News & Editorial

Come off the beaten track with Jessie Cole, Miriam Lancewood and Gregory Smith, who have all spent years living - and healing - in the wilderness.

Did a book change your life? Gareth Evans, Josephine Wilson and Chris Womersley discuss the transformative power of literature and the books that changed their lives.

Courtney Sina Meredith and Lemn Sissay share stories of how their life experiences influenced their poetry.

What is the function of a name? Imagine our different conception of the world if our language described what it means ‘to tree’… Just one of the propositions at the Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors session.

Roger Cohen, Madeline Gleeson and Jock Serong on ‘talking about stories which matter’, giving a voice to asylum seekers, and questioning Australia’s ethical involvement in offshore detention.

Imagine growing up with parents who were affected by appalling trauma.

Jock Serong and Michael Sala explore the nature of violence in their books and within their own lives in a discussion with Anneli Knight.

There could hardly be a more appropriate place to discuss what it means to writing about the landscape than Byron Bay, but it is the connections to country that count.

What's this appetite for faith? Comedian and converted buddhist Meshel Laurie, Islamic convert Susan Carland and retired Catholic priest Tony Doherty explore what drives our spiritual hunger.

There were no holds barred when David Marr and Erik Jensen discussed 'the White Queen' Pauline Hanson and the rise of the One Nation party in Australia.

How China’s ‘throwaway’ kids and the appalling orphanage conditions they were forced to live in were overshadowed by its economic prosperity.

What is the value of history in a world so concerned with the future? For the three authors in the Journey to the Past session at Byron Writers Festival 2017, history is invaluable. Each of them chose to research very different moments in history.

Do our current politicians fear change, or are they too tied up in party politics to carry out their ambitions?

How can we plan our world so that we can get what we want but also leave a positive environmental and moral legacy?

Modern populists like Pauline Hanson and Donald Trump push ‘our country first’ policies, but are they populists?

When a panel of science and philosophy superstars come together to chew over a few 'what is the nature of...?' questions, expect to be drawn into their geekdom.

The Thea Astley lecture is an annual event on the Byron Writers Festival calendar, instituted to honour the legacy of Thea Astley, one of Australia's great writers of the 20th century.

Session shines a light into Sarah Blasko's religious upbringing and its lingering influence on her songwriting, decades after leaving the church.

‘The gatekeepers (to the music industry) were a handful of white men’ said Holden. There were barely any people of colour other than Kahmahl, Marcia Hines and a handful of Indigenous artists. Diversity was not high on the agenda when music production was such an expensive venture.