Byron Writers Festival announces 2025 program

The program for the Byron Writers Festival, running 8–10 August on Bundjalung Country, has been announced.

With the theme Passion and Purpose, the 2025 program features over 160 writers from Australia and overseas.

Among headliners are Helen Garner, Michelle de Kretser, Hannah Kent, Thomas Keneally, Gina Chick, Markus Zusak, Tony Armstrong, Layne Beachley, Thomas Mayo, Don Watson and Michael Robotham.

The festival will open with a Welcome to Country with Delta Kay on Friday morning. Events will then take place over six venues, with one festival pass admitting attendees to all events in the main festival programs.

Among international guests are John Vaillant (Fire Weather, Sceptre), Esther Freud (My Sister and Other Lovers, Bloomsbury), Akhil Katyal (The Last Time I Saw You, HarperCollins) and Ita Mehrotra (Uprooted: A Graphic Account for Forest Rights, Context).

A special series of separately ticketed events and workshops will also take place, featuring Helen Garner in conversation with Kerry O’Brien; the Guardian Australia’s Are You Game Show, hosted by Matilda Boseley and Lucy Clark; and Beyond the Lines, a night of ‘rhythm, rhyme and radical truth-telling as poetry and music collide’.

Artistic director Jessica Alice said: ‘This year’s festival is an exuberant celebration of the art of reading, writing, and living with purpose, featuring renowned writers and the most impressive new voices. We are honoured to present these brilliant authors and thinkers who will ignite your curiosity and passion for a life well lived, and big ideas for a better world.’

More information – including the full program – is available on the Byron Writers Festival website.

Category: Festivals Local news