during his extended career as a songwriter, record producer and performing musician. 

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to contribute to the valuable work of Newcastle Writers Festival in fostering a culture of reading and writing, please consider a tax-deductible donation.  

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In this session recorded at the 2023 festival, writer and much-loved broadcaster Richard Fidler discusses The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, which is inspired by the tales of medieval Arab and Persian travellers who ventured to the edges of the known world. He discusses with Paul Bevan the ways in which the expansion of geographical frontiers shaped knowledge.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to contribute to the valuable work of Newcastle Writers Festival in fostering a culture of reading and writing, please consider a tax-deductible donation.  

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At the 2023 festival, Pip Williams’s participation coincided with the launch of her highly anticipated second book, The Bookbinder of Jericho. It tells the story of the onset of World War I from the perspective of a young woman, Peggy, who works in the bindery of the Oxford University Press. In this wide-ranging discussion, Pip speaks to Ailsa Piper about language, censorship and women’s access to knowledge.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to contribute to the valuable work of Newcastle Writers Festival in fostering a culture of reading and writing, please consider a tax-deductible donation.  

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In this session, which was recorded at the 2023 festival, acclaimed poets Andy Jackson, Kerri Shying and Gaele Sobott discuss Raging Grace, an anthology of collaborative poems and essays on disability.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to support the valuable work of Newcastle Writers Festival, which fosters a culture of reading and writing, please consider a tax-deductible donation. 

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In this session, which was recorded at the 2023 festival, Norman Swan explores the science, myths and mistruths that surround ageing. Hosted by Cassie McCullagh.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to contribute to the valuable work of Newcastle Writers Festival in fostering a culture of reading and writing, please consider a tax-deductible donation.  

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In this session recorded at the 2023 festival, Tim Baker and Chloe Hooper share their perspectives on the role that hope can play in helping us cope with life’s darkest moments. Hosted by Ailsa Piper.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to contribute to the valuable work of Newcastle Writers Festival in supporting a culture of reading and writing, please consider a tax-deductible donation.  

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Literary critic Declan Fry has described Chris Flynn as ‘a restless experimenter, a fabulist’. In his compelling new collection of short stories, Here Be Leviathans, Chris gives a voice to the world around us, with narrators including a bear, a river, a platypus and a hotel room. 

At the 2023 festival, he spoke to Kate Mildenhall about embracing the absurd, breaking rules, and finding your voice as a writer.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to support the valuable work of Newcastle Writers Festival, which fosters a culture of reading and writing, please consider a tax-deductible donation. 

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At the 2023 festival, Anna Downes spoke to three writers about their critically acclaimed debut crime books. 

Shelley Burr was awarded the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger for Wake,which explores how the unsolved disappearance of a girl continues to haunt a small town.James McKenzie Watson’s Denizen won the 2021 Penguin Literary Prizeand is informed by his upbringing in regional NSW. Matthew Spencer’s Black Riversees a serial killer preying on victims along the banks of the Parramatta River.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to contribute to the valuable work of the festival in fostering a culture of reading and writing, please consider a donation.  

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In this session recorded at the 2023 festival, investigative journalist Paddy Manning turns his attention to Lachlan Murdoch, one of the world’s most influential  – and enigmatic  – people. 

In his compelling biography The Successor, Manning explores Murdoch’s upbringing and political beliefs. He shares with host Antony Loewenstein what he has learnt about the head of Fox Corporation and how power and politics continue to shape him.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to contribute to the valuable work of Newcastle Writers Festival in fostering a culture of reading and writing, please consider a tax-deductible donation.  

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In their recent books, Robbie Arnott, Bronwyn Birdsall, and Holly Ringland create vivid settings that transport readers to locations in Australia and across the globe – to a bygone era in Tasmania’s north,  myth-laden Denmark and Faroe Islands, and a Balkan city recovering from war. At the 2023 festival, they spoke to Geordie Williamson about the places and liminal spaces at the pulsing heart of their compelling novels.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to contribute to the important work of Newcastle Writers Festival, which connect writers and readers from across the Hunter region and beyond, please consider making a tax-deductible donation. 

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At the 2023 festival, we introduced a new series called I'd Like You to Meet and invited  established writers to shine the spotlight on an emerging writer whose work they admire. Craig Silvey introduces you to Cadance Bell, whose coming-of-gender memoir, The All of It: A Bogan Rhapsody,was published in 2022.

The Stories to You Series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to individually support the vital work of Newcastle Writers Festival please consider a tax-deductible donation. 

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With the support of Robert Adamson's wife Juno Gemes, Newcastle Writers Festival was honoured to host a commemoration of the late poet’s life and work at the 2023 festival. This special event includes readings by Judith Beveridge, Robbie Coburn, Keri Glastonbury, Sarah Holland-Batt, and Mark Mordue. The host is Michele Seminara.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. If you would like to contribute to the festival's important work of fostering a culture of reading and writing, please consider a tax-deductible donation.

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When the Taliban arrived at the gates of Kabul in August 2021, Andrew Quilty had been living and working there for eight years. He was one of only a handful of Western journalists remaining. In this conversation, which was recorded at the 2023 festival, Andrew discusses his book August in Kabul, which explores the humanitarian cost of the 20-year war. The conversation is hosted by Antony Loewenstein. 

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW. 

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Newcastle Writers Festival hosted a very special 10th anniversary opening night event on 31 March 2023 featuring activist, sexual abuse survivor, and author Grace Tame. She spoke to Maddison Connaughton about her memoir, The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner. Please be aware that this conversation includes reference to sexual abuse and eating disorders. If it raises any issues for you, Lifeline is there to help 13 11 14.

The Stories to You podcast series is supported by Create NSW.   

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In October 2022, Newcastle Writers Festival hosted a special event with internationally respected human rights and media lawyer Jennifer Robinson and colleague Dr Keina Yoshida. Journalist Maddison Connaughton hosted the conversation, which centred on Jennifer and Keina’s book How Many More Women? Exposing How the Law Silences Women.

How Many More Women? examines the laws around the world that silence women, and explores the changes we need to make to ensure that women’s freedoms are no longer threatened by the legal system that is supposed to protect them.

Thank you to event sponsor University of Newcastle's School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences and to publisher Allen & Unwin. 

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First Nations women are the backbone of their communities. Join this deep dive into storytelling, song, poetry, and activism with Evelyn Araluen, Jasmine Seymour, Nardi Simpson, and Chelsea Watego. Hosted by Narelda Jacobs.

This conversation was recorded at the 2022 Newcastle Writers Festival. Thank you to Create NSW for funding the Stories To You series.  

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Lech Blaine, Brendan Cowell, and Brandon Jack discuss what it means to explore more expansive expressions of Australian masculinity in writing and in life. Hosted by Nick Milligan.

This conversation was recorded at the 2022 Newcastle Writers Festival. Thank you to Create NSW for funding the Stories To You series.  

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Emily Bitto (Wild Abandon) and Diana Reid (Love & Virtue) have received critical acclaim for their evocative new coming-of-age novels, which dissect relationships, power, and moral responsibility. They speak to  Amy Lovat.

This conversation was recorded at the 2022 Newcastle Writers Festival. Thank you to Create NSW for funding the Stories To You series.  

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Award-winning writer Hannah Kent made her Newcastle Writers Festival debut in 2022. In this conversation with Ashley Hay, she discusses her most recent novel Devotion, which takes readers on a journey back in time, across oceans and spiritual planes.

Hannah Kent’s first novel, the international bestseller, Burial Rites, was translated into over 30 languages and won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, the Indie Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year, and the Victorian Premier’s People’s Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Stella Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and is being adapted for film by Sony TriStar. Her second novel, The Good People was translated into 10 languages and shortlisted for the Walter Scott Award, the Indie Books Award for Literary Fiction, the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Readings Prize. It is being adapted for film by Aquarius Productions. Devotion, her third novel, won Booktopia’s Favourite Australian Book, was shortlisted for an Indie Book Award and longlisted for the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year.

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A former newspaper editor has described Kate McClymont as ‘a walking almanac of Sydney crime and corruption’. Delve into a day in the unusual life of one of Australia’s most respected investigative journalists – death threats and all.

This conversation was recorded at the 2022 Newcastle Writers Festival and hosted by best-selling author Michael Robotham. 

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It was standing room only for this important event at the 2022 festival with Paul Callaghan and Uncle Paul Gordon, who believe that First Nations thinking can be a source of contentment for all. The men bring together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal world views in their powerful book, The Dreaming Path, and they expand on some of its themes in this conversation; relationships, caring for place, being present and healing from the past. The host is Joe Williams, a proud Wiradjuri/Wolgalu man and author of The Enemy Within. 

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As we prepare for our 10th festival, which will be held from 31 March to 2 April 2023, enjoy the first in a series of sessions recorded at the 2022 festival.

A blind man yearns to see the face of his wife of 30 years. A divorced mother has a secret love affair with a travelling priest. A tree lopper’s heart falls in a forest. A respected 100-year-old scientist ponders the one great earthly puzzle he was never able to solve: ‘What is love?’  Trent Dalton explores important questions about what love means.

This session was hosted by Newcastle Writers Festival director Rosemarie Milsom who stepped in at the last minute to replace someone who had to withdraw.

Thank you to the festival's core funder Create NSW for supporting the Stories to You series.

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In the final episode of this year's Stories To You series, we have collaborated with Caroline Baum, host of the Life Sentences podcast, to bring you a conversation with American biographer Professor Heather Clark about her acclaimed biography of poet Sylvia Plath. 

Caroline describesRed Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, which has been nominated for a 2021 Pulitzer Prize,as a "fastidious, forensic and granular account" of the artist's early life and brilliant college days in the US before her explosive encounter with British poet Ted Hughes. With unprecedented access to archives of Plath papers and other previously unavailable material, Clark provides the most comprehensive and psychologically complex portrait to date of a much misunderstood and mythologised artist.

Red Comet is published in Australia by Penguin Random House.

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Andrew Pippos, who has been shortlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award, and Newcastle writer Michael Sala, discuss their creative challenges and decisions, how they juggle the demands of writing and parenting, and what they are working on now. Hosted by Ed Wright.

This session was recorded at our inaugural Fresh Ink Emerging Writers Program on 23 April, in collaboration with Newcastle Libraries. Funding was provided by Create NSW. 

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Cassandra Atherton talks about prose poetry and microlit — reading from the Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry she recently co-edited with Paul Hetherington, and Pulped Fiction, the latest collection in the Joanne Burns microlit prize series. 

Host: Beth Spencer

Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry is published by Melbourne University Press.
Pulped Fiction is published by Spineless Wonders. 
Cassandra’s latest books of prose poetry are Fugitive Letters (with Paul Hetherington) and Leftovers.
You can order copies from www.macleanbooks.com.au 

More information about Cassandra’s work at www.cassandra-atherton.com.

And for more about the Joanne Burns Microlit prize and Microflix check out Spineless Wonders at https://shortaustralianstories.com.au/

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Triple J presenter Bridget Hustwaite and journalist Gabrielle Jackson are 'endo warriors'. They share their experiences of living with endometriosis and explore the assumptions and misinformation that impact sufferers. 

How to Endo by Bridget Hustwaite and Pain and Prejudice by Gabrielle Jackson are published by Allen and Unwin. Buy both books online via the Festival's book store MacLean's Booksellers.    

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Acclaimed First Nations Canadian writer Billy-Ray Belcourt speaks to Laura Kebby, of Secret Book Stuff, about writing, poetry, identity, and the importance of representation in literature. 

Billy-Ray's memoir A History of My Brief Body is published by UQP. 

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Eminent British philosopher A. C. Grayling discusses the fields of knowledge that have opened up with new methods and tools of inquiry – including cutting-edge physics, humanity’s very ancient history before Greece and Rome, and what we now know about the mind and the brain. Hosted by Newcastle philosopher and author Russell Blackford.

The Frontiers of Knowledge: What We Now Know About Science, History, and the Mind is published by Penguin Random House Australia. Buy your copy from the Festival's bookstore, MacLean's Booksellers. 

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From essays to poetry, there’s more than one way to write a memoir. How do we find the best form to tell the stories of our own lives? With Bastian Fox Phelan, Susan Francis, and Bri Lee. Hosted by Rosemarie Milsom.

This session was recorded at our inaugural Fresh Ink Emerging Writers Program on 24 April, 2021, in collaboration with Newcastle Libraries. Funding was provided by Create NSW. 

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Whether you’re interested in self-publishing, are an aspiring author, or simply keen to take a behind-the-scenes look at the business of publishing, Jaye Ford, Brendan Fredericks and Ed Wright share an insider’s view. Hosted by Nick Milligan.

This session was recorded at our inaugural Fresh Ink Emerging Writers Program on 24 April, 2021, in collaboration with Newcastle Libraries. Funding was provided by Create NSW. 

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Newcastle has a robust poetry community and in late 2020 three local writers had books published by Puncher & Wattmann. Ivy Ireland, Kerri Shying, and Ed Wright speak to Magdalena Ball about their funny and deeply original work. 

Kerri Shying’s Know Your Country, Ivy Ireland’s The Owl Inside, and Ed Wright’s Gas Deities are all published by Puncher & Wattmann and can be purchased from Macleans Bookshop.

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When her husband decided he didn't want biological children, Sarah Sentilles was forced to acknowledge her deepest longing. In her compelling new memoir, Stranger Care, she explores the realisation that she wanted to be a parent - to care for someone else's baby. Sarah speaks to Newcastle Writers Festival director Rosemarie Milsom about the life-changing experience.

Stranger Care is published by Text and can be bought online via Maclean's Booksellers. 

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Novelist Maria Dahvana Headley has created a revisionist translation of the Old English poem Beowulf, infusing it with feminism and social-media slang.

She speaks to Magdalena Ball about being one of only a few women translators who has tackled the 3182-line poem. 

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What if you woke up one morning and decided to give the fate of your marriage just 12 months?  Author Holly Wainwright chats to Laura Jackel about her latest aptly titled novel, I Give My Marriage A Year.  

Holly Wainwright is a writer, editor and broadcaster who lives in Sydney with her young family. She's the Head of Content at women's media companyMamamia and this is her third novel.

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Australian writer Emily Maguire's new novel isa clear-eyed and compassionate novel about love and family, betrayal and forgiveness, and the things we do to fill our empty spaces. She speaks to Magdalena Ball.

Love Objects is published by Allen & Unwin. 

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This episode of Stories to You brings together two veteran Australian music journalists and authors, Stuart Coupe and Mark Mordue, to discuss their respective new biographies, Paul Kelly: The Man, the Music and The Life In-Between and Nick Cave: Boy On Fire.

Author and entertainment journalist Nick Milligan speaks with Coupe and Mordue about the craft of writing an incisive biography and the multi-faceted lives of their fascinating subjects.

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What happens if your misunderstood child becomes embroiled in a school scandal? Fiona Higgins chats to Laura Jackel about her new novel An Unusual Boy. 

For more on Fiona Higgins visit fionahiggins.com.au and buy An Unusual Boy, published by Boldwood Books here 

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In his new book My Year of Living Vulnerably, Rick Morton reveals what happened when childhood trauma caught up with him in his 20s. He then set himself the task of undoing some of the damage by living more openly and vulnerably, and by exploring the evolving science around how people living with trauma can begin to heal. He speaks to Ed Wright.

If this conversation has raised issues for you, help is available 24/7 from Lifeline 13 11 14

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During the destructive and widespread bushfire season of 2019/20, philosopher Danielle Celermajer's rural NSW idyll was under threat. The trauma and fear caused her to reflect on our responsibility for the damage and pain caused, especially to the natural world. She speaks to Rosemarie Milsom about her book Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future.   

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Does being vegan mean having to miss out on burgers, jalapeno peppers and deep-fried banana fritters? No way, according to Melbourne writer and vegan recipe developer Zacchary Bird. He talks to Magdalena Ball about his first book Vegan Junk Food.

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Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard discusses her most recent book Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons, co-written with economist Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. She explores the influence of gender on women’s access to positions of leadership and the perceptions of them as leaders. The conversation is hosted by Newcastle Writers Festival director Rosemarie Milsom and was recorded on 13 February, 2021.

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