Our Student Sessions Livestream event broadcasts the magic of the Sydney Writers’ Festival Student Sessions in real time to schools across Australia.
For a single booking of $60, tune in to the below sessions as they take place in real time on Wednesday 28 April.
Take a look at the full program and register online.
Student Sessions is presented in partnership with the NSW Education Standards Authority.
About Student Sessions Livestream
Join some of Australia’s brightest minds for a thought-provoking program of talks, specially curated to complement the school curriculum in ways that educate and enlighten.
Streaming to you live from Carriageworks, the Student Sessions program is a unique opportunity for students to learn from and be inspired by Australia’s best writers and thinkers – all without leaving the classroom.
Student Sessions covers a range of topics linked to the NSW school curriculum for Years 9 to 12 but is suitable for all secondary students.
The program
10am: Paul Kelly on Poetry
In a session that explores the transformative combination of poetry and music, hear acclaimed singer-songwriter Paul Kelly recite a selection of poems from his anthology Love is Strong as Death – a number of which he has set to music and will sing live. In conversation with ABC Radio National’s Kate Evans, Paul discusses a collection that spans the ancient and the modern and speaks to two of literature’s greatest themes: love and death – plus everything in between.
Curriculum links: English, Music
11.45am To the Point: Short Stories
Short stories conjure up entire worlds of fully formed characters in the space of just a few pages. Accomplished writers of the form, Tony Birch and Adam Thompson join critic Declan Fry to reflect on this singular power, and how it can be used to explore questions of identity, Country and belonging in contemporary Australia. Tony Birch is the celebrated author of four short-story collections: Shadowboxing, Father’s Day, The Promise and Common People. Adam Thompson, an award-winning Pakana writer from Tasmania, had his debut short-story collection, Born Into This, published in February 2021.
Curriculum links: English, Society and Culture, Aboriginal Studies
1.30pm Let Me Persuade You
How can we wield the written and spoken word to convince, cajole and convert an audience? Or detect when we’re being linguistically manoeuvred ourselves? Two masters of persuasion, former Prime Ministerial speech writer Don Watson and Sydney Morning Herald journalist Jacqueline Maley, provide students with a crash course on identifying and analysing the distinct language of persuasion and how it relates to our current media landscape.
Curriculum links: English, Society and Culture
How to book
For a single booking of $60, tune in to all three sessions as they take place in real time on Wednesday 28 April. Livestreams for individual sessions are not available for purchase.
To register, go to: golive.events/nesastudentsessions2021/.