Sydney Writers' Festival

Wendy Bacon is a Walkley Award winning professor of journalism, information and media studies at the University of Technology Sydney and the director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism. A well known investigative Australian journalist she publishes in the 'Sydney Morning Herald', 'Crikey.com' and 'Reportage Online'. Before joining UTS she worked at Channel 9 and SBS.

• FBi Radio: Power Trip

Tristan Bancks loves telling fast-moving stories for young people as well as using a whole range of media to inspire the next generation of world-changers. His novel ‘It’s Yr Life’ looks at food through the eyes of freegans and dumpster divers. His new books are ‘Galactic Adventures: First Kids in Space’ and ‘My Life and Other Stuff I Made Up’.
 tristanbancks.com

• You’ve Got To be Kidding!
• Cultivating Desire: On Food and Writing
• Marketing in the Age of Twitter
• Primary School Days - Free at Town Hall
• Cross-Cultural Storytelling

Cynthia Banham writes a column for ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’, and is doing her PhD in International Relations at the Australian National University. Her thesis is looking at the responses of liberal democracies to the use of torture after September 11. Cynthia has over a decade's experience as a senior journalist working in the Canberra press gallery covering foreign policy and defence issues. She has a Masters of International Affairs from the ANU and is also a lawyer.

• How 9/11 Changed the World

Margaret Barbalet has published children's books, history, poetry, short stories and four novels, the most recent being ‘The Presence of Angels’. A new novel is with her London agent. A former diplomat posted to Abu Dhabi from 2005 to 2008, she is completing a memoir about working in the Middle East. She lives in Sydney.
 margaretbarbalet.com

• Once Were Lawyers
• But What I Really Want To Do is Write Fiction

Paul Barratt has worked in public policy for 45 years; he has been an intelligence analyst, an international trade negotiator, deputy secretary of DFAT and secretary to the Department of Defence. He is now a private consultant who in his spare time writes, blogs and tweets about foreign policy, defence and anything else that takes his interest, including WikiLeaks. He has an honours degree in physics and an arts degree in Asian civilisations and economics.

• Who’s Afraid of WikiLeaks?

Lis Bastian is CEO of Varuna, the Writers’ House. Lis has worked for decades in cultural development. She has been a food writer, chef, permaculture teacher and climate-adaptation officer for central New South Wales.

• Cultivating Desire: On Food and Writing

Jon Bauer is the author of short stories and plays for stage and radio. His work has been published in ‘The Daily Telegraph’, ‘The Sleepers Almanac’ and the ‘Bridport Prize’, as well as broadcast on national radio. ‘Rocks in the Belly’ is his first novel.

• Rocks in the Belly
• My Own Book Review

Caroline Baum is a respected journalist and broadcaster. The founding editor of ‘Good Reading’, she has appeared on the ABC and Foxtel and co-produced a TV documentary on crime-writer Arthur Upfield. She is a regular contributor to national magazines and newspapers.
 carolinebaum.com.au

• AA Gill is Here
• The Language of Suffering
• Michael Cunningham

Bernard Beckett is the author of 10 books and is one of New Zealand’s most successful writers. In 2006 he was awarded a New Zealand Science, Mathematics and Technology Teacher Fellowship to work on a project examining DNA mutations. This led to the publication of ‘Genesis’, which won the 2010 Prix Sorcières for young-adult fiction, the Esther Glen Award, the NZ Post Young Adult Fiction Award and was longlisted for ‘The Guardian’ Children’s Fiction Prize. His most recent novel, ‘August’, is supported by the New Zealand Book Council.

• Secondary School Days - Sydney
• Secondary School Days - Parramatta

Kavita Bedford is a freelance writer from Australia who has long been interested in the relation between art and politics and likes to dabble in wordplay. She spent a year in Latin America exploring the region's arts and politics, and spent time in Chile working for ‘The Santiago Times’. She has written for ‘The Canberra Times’, ‘RealTime’, ‘Voiceworks’ and ‘Women's International Perspective Online Journal’. She is currently working for Currency Press performing arts publishers and studying for her masters degree in applied anthropology.

• Launch into Deep Suburbia

Larissa Behrendt is the author of the award-winning novels ‘Home’ and ‘Legacy’. She is a barrister, a professor of law and director of the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney. Larissa is also this year’s NSW Australian of the Year. She is a member of the Eualeyai/Kamilaroi nations of north-west New South Wales.

• You Bridge the Gap

Tegan Bennett Daylight is the author of several books for teenagers and children, as well as the acclaimed novels ‘Safety’, ‘What Falls Away’ and ‘Bombora’. Tegan has been a judge of the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards and for many years has taught fiction writing at the University of Technology, Sydney.

• Indelible Ink

Katrina Best is originally from the UK and now lives in Montreal, where she works as a story editor, screenwriter and script analyst. ‘Bird Eat Bird’, a collection of short stories, is winner of the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (Canada and Caribbean). Supported by the Commonwealth Foundation.
 katrinabartonbest.com

• New Voices from Across the Globe
• The First Time
• Eyes on the Prize
• Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Presentation

Ingrid Betancourt was born in Colombia and raised in France. In 1989 she returned to Colombia to pursue a career in politics. She was elected to the legislature on an anti-corruption platform and in 2002 launched Oxigeno Verde, the Green Oxygen Party. While campaigning for president, she was kidnapped by FARC rebels and held hostage for six years. She was rescued in 2008 by the Colombian military. She recently released ‘Even Silence Has an End’, a memoir of her experience.

• An Evening with Ingrid Betancourt
• Family Politics
• The Language of Suffering

Judith Beveridge has published four books of poetry, all of which have won major prizes including the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, the Grace Leven Prize and the Josephine Ulrick National Poetry Prize. Her most recent collection is ‘Storm and Honey’. In 2005 she was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for excellence in literature. She is the poetry editor for ‘Meanjin’ and teaches poetry at postgraduate level at the University of Sydney.

• The Lost Poetry of Francis Webb

Fatima Bhutto is an Afghan-born Pakistani poet and writer. She studied at Columbia University and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She is the granddaughter of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and niece of Benazir Bhutto. She is active in Pakistan's socio-political arena but has no desire to run for political office. She currently writes columns for ‘The Daily Beast’, ‘New Statesman’ and other publications.
 fatimabhutto.com.pk

• Opening Address: Nation on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
• Songs of Blood and Sword
• How 9/11 Changed the World
• Family Politics
• The Dissident Café: Tweeting from Pakistan

Tony Bilson, the “Godfather of Australian Cuisine”, has dedicated his life to the pursuit of excellence in gastronomy. He has been recognised as one of Australia’s leading chefs for over 40 years and his restaurants have been milestones in the advance of Australian gastronomy. They include Tony’s Bon Gout, Berowra Waters Inn, Kinselas, Bilson’s at Circular Quay, Fine Bouche, Treasury at Sydney’s Inter-Continental Hotel, Ampersand, Canard, Bilson’s Restaurant at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, Number One Wine Bar and The Royal Exchange Sydney.

• Food Fighters

Jesse Blackadder was born in Sydney and now lives near Byron Bay. She is an award-winning short story writer and freelance journalist, fascinated by landscapes and belonging. Her first novel, ‘After the Party’, was voted onto the ‘Australian Book Review’s list of all-time favourite Australian novels in February 2010. Her next novel is about the first woman to reach Antarctica. Her latest novel is ‘The Raven’s Heart’.

• Fiction in History

Georgia Blain has published six novels: ‘Closed for Winter’, ‘Candelo’, ‘The Blind Eye’, ‘Names for Nothingness’, ‘Too Close to Home’ and the young-adult novel ‘Darkwater’. She was named one of the ‘The Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists in 1998 and has been shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. Two of her novels have been optioned for feature films. Her most recent book for adults, ‘Births Deaths Marriages’, was shortlisted for the Nita B. Kibble Award in 2009. Her latest novel, 'Too Close To Home', will be published in May. Set in an inner city suburb of Sydney at the time of Kevin Rudd's overthrow, it takes us right into the heart of a relationship turned upside down by the clash of the personal and the political.

• Too Close to Home
• Extremely Frank and Incredibly Close

Kim Cheng Boey was born in Singapore and migrated to Australia in 1997. Three of his four poetry collections, ‘Somewhere Bound’, ‘Another Place’, ‘Days of No Name’ and ‘After the Fire’, have won important literary awards. His essays and poems have appeared in the ‘Straits Times’, ‘Irish University Review’, ‘HEAT’, ‘Meanjin’ and ‘Quarterly Literary Review Singapore’. He is a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Newcastle. His collection of essays, ‘Between Stations’, was published in 2009.

• The Poetry of Three
• Late Nights at Number One

Tim Bonyhady is an art historian and environmental lawyer. He has curated exhibitions at the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Library of Australia, and is a curatorial advisor to the international blockbuster, ‘Vienna: Art and Design’, at the National Gallery of Victoria. Since 2004 he has been director of the Australian Centre for Environmental Law at the Australian National University. His many books include the prize-winning ‘The Colonial Earth’.

• Family Matters
• Mahler, Klimt and Me

Anthony Bourdain is the author of the mega-bestsellers ‘Kitchen Confidential’, ‘A Cook’s Tour’, ‘Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook’ and ‘Medium Raw’. His writing has appeared in ‘The Times’, ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Observer’, ‘The Face’, and ‘Scotland on Sunday’. He is an ongoing contributor and authority for ‘Food Arts’ magazine. He is also the host of the Emmy Award-winning television show ‘No Reservations’. Anthony currently lives in Manhattan and works as executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles.
 anthonybourdain.tumblr.com

• Food Fighters
• The Chaser’s Empty Vessel
• 9/11: I Was There
• Medium Raw

Mike Bowers began his career printing glass plate negatives from World War I at the Australian War Memorial. He worked as a photojournalist for 14 years in the Canberra Press Gallery, covering five federal elections and accompanying three prime ministers on assignments. From 2001 to 2008, Mike was ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’s pictorial editor. He has published three books and is completing his fourth, ‘Armageddon – Trouble on a Faded ANZAC Trail’, a joint venture with journalist Paul Daley. Mike hosts ‘Talking Pictures’ on ABC TV’s ‘Insiders’.

• The Pen is Mightier...
• No Typos: Telling the Story in Images

Peter Boyle has been a recipient of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award, the South Australian Festival Award, the National Book Council Award, the Queensland Premier's Literary Award and the Arts ACT Award. As well as five collections of poetry, Peter has published three books as a translator. His translations of Federico García Lorca, Luis Cernuda, Pierre Reverdy, René Char and Yves Bonnefoy have appeared in journals in Australia, the US and England. His latest book is ‘The Apocrypha of William O’Shaunessy’.

• Late Nights at Number One

James Bradley is the author of three novels, ‘Wrack’, ‘The Deep Field’ and ‘The Resurrectionist’, and a book of poetry, ‘Paper Nautilus’. His books have won or been shortlisted for a number of major Australian and international literary awards and have been widely translated.
 cityoftongues.com

• Too Close to Home
• On Our Selection
• Daddy, Daddy, I...
• Au Pairs

Margaret Bradstock has five published books of poetry. The most recent are ‘The Pomelo Tree’, which won the Wesley Michel Wright Prize, ‘Coast’ and ‘How Like the Past’. She has also won Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson awards. She was the Asialink writer in residence at Peking University in 2003 and co-editor of ‘Five Bells’ for the Poets Union from 2001- 2010. She has edited 11 books of poetry and prose since 1983, including ‘Antipodes’.

• Antipodes: Poetic Responses
• Sydney: Endless City

Dominic Brook is the founder and director of Musicians Making A Difference (MMAD), a charity that changes lives through music. Dominic has been a hip-hop/acoustic artist for over 10 years. He travels around Australia running lyric and leadership workshops as well as music camps that inspire developing writers. Recently Dominic headed up the MMAD Conference ‘Access All Areas’, which brought together the head honchos of the music industry to not only give access to aspiring musicians but to talk about creating social change through music projects.

• Write a Revolution

Kit Brookman is a Sydney-based writer. He trained as an actor at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. His poems have been published in ‘HEAT’, ‘Southerly’, ‘Harvest’, ‘Westerly’, and ‘The Sun-Herald’. His first play, ‘Close’, was shortlisted for the Griffin Award in 2010; his second, ‘Heaven’, was recently presented at the 2011 National Play Festival.

• Clubs and Societies

David Brooks is a poet, novelist, short-story writer and essayist. He teaches Australian literature at the University of Sydney and is co-editor of ‘Southerly’.

• New Voices from Across the Globe

Sydney singer/songwriter Fergus Brown is a winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Competition, the Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards, and the FBi Radio/Time Out Magazine SMAC Award for Song of the Year. Fergus Brown's debut album 'Burgers Frown' is available now.
 myspace.com/fergusbrown

• FBi Radio: Power Trip

James Brown served as an officer in the Australian Army prior to joining the Lowy Institute's International Security Program as a military associate. He commanded a cavalry troop in Iraq, served with Special Forces in Afghanistan, and received a commendation for his work in the Solomon Islands. James studied economics at the University of Sydney and completed postgraduate studies in strategy at the University of New South Wales.

• Do the Taliban Deserve a Second Chance?

Robbie Buck hosts the ‘Evenings’ show on 702 ABC Sydney and ABC Local radio across New South Wales. You can catch the regular discussion about books, with a variety of independent bookshop owners, each Tuesday night on the show.

• Beauty in the ’burbs
• Evenings with Robbie Buck
• Radical Sydney

Meredith Burgmann is a long-term feminist and political activist. She was an industrial relations academic for 20 years and president of the Academics’ Union. She was also a Labor MP and president of the NSW Legislative Council. Her recent books have been about environmental activism and Australian misogyny. She is presently working on a book about well-known Australians and their ASIO files.

• Moving Forward to Turn Back (the Boats)

Carolyn Burke was born in Australia, spent many years in Paris, and now lives in Santa Cruz, California. She is a member of the Authors Guild and the PEN American Center. Her book, ‘Lee Miller: A Life’, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Biography Award. Carolyn is also the author of ‘Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy’. Her latest book is ‘No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf’.
 carolynburke.com

• Je Ne Regrette Rien
• French Kissing
• The Artist’s Life

John Muk Muk Burke was born in Narrandera, New South Wales, in l946 of a Wiradjuri mother and an Irish father. His fiction ‘Bridge of Triangles’ won the 1993 Unaipon Award and his poetry volume ‘Night Song and Other Poems’ won the national Kate Challis RAKA Award in 2000. He served as a Unaipon judge 1998-2001.

• Celebrating the Voice 11: Indigenous Writers Night

joanne burns’ poetry includes numerous prose poems, short fictions and monologues. Her first book of poetry ‘Snatch’ was published in London in 1972. Since then she has published over a dozen other collections including ‘on a clear day’, ‘aerial photography’, ‘footnotes of a hammock’ and, in 2007, ‘an illustrated history of dairies’. joanne has been performing her work since the 1970s. She has been a teacher of English and creative writing. Her latest collection is ‘amphora’.

• Late Nights at Number One

Pamela Burton founded her own law firm, Pamela Coward and Associates, in Canberra in 1976. She later practised as a barrister at the Canberra Bar. Her appointments have included senior member, Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal, legal counsel for the Australian Medical Association, and official visitor, ACT Mental Health. She is the author of ‘Moree to Mabo: The Mary Gaudron Story’.

• Big Picture People
• My Own Book Review