Writers After Dark at Carriageworks

Sydney Writer’s Festival has an incredible program this year with a plethora of sessions to keep keen writers and readers busy from morning to evening. A special three-day After Dark program at the festival precinct, Carriageworks, will cater to those who can’t make daytime sessions and those who prefer atmoshphere and maybe a glass of wine with their literature. 

The festival’s theme this year is “Take me away” and many of these After Dark sessions will do just that. Here are some highlights. 

THURSDAY MAY 23

Fantastical Worlds  

Features three world-creators who are expanding the horizons of fantasy fiction: Australian author, Garth Nix (Newt’s Emerald, A Confusion of Princes, the Keys to the Kingdom series, The Sinister Booksellers of Bath); Asian Australian, Shelley Parker-Chan (He Who Drowned the World, and several historical fantasy novels); and  international author, Samantha Shannon (the Bone Season series and the Roots of Chaos series). They will be lead in conversation by host, Aimée Lindorff. 

Bay 17, 6–7pm, $35 – 45

Sweatshop Stories  

A gathering of exceptional writers from Sydney’s west representing the Indigenous, migrant, and refugee communities will share excerpts from their work, providing an insight into their lives, thoughts and culture. Hear tales about how they experience gender, race, class. 

Track 8, 6—7pm, $15 – 25

Firetalk

Sit by a fire with First Nations storytellers as they tell riveting tales in the traditional way. Humour, sadness, terror, beauty told with mastery. Featuring Tony Birch, Hannah Donnelly, Laniyuk, Enoch Mailangi and Melanie Saward. Hosted by Jazz Money. 

Blacksmiths Workshop, 6.30–7.30pm, Free

FRIDAY MAY 24

History of Sex

Two bona fide sex historians, TikTok sensation Esmé Louise James (Kinky History) and science writer David Baker (Sex: Two Billion Years Of Procreation And Recreation) sit with evolutionary biologist, Robert Brooks will reveal secrets, uncover mysteries and tell truths about sexual escapades of the past.

Track 8, 6-7pm, $15–25

Feast

A night of hilarious, yet sumptuous delights. Five masters of comedy talk turkey and other poultry, as well as everything else edible in this riotous banquet of banter. Featuring James Colley, Yumi Stynes, Oliver Twist, Jennifer Wong and more.

Track 8, 7.30-8.30pm, $15–25

Queerstories

Now an institution, Queerstories has been a vehicle for candour, courage and compelling storytelling from members of the LGBTQI+ community for aeons. A vast, diverse range of honest reflections that will make you laugh, cry, scream, and revel in the joy of narration. 

Bay 17, 7.30–9pm, $35–45

Do We Need Books?

The hosts of mentally pugilistic podcast, Principle of Charity, Award-winning film and TV producer Emile Sherman and business leader and former human rights activist Lloyd Vogelman will moderate a battle of sharpened tongues between philosopher A.C. Grayling and art historian and content creator Mary McGillivray.  

Bay 20, The ARA Stage, 7.30–9pm, $35–40

SATURDAY MAY 25

Sad Girl? Bad Girl? Mad Girl?

“Sad girl” literature is a new genre, but authors are already breaking the rules. Australian novelists Nadine J. Cohen (Everyone and Everything), Madeleine Gray (Green Dot) and Jessie Stephens (Something Bad is Going to Happen) will state their cases to The Guardian’s Steph Harmon

on what they believe is, isn’t, or should be “sad girl” lit. 

Bay 20, The ARA Stage, 5.30-6.30pm, $25–30

Speak the Light

A night of language changing shape. Hear poets Susie Anderson, Shivram Gopinath, Jeanine Leane, Bebe Oliver, Omar Sakr, Sara M Saleh and Anne-Marie Te Whiu speak their words out loud. Poems of light, shade, movement and the vicissitudes of life.

Track 12, 6-7pm, $15–25

Bromantic Comedy

Who says men can’t write romantic comedy? James Colley and Jonathan Seidler will prove them wrong. They’ll tell ABC RN Awaye!’s host, Rudi Bremer that men can (and they have) write funny romance. You’re welcome to listen. 

Track 12, 7.30-8.30pm, $15–25

Africa Now

African diasporic writers reclaim their stories and share them in this special evening of conversation. Nobel Prize–winning author, Abdulrazak Gurnah, comedian and memoirist Oliver Twist, debut author and academic Sara El Sayed and writer and host Sisonke Msimang tell the unheard tales from Zanzibar, Rwanda, South Africa and beyond. 

Track 8, 7.30–8.30pm, $15–25

Full details and bookings at swf.org.au