At this year’s Byron Writers Festival, we invite you to step away from the everyday, immerse yourself in a world of ideas and stories, and let your imagination run wild!

Not sure where to start? We’ve handpicked six not-to-be-missed sessions that fully embody ‘Wild Imagination’.

The Elements
Friday 11 August, 12:30pm, Imaginarium

Robbie Arnott, Debra Dank and Maggie MacKellar discuss how landscape, the seasons and the nature of life cycles are the driving forces in our lives.

Black Joy
Saturday 12 August, 12pm, Play Zone

With our social media feeds constantly inundating us with images of trauma, Storytellers Maxine Beneba Clarke, Bebe Backhouse and Nakkiah Lui discuss with poet Cheryl Leavy what Black Joy, an expression of resistance and healing, means to them.

Wild Notes
Saturday 12 August, 3:45pm, Play Zone

Two acclaimed songwriters – Bertie Blackman, the creatively gifted memoirist daughter of artists, and a singer/pianist Eliza Hull, who advocates for people with disabilities through her books – discuss how they go about their craft.

Ethics of AI
Saturday 12 August, 12:15pm, Ideas Salon

What licence should we give to data collectors to snoop on us? Can virtual reality replace our bodily selves? How bad is the sexism embedded in evolving technologies? Grace Chan, Suneel Jethani and Tracey Spicer explore the wild frontier of artificial intelligence.

What if everything we imagine comes true?
Sunday 13 August, 9am, Imaginarium

Speculating about the future, interrogating the past and understanding through storytelling unite Michelle Arrow, Grace Chan, Shankari Chandran. A historian and two novelists describe how their approaches to writing allow them to imagine – and reimagine – past, present and future.

Inner Wilds: Calming the Storm
Sunday 13 August, 1:15pm, Mind Spa

How can we achieve a more peaceful way of being? Brigid Delaney, Ahona Guha, James Kirby who have thought deeply about worry and trauma make the case for compassion – including toward oneself.

“As humans, our imagination is our superpower. It has set us apart, enabled us to create and transform the world. As the climate crisis is teaching us, we must harness it more than ever.”

“The moment for our creativity to rise and for us to embrace the wild within is upon us. We must reconnect with nature and re-establish our sense of being as intertwined with all living things.” – Zoë Pollock, CEO & Artistic Director

See you there!

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Sessions accessible via a 1-Day or 3-Day festival pass, available to purchase at www.byronwritersfestival.com/tickets