9:45 – 10am
Introduction & Welcome to Country

10 – 11am
FINDING MY BELLA VITA

Pia Miranda. Moderator: Wai Chim

Bubbling with humour and heart, Finding My Bella Vita is Pia Miranda’s tale of family, food and fame. Australia may have first fallen in love with Pia Miranda in her iconic role in Looking for Alibrandi, but since then she’s snatched the crown in the most-watched season of Australian Survivor and tapped her way through Dancing with the Stars. She’s experienced grief, heartbreak, love and marriage – and through it all, the women in her life have been her guiding stars. Prepare to meet the real Pia Miranda.

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11.30am – 12.30pm
FAMILIES AND SECRETS

Tony Birch, Myfanwy Jones. Moderator: Kate Evans

From the first chapters of Women & Children by Tony Birch and Cool Water by Myfanwy Jones, we find ourselves on the doorstep of families in crisis. And whether it’s the local Catholic school or a journey back to a childhood home, absent fathers and hidden family secrets are shadows that loom over these two beautiful and moving novels. Birch and Jones explore the love within families, as well as the grief, and highlight the impact parents have on childhood with skillful dexterity.

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9:45 – 10am
Introduction & Welcome to Country

10 – 11am
HOPE – Session now SOLD OUT

Rosie Batty. Moderator: Sue Smethurst

After tragedy, how do we find hope? This is the question that former Australian of the Year Rosie Batty poses in her deeply moving new book, Hope. Following on from her runaway bestseller A Mother’s Story, which detailed the lead up to her son’s murder at the hands of his father, Hope asks the impossible: What happens when you become an accidental hero? What happens the day after the worst day of your life? In the face of unbearable tragedy, is it possible to find hope?

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11.30am – 12.30pm
STRANGE CREATURES

Catherine Chidgey, Laura Jean McKay. Moderator: Fiona Kelly McGregor

As humans, we love to see ourselves reflected in the strangest of places. Farmyards. Pigs and spiders. The spirit world. And what do we see when we gaze in the mirror? Usually, so much more than we expect: grief, hope, existential wonder, and more. These brilliant writers – from NZ, Catherine Chidgey (The Axeman’s Carnival), and from Brisbane, Laura Jean McKay (The Animals in That Country) – cast glittering literary nets to scoop up basic human truths, presented through weird and wonderful eyes.

Please note: due to unforeseen circumstances Angela O’Keeffe can no longer join this panel.

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1:30 – 2:30pm
SPEAKING UP, STAYING STRONG

Hannah Diviney, Brenda Matthews, Sara Saleh. Moderator: Jessica Kirkness

When the personal is political, what kind of toll does that take on those caught in the middle? Can politics ever not be personal? These three writers and advocates – Hannah Diviney (I’ll Let Myself In), Brenda Matthews (The Last Daughter) and Sara Saleh (Songs for the Dead and the Living) – play prominent roles in agitating for change, whether that be for disability visibility, reconciliation or human rights. Sit in to hear how they speak up while staying strong.

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3 – 4pm
TRUST ISSUES

Tracy Hall, Jeanne Ryckmans, Stephanie Wood. Moderator: Annika Blau

Con artists play confidence games. But the outcome is neither beautiful nor fun. For these women, unsnarling the lies lead to betrayal and in some cases, violence and theft. In Fake, Stephanie Wood shares her startling true story, when a man she thought was a sheep farmer turns out to be anything but. In Trust by Jeanne Ryckmans, we meet the ‘Irish Ripley,’ a man who studies ‘trust’ and yet breaks it at every opportunity. And finally in The Last Victim, we hear more about Tracy Hall’s run-in with a con-man made famous by her subsequent hit podcast. Strap yourselves in for a hair-raising tramp through the wilds of human nature.

Unfortunately due to injury, Steph Harmon can no longer moderate this panel.

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1:30 – 2:30pm
BAD COP, GOOD COP

Frank Bongiorno, Lech Blaine. Moderator: Richard Cooke

When did Australian politics become so polarised? Do our leaders only exist in opposition; good cops or bad cops, dreamers or schemers? Journalist Lech Blaine’s Quarterly Essay grapples with Peter Dutton’s ‘strongman politics’ while historian Frank Bongiorno’s Dreamers and Schemers is an eye-popping look at the political history of Australia. Both expose a land and people increasingly riven by cultural wars and philosophical battle lines. Where do we stand today? Join us to find out.

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3 – 4pm
THE SATURDAY MURDER CLUB

Steven Carroll, Amanda Hampson, Benjamin Stevenson. Moderator: Sue Turnbull

Wicked and witty. Playful and poignant. Crime fiction takes many forms, but when it’s good it’s full of characters we can’t help but root for. Whether it’s Amanda Hampson’s much-loved tea ladies in The Cryptic Clue, Benjamin Stevenson’s cast of oddballs in Everyone on this Train is a Suspect or Steven Carroll’s new leading man, Detective Sergeant Stephen Minter in Death of a Foreign Gentleman, these books are compulsively readable locked room mysteries we’re happy to throw away the keys for. Supported by BAD Crime Writers Festival.

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