Marieke Hardy is a screenwriter, political pundit, playwright, podcast host and author. Her comedy series, Laid, is currently being shot in the US. She is co-producer of Better Off Said.

SESSIONS:

Title: Yeah, Nah! (61)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Venue: Hakea Marquee

Title: Better Off Said (F)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
Venue: A&I Hall

Title: The Silver River (84)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Venue: Hakea Marquee

Suzy Freeman-Greene is the Books & Ideas editor of The Conversation. A former features editor and op-ed columnist at The Age, her writing has been published widely.

SESSIONS:

Title: Hazzard and Harrower (37)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee

Title: Cultural Touchstones (70)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Venue: Acacia Marquee

Dylin Hardcastle is an award-winning author, artist, screenwriter and former Provost’s Scholar at the University of Oxford. Their new book is A Language of Limbs.

SESSIONS:

Title: How We Love (105)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Venue: Coolamon Tent

Jan Fran is a Walkley-award-winning journalist, TV presenter and social commentator. She is the co-host of ABC’s Question Everything and is well known for her work on The Project and The Feed.

SESSIONS:

Title: Bob Brown in Conversation (F)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Venue: A&I Hall

Title: Pheasants Nest (79)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Venue: Acacia Marquee

Chris Hanley OAM is the founder of Byron Writers Festival and was Chair for 20 years until 2016. He is the CEO of First National Byron.

SESSIONS:

Title: It’s Not Just Cricket (43)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Venue: Lilly Pilly Marquee

Title: Psychedelic Medicines (55)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Venue: Acacia Marquee

Title: America at war with itself (72)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee

Title: Unsung (90)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee

Candice Fox is the author of ten internationally bestselling crime novels and the winner of three prestigious Ned Kelly Awards. Her latest book is Devil’s Kitchen.

SESSIONS:

Title: ABC North Coast live broadcast (3)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 9:25 AM – 9:35 AM
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee

Title: Ethics in Crime Writing (18)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Venue: Lilly Pilly Marquee

Title: The Art of Writing Crime (40)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 10:15 AM – 11:15 AM
Venue: Acacia Marquee

Clive Hamilton is a Professor of Public Ethics and best-selling author. His two new co-authored books are Living Hot: Surviving and thriving on a heating planet, and The Privileged Few.

SESSIONS:

Title: Elite Privilege (29)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 3:15 PM – 4:15 PM
Venue: A&I Hall

Title: Coffee & Papers (39)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 8:45 AM – 9:45 AM
Venue: A&I Hall

Title: Living Hot (88)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Venue: Acacia Marquee

Richard Flanagan has been described by the Washington Post as ‘one of our greatest living novelists’. He won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. His most recent book is Question 7.

SESSIONS:

Title: Question 7 (20)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Venue: Acacia Marquee

Title: For The Earth (41)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Venue: Hakea Marquee

Shahar Hameiri is a Professor of International Politics. His most recent coauthored books are Fractured China and The Locked-Up Country.

SESSIONS:

Title: Status Anxiety (87)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM
Venue: A&I Hall

Anna Featherstone writes niche books about subjects she loves: sustainability, bees and books! She mentors writers, founded Bold Authors, and is an advisor to the Alliance of Independent Authors.

SESSIONS:

Title: Marketing for Writers (W)
Date: Wednesday 7 August 2024
Session Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Venue: Byron Community Centre, Wategos 2

Title: Self-publishing (13)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM
Venue: Lilly Pilly Marquee

Title: Split: Living with Multiple Personality Disorder (27)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee

Gideon Haigh has been a journalist for more than forty years and published more than fifty books. His latest is the memoir, My Brother Jaz.

SESSIONS:

Title: True Crime (5)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Venue: A&I Hall

Title: It’s Not Just Cricket (43)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Venue: Lilly Pilly Marquee

Title: On Grief (67)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 4:30 PM – 5:15 PM
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee

Title: My Story (93)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 3:15 PM – 4:15 PM
Venue: Acacia Marquee

Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer. Her latest Quarterly Essay is Highway to Hell: Climate Change and Australia’s Future. She served as a lead author for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report and is the author of Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Sunburnt Country: The history and future of climate change in Australia. Joëlle also contributed chapters to The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, and Not Too Late: Changing the climate story from despair to possibility, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua.

SESSIONS:

Title: Planet Ocean (26)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Venue: Hakea Marquee

Title: Deadlock: Ending Fossil Fuels (74)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Venue: A&I Hall

Jill Eddington is an avid reader and lover of Australian writing. She is a former festival director, publisher and Director of Literature at Creative Australia.

SESSIONS:

Title: Question 7 (20)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Venue: Acacia Marquee

Title: Stone Yard Devotional (35)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Venue: Acacia Marquee

Merinda Dutton is a Gumbaynggirr and Barkindji woman, emerging writer, First Nations critic, and the co-founder of Blackfulla Bookclub, an online community for First Nations stories.

SESSIONS:

Title: Holding Power to Account (7)
Date: Friday 9 August 2024
Session Time: 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Venue: Hakea Marquee

Title: Media & Justice (48)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM
Venue: Lilly Pilly Marquee

Sally Douglas is an author, grief educator and co-host of the Good Mourning podcast. Her new co-authored book is Good Mourning: Honest conversations about grief and loss.

SESSIONS:

Title: Good Mourning podcast (52)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Venue: Coolamon Tent

Title: Writing Pain (101)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM
Venue: Melaleuca Marquee

Madelaine Dickie is the author of Troppo, Red Can Origami and co-author of Some People Want to Shoot Me. She currently lives in the remote Aboriginal community of Maningrida in Arnhem Land.

SESSIONS:

Title: Everest, Guns & Money (64)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 10:15 AM – 11:15 AM
Venue: Coolamon Tent

Title: Some People Want to Shoot Me (96)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Venue: A&I Hall

Title: Voices of Regional Australia (102)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 3:15 PM – 4:00 PM
Venue: Lilly Pilly Marquee

Chris Dewhirst is an educator and extreme adventurer, who has climbed El Capitan, kayaked the Franklin River and flown a balloon over Mt Everest. He is the author of Everest, Guns & Money.

SESSIONS:

Title: Everest, Guns & Money (102)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 10:15 AM – 11:15 AM
Venue: Coolamon Tent

Trent Dalton is a two-time Walkley Award winning journalist and the international bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, All Our Shimmering Skies, Love Stories and Lola in the Mirror.

SESSIONS:

Title: Lola in the Mirror (46)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 11:45 AM – 12:45 PM
Venue: Hakea Marquee

Megan Daley is an award-winning Teacher Librarian. Megan is the author of the bestselling book Raising Readers as well as Teacher, Teacher and The Beehive

SESSIONS:

Title: Kids Big Day Out (107)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Venue: Coolamon Tent

Carody Culver is the editor of Griffith Review. Her chapbook, The Morgue I Think the Deader it Gets, was published in 2022.

SESSIONS:

Title: How We Love (87)
Date: Saturday 10 August 2024
Session Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Venue: Coolamon Tent

Title: Status Anxiety (105)
Date: Sunday 11 August 2024
Session Time: 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM
Venue: A&I Hall