In This Together Q&A | Torrey Peters

Festival month has arrived! But before the Festival officially kicks off, we want to introduce you to some of the participants who have travelled from near and far to discuss their books, writing and ideas with us. Throughout this Q&A series, get to know favourite and unfamiliar writers and consider the 2025 theme, In This Together.

Award-winning author Torrey Peters won hearts with her 2021 debut Detransition, Baby. She returns to Sydney Writers' Festival with a kaleidoscopic follow up, Stag Dance. 

Last time you graced the Sydney Writers’ Festival stage, it was to discuss your debut novel Detransition, Baby – the influence of which continues to reverberate. What does this work’s reception mean to you?

I think at some point, I’m the worst person to be able to clearly see the general reception to Detransition, Baby. Obviously, it’s gratifying, but it’s a bit like trying to describe a waterfall while falling over it.

Your follow-up, Stag Dance, has just been released in Australia. How has your writing practice evolved since your debut?

I have very annoyingly taken up meditation, so now I meditate instead of taking performance-enhancing amphetamines.

What do you hope readers take away from your work?

I hope they have a good time first, and secondly, I hope they feel provoked to re-examine some of their own assumptions as to how gender actually works, for all of us, not just trans people.

What’s on your TBR pile now?

Harron Walker has an essay collection called Aggregated Discontent that I’m excited to read, and I’m kind of on a nature-writing-reading kick, so eager to read Robert MacFarlane’s Is A River Alive?.

What is the first book you remember reading?

I remember reading The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

What book do you wish you could read for the first time again?
 
Probably Elena Ferrante’s The Neapolitan Quartet.

What events at this year’s Festival are you looking forward to attending?

I’ll be attending Mariana Enriquez’s events. I think it’s cool that Sydney Writers' Festival is doing conversations in Spanish, in Sydney.