10am – 12pm

Words on the Water Literary Cruise

Jennifer Down, Julie Janson. Host: Ian Hoskins

$55 (inside seating only) + booking fee

Let the currents slide by and stories wash over you on the annual Words on the Waves Literary Cruise. For this outing we are joined by 2022 Miles Franklin Award-winning author Jennifer Down, whose deeply empathetic, beautifully written books include One Magic Hour and Bodies of Light. Acclaimed playwright and novelist, Burruberongal Darug woman Julie Janson will also give insight into her important works Benevolence (set around the Hawkesbury River) and The River Serpent. Leading the cruise will be veteran host, historian and author of Rivers, Ian Hoskins.

The cruise will leave at 10am sharp from Woy Woy Wharf and will cruise through Brisbane Water before returning to Woy Woy Wharf at 12pm.

Ian Hoskins

Ian Hoskins has worked as an academic historian, a curator and a professional historian in Sydney for more than 30 years.

His books on Sydney Harbour (2009), the New South Wales coast (2013), Australia’s rivers (2019) and Australia and the Pacific (2021) have taken him to fascinating places and have produced books to inform and captivate his audiences.

Australia and the Pacific: A History is Ian’s most recent work.

Jennifer Down

Jennifer Down is a critically acclaimed author, named Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelist consecutively in 2017 and 2018. Her second novel, Bodies of Light, won the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne.

Julie Janson

Julie Janson is a Burruberongal woman of the Darug Aboriginal Nation. She is the author of Indigenous crime novel Madukka the River Serpent UWAP. Her other novels are Benevolence and The Crocodile Hotel. Julie is recipient of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Award and the Judith Wright Award.