After having to cancel last year’s festival due to COVID, Sydney Writers Festival is coming back stronger and bolder in 2021.
According to Artistic Director Michael Williams, who joined the Festival last year, the theme for the 2021 Festival is “Within Reach”, and will highlight the writers who are shaping Australian literature right now.
“It recognises those authors who show us an Australia that is not monolithic or static but varied, curious and challenging. We have gathered the many diverse and exciting writers who are right here, within our reach – asking questions, raising their voices and defining this culture.”
Running across a week from Monday April 26th, the Festival is set to host over two hundred live events, featuring more than four hundred Australia-based speakers. Joining them will be fifteen international writers who will be joining by video link.
The Festival will be returning to its traditional home in Carriageworks, as well as taking in locations across the city, including City Recital Hall, Sydney Town Hall, Riverside Theatres and more. The festival will also be broadcast live across seventeen suburban and regional library networks from the State Library of NSW.
Along with ticketed premium events, this year the Festival will offer more than fifty free events across the city. Bookings, will however, remains essential for all events this year.
Opening the 2021 Festival are two Miles Franklin winners, Melissa Lucashenko and Tara June Winch, who will be joined by poet and editor Evelyn Araluen tp reflect on what writing has brought within their reach, the writers who preceded them, and the new ground they hope to break.
Amongst the fifteen international-based guests who will be joining by video link are Australian’s Peter Carey, Geraldine Brooks, whilst non-Australians include, Rachel Cusk, Judy Blume, Behrouz Boochani and Sir Kazuo Ishiguro.
Closing the Festival will be the renowned novelist and poet David Malouf. In his Closing Night Address, David will be reflecting on the world within our reach, and the ideas worth striving for.
Other authors taking part include, Trent Dalton, Adam Thompson, Michelle de Krester, Andrew Pippos, Jessie Tu, Christos Tsiolkas, Tony Birch, and many many more.
The full line-up can be found on the Sydney Writers Festival website HERE.
Tickets for all events go on sale 9am, Friday March 12th. Bookings can be made at the Sydney Writers Festival website or by calling 02 9256 4200.
Header Image: Sydney Town Hall at SWF 2019 by Jamie Williams.
