Thanks to the generosity of our partners at Huonville Library, in 2024 we're able to offer seats at Sydney Writers’ Festival Live&Local sessions in southern Tasmania for free.

Sydney Writers’ Festival is returning to southern Tasmania in 2024!

Following a wonderful three-day program in 2023, the Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival (TARWF) is once again hosting Sydney Writers’ Festival Live&Local program for southern Tasmania, bringing the best of the Festival direct to you. *Please see list of all sessions below.

One of Australia’s most loved forums for literature, ideas and storytelling, Sydney Writers’ Festival will live-stream its headline events from Sydney to Huonville Library on Friday 24 to Sunday 26 May.

Prepare to be invigorated and engaged by conversations, debates and discussions featuring some of the world’s finest writers and thinkers.

Audiences can also participate in live Q&A sessions at each event, sending questions straight to the Sydney stage.

Join us for Live & Local 2024, streamed live by Sydney Writers’ Festival and delivered locally to southern Tasmania by TARWF, in partnership with Huonville Library....

2024 SESSIONS

FRIDAY 24 MAY

10–11AM

A.C. GRAYLING: THE MEANING OF LIFE IN A TECHNOLOGICAL AGE

The quest for a life worth living has been the business of philosophers for millennia. How can we pursue answers to life’s big questions in an increasingly unstable technological age? Join pre-eminent philosopher A.C. Grayling for this special talk.

12–1PM

THE WAR ON JOURNALISTS

With conflict continuing in Ukraine, and the death toll of journalists in Gaza reaching alarming proportions, we look at the role of journalists in war. Featuring Julian Borger, John Lyons and Alisa Sopova. Hosted by Hamish Macdonald.

2–3PM

ABDULRAZAK GURNAH: AFTERLIVES

Explore his writing and unpack the legacies of empire with acclaimed writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose 10th novel explores displacement, loss and love during and after German occupation of East Africa. With Sisonke Msimang.

4–5PM

FEMINIST FIREBRANDS

Four waves in, the feminist fight for gender equality is far from over. Writers and activists Hannah Ferguson, Sisonke Msimang and Jennifer Robinson discuss the most pressing issues facing women today. With host Jo Dyer.

SATURDAY 25 MAY

10–11AM

CELESTE NG: OUR MISSING HEARTS

Sit down with New York Times–bestselling author Celeste Ng, whose smash hit Little Fires Everywhere was adapted into a miniseries starring Reese Witherspoon. Listen in as she discusses her new dystopian novel with Claire Nichols.

12–1PM

TRENT DALTON: FROM ELI TO LOLA

Trent Dalton, award-winning author of Boy Swallows Universe (now a hit Netflix series) returns with Lola in the Mirror, a big, beautiful novel about grappling with our past, present, and possible futures.

2–3PM

STORYTELLERS: LEIGH SALES AND LISA MILLAR

ABC legends Leigh Sales (Storytellers) and Lisa Millar (Muster Dogs) unpack the craft of turning real life events into narrative, drawing from their recent books and a combined 65 years in journalism.

4–5PM

KATY HESSEL: THE STORY OF ART WITHOUT MEN

Overturn art history as you know it with art historian and curator Katy Hessel – creator of popular podcast and Instagram account The Great Women Artists – in conversation with curator Beatrice Gralton.

SUNDAY 26 MAY

11AM-12.30 PM (Additional in-person event)

FESTIVE MURDER

You’re warmly invited to join Alison Alexander, Jude Alexander and L.J.M. Owen to discuss literary murder and the draw of setting crimes at festivals.

Alison and Jude Alexander are multi-talented Tasmanian mother and daughter co-authors of Death at a Festival: An Australian Hippie Murder Mystery (out in May 2024) featuring a devastating crime at Australia's wildest hippie gathering.

L.J.M. Owen is the Founder Director of TARWF and the Convenor of the Tasmanian Chapter of Sisters in Crime Australia. She is the editor of the 2023 Murder You Wrote:  An Interactive Mystery, set at a crime writers' festival in the Huon Valley.

Please join these three sisters in crime for a conversation about sex, drugs and deadly festivals.

To celebrate this month's release of Death at a Festival, the event dress code is hippie - time to dig out those groovy skirts and tie-dyed T-shirts.

Copies of Death at a Festival and Murder You Wrote will be available on the day.

This is a Tasmanian Chapter of Sisters in Crime Australia event supported by TARWF.

1.30–2.30PM

DAVID WENGROW: THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING

Transform your understanding of human evolution with professor of archaeology David Wengrow, whose groundbreaking work with the late David Graeber overturns theories on the origins of farming, cities, democracy, slavery and civilisation itself. In conversation with ABC RN’s Richard Fidler.

3.30–4.30PM

DARK TECHNOLOGIES

Hear about the role of emerging technologies in conflict and occupation with Walkley Award–winning journalist Antony Loewenstein (The Palestine Laboratory), artificial intelligence expert Toby Walsh (Faking It) and host Michael Richardson.

3 Day passes and Day Passes now available.