With over 160 writers from around the world, including USA, UK, India, Aotearoa/NZ and Australia, this year’s festival delivers expert commentary on a range of hot button issues, including politics, war, inequality, land rights, and more.

Byron Writers Festival 2024
9-11 August 2024
Bangalow Showgrounds
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Meet the writers

Nick Bryant
Former BBC Washington correspondent, Nick Bryant will be appearing with his new book The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict With Itself.

Combining brilliant storytelling with historical research, he argues that insurrections, assassinations and massacres – from the American Civil War through to JFK and the inner-city race riots of the late ’60s, up to the murder of George Floyd – should sadly not be seen as abnormalities.

See him in sessions The Mega Election Year (62), America at War with Itself (72), and The Mungo Panel: Press Freedom (89).

Meena Kandasamy
Indian poet, activist and academic Meena Kandasamy will visit Australia with a powerful new poetry collection.

Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You cements Kandasamy as one of the most exciting, radical thinkers at work today. Her poems chronicle art-making, resistance and solidarity in the face of a hostile state, moving between desire, family and issues of caste, the refugee crisis, and freedom of expression with grace and defiance.

See her in sessions Politics and Desire (6), Feminist Literatures (15), evening feature event Electric Poetics (F), and The Mega Election Year (62).

John Lyons
Four-time Walkley winner and ABC Global Affairs Editor, John Lyons, draws from his years living in Jerusalem to give context to the devastating war between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza.

Having reported on the Middle East for three decades, Lyons has interviewed everyone from senior Israeli military and intelligence figures to key leaders from Hezbollah and Hamas. Beyond the politics and headlines, Lyons explains the Middle East through everyday life and experiences.

See him in sessions Democracy Under Threat (31), Rainforest Warriors (62), The Mega Election Year (81), and Balcony over Jerusalem (104).

Wayne Bergmann & Madelaine Dickie
In Broome, 2010, Nyikina man Wayne Bergmann received a death threat. Bergmann, a boilermaker by trade, and lawyer, is chief executive of the Kimberley Land Council during the controversial James Price Point gas hub negotiations. It’s an event that will tear the Broome community apart. Wayne’s story is an electrifying tale of resilience, determination and optimism, which shows what it takes to be an Aboriginal person walking in two cultures in a country where racism runs deep.

See Bergmann in Wisdom of the Elders (98), Media & Justice (48), Some People Want to Shoot Me (64). See Dickie in Everest, Guns & Money (64), Some People Want to Shoot Me (96), Voices of Regional Australia (102).

Immerse yourself in the renowned Byron Writers Festival with a 3-Day Pass and access over 130 sessions for a full literary weekend.

If you’re short on time, choose single days to dive into with 1-Day Passes and tailor your experience with more than 35 sessions per day.

Enhance your festival schedule with evening feature events, writing workshops, and satellite events, and give your little ones the gift of storytelling at Sunday’s Kids Big Day Out.