6 August 2017
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.
News & Editorial
5 August 2017
Session shines a light into Sarah Blasko's religious upbringing and its lingering influence on her songwriting, decades after leaving the church.
5 August 2017
‘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.
5 August 2017
'I have been in Australia for 19 years,' said Deng Adut proudly: '19 years of peace, 19 years of doing everything I can, 19 years of trying to get rid of my past. I am growing bold.'
5 August 2017
It is quintessentially human to seek understanding about each other and the land on which we walk. Some choose to do this through art.
5 August 2017
Day one of the Byron Writers Festival 2017 wrapped up in tweets
5 August 2017
Tony Jones is well-known as foreign correspondent and presenter of Q&A. Now he can add novelist to his list of skills.
5 August 2017
Australia’s fascination with John Safran comes from his authenticity, creative ability to find a unique skew on topics and Depends What You Mean By Extremist is no exception.
5 August 2017
Why must we work for free?, ask millennial authors Jennifer Down, Bri Lee, and Kayla Rae Whitaker.
4 August 2017
Byron Writers Festival shines a light on contemporary Indian literature.
4 August 2017
And so it began, under sunny skies and with Bunyarra Dancers opening 2017 Byron Writers Festival with a Welcome to Country ceremony.
21 July 2017
Never been to Byron Writers Festival? We ask Byron resident and Festival-lover Emily Brugman, 27, her top tips for the first-time Festival goer.
30 May 2017
Ahead of the publication of her new picture book Archie and the Bear, local children's author Zanni Louise looks at how the best children's books allow room for interpretation, ensuring that young readers become engaged, absorbed and imaginative as they follow a multi-layered story.
26 May 2017
How does a career in journalism affect a writer when they come to create fiction? Journalist-come-novelist Russell Eldridge offers his take on the question to northerly editor Barnaby Smith.
19 May 2017
Byron Writers Festival's new initiative, the Members' Book Club, held its inaugural event on 16 March when Marele Day's Lambs of God was the subject of discussion. Attendee Louise Heywood reports on a lively evening of literary conversation.
17 May 2017
In a stellar double-bill of pioneering contemporary authors, Byron Writers Festival presents Susan Faludi and Ivan Coyote at Byron Theatre on 31 May. Emily Brugman previews this special event.
3 May 2017
Local author and Byron Writers Festival board member Jesse Blackadder shares the history of StoryBoard, after the unveiling of the magical bus which will bring a touring creative writing workshop to Northern Rivers kids.
26 April 2017
Byron Writers Festival director, Edwina Jonson, visited India in January of this year as one of the delegates for the Australia Council India Exploratory 2017 Program, where she had the opportunity to immerse herself in India’s vibrant literary scene. She spoke to Emily Brugman about her experience.
26 April 2017
Osamah Sami is a multilingual Melbourne-based writer and actor born in Iran to Iraqi parents. Sami's forte is comedy, with his memoir Good Muslim Boy winning the NSW Premier's Literary Award in 2016. He is also a screenwriter and poet. He spoke to Katinka Smit at Byron Writers Festival 2016.
5 April 2017
Northerly editor Barnaby Smith takes us through his guide to some of the more noteworthy, and perhaps overlooked, examples of musicians turning their hand to fiction.