Interview: Jemma Birrell, artistic director of the Sydney Writers’ Festival

With the Sydney Writers’ Festival just arond the corner (20-26 May), Books+Publishing spoke to artistic director Jemma Birrell about what visitors can expect from this year’s festival and her personal picks for not-to-be-missed authors.

Every event will have something wonderful—there is such a wide range of subjects, events, writers and performers. 5×15 comes from London, with five people speaking for 15 minutes about a passion or obsession, and there’s SWF Shorts, with readings of short stories by some of Australia’s greatest actors. There’s also film icon, jazz singer and writer Molly Ringwald in Town Hall, talking about her fabulous novel about love and betrayal. 

Kate Mosse, whose bestselling Labyrinth (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) swept the world, brings her new book Citadel (Orion) telling the story of a women’s resistance unit in occupied France; she’ll also talk about co-founding the Orange Prize. Faramerz Dabhiolwa will enlighten us about sex and society, Booker-shortlisted Deborah Levy tells us why she writes, performance poet Anis Mojgani brings a touch of Walt Whitman and Bukowski to the stage, and Mark Forsyth shares his love of words and language. 

Literary couple James Wood, the book critic for the New Yorker, and Claire Messud join us, with Claire giving the closing address on ‘imaginary homelands’. Claire’s new book The Woman Upstairs (Virago Press) is brilliant, and has its own little bit of controversy and incredible reviews from all corners.

I’m excited about so many extraordinary Australian writers including Robert Drewe, Damon Young, Luke Davies, Michelle de Kretser, Hannah Kent, Anna Goldsworthy and this year’s Stella winner Carrie Tiffany. And there are writers from all corners of the globe: Anita Desai from India, Cheryl Strayed from America, Sheila Heti from Canada, Carlos Ruiz Zafon from Spain, Diego Marani from Italy and Karl Ove Knusgaard from Norway. 

It’s quite a coup that public philosopher and ‘rock star moralist’ Michael Sandel is coming to Australia to give a lecture in the Opera House—millions have viewed his Harvard course ‘Justice’ online and his new book looks at what it means to live in a world in which everything is for sale. 

The magnificent Ruby Wax is also in the Opera House, telling us how to keep sane in our insane world. In Town Hall there will be the rather controversial panel I’m a Feminist: Can I Vajazzle?, with Ruby Wax, Mia Freedman, Dale Spender and more, dealing with what it means for a woman to own her own body—if you pole dance for exercise and love your Brazilian, does that dent your feminist credentials? Should be enlightening and lots of fun. 

Molly Ringwald, Claire Messud, Kate Mosse, James Wood, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Joe Rospars and Anita Desai are also attracting lots of interest.

I can’t wait to hear traditional storyteller Daniel Morden’s classic stories that he has collected from around the world—his gypsy tales from the woods of Wales and his love stories in particular. The daily On Craft series should be both inspiring and informative, with Jackie Kay speaking on how the imagination helps us survive, and Deborah Levy in Why I Write, inspired by Orwell’s essay. I also think Deborah’s discussion with one of India’s greatest writers, Anita Desai, will be really special. Damon Young’s lecture on literature, gardens and philosophy circling around Cicero’s quote ‘If you have a garden in your library, we will want for nothing’ will be brilliant. 

I’m looking forward to the events with Sheila Heti and Cheryl Strayed, which work around the audience’s questions. Aleks Krotoski on people telling stories without words (with a perfume maker, chef and Michelin chef) should be fascinating. There are many more great panels too, such as Defining Moments and The Uncommon Reader. That’s just a few of the many I’m looking forward to! 

For the first time at SWF we have a writer-in-residence, Josephine Rowe, writing daily pieces on the festival. We will also have a new blog that will go up before the festival, with interesting bits and pieces about what’s going on. There will be poetry in unexpected places, roaming around Sydney on the city’s street-cleaning trucks, a daily session on the craft of writing, entertainment in the queues and The Big Top for Little People at the wharf precinct.

We are also launching WOW (Women of the World Festival) in Sydney. It comes from Jude Kelly and London’s Southbank Centre, with a range of events celebrating women’s strength and creativity. Some of these include speed-mentoring and WOW bites featuring women’s stories; for example, Yassmin Abdel-Magied on a young lady’s survival guide for life on the oil rigs.

Writers will read new work they’ve been asked to write for the festival, with one event on the theme of water and one on theme of food. Both are at the bar at the end of the wharf, a new venue we’re using this year, in which we’ll also have a new daily morning session, Coffee and Papers, with the Sydney Morning Herald.

There is something particularly vibrant and unique about Sydney, and our audiences are incredibly engaged and have a real passion for literature. French audiences and events are always interesting, but they can be a little more academic. As with everywhere in the world there has been a huge proliferation of festivals in Australia, which makes SWF’s unique audiences and stunning location really important.