News & Editorial

We are pleased to announce that Byron Writers Festival 2023 (11-13 August) was an overwhelming success, welcoming capacity crowds to bask in the winter sunshine at our stunning new location at Bangalow Showground. 

The work of Sydney-based artist Liz Payne explores colour, shape, form and abstraction through a variety of mediums including painting, embroidery and beading. Earlier this year, Payne was commissioned by Byron Writers Festival to produce a piece for this year’s event. We sat down with her to discuss her creative process and more. 

Ahead of a key panel at Byron Writers Festival 2023 with Anna Funder and Pip Williams, Northern Rivers author Sally Colin-James examines how a conscious awareness of linguistic diversity can open hearts, cultivate meaningful human connection and help expose power structures inherent in monolingual culture. 

Where is AI taking the world, and how is it embedded with long-held, damaging bias and prejudice? These questions are among those posed by Tracey Spicer in her new book, Man-Made. 

Byron Writers Festival proves that the Northern Rivers region remains a creative hotspot in 2023 with more than 30 local writers, thinkers, artists and performers featured at this year’s festival including Marele Day (Reckless), Sally Colin-James (One Illumined Thread), Kayte Nunn (The Only Child), Hilton Koppe (One Curious Doctor), Amanda Reichelt-Brushett (Marine Pollution), Hakea Hustler and Carl Merrison (Diraarn) and many more.

We’re inviting the curious, open-minded and deeply compassionate to get in touch with the magic world of the Mind Spa marquee at Byron Writers Festival 2023, this 11-13 August. 

If anyone knows how to throw a literary party, it’s the slam poets! Get ready for Byron Writers Festival’s Saturday night feature event, Voices In the Wild, a cabaret of spoken word that will bring the house down.

Byron Writers Festival 2023 invites audiences aged 35 and under to soak up the festival experience with a Saturday PM Under 35s Pass. This new pass gives access to twelve sessions taking place at the festival site from 2pm, Saturday 12 August for just $35.

The Deep Dives marquee will be a place for reflective one-on-one conversations; where you can dive head first into a world of extraordinary and emotive topics that leave you yearning to discover more. If you love hearing from the authors of this year’s biggest and most compelling books and better still, meeting them in person afterwards, read on for a taste of what to expect.

Heather Rose is the Australian author of eight novels, including the Stella Prize-winning The Museum of Modern Love. In this insightful Q&A, Heather discusses her memoir, Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here.