First speakers for Byron Writers Festival revealed

AWARD-winning Australian novelist Helen Garner, inaugural Alone Australia winner Gina Chick and British author Esther Freud – the great-granddaughter of Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud – are among the line-up for the 2025 Byron Writers Festival.

Joe Aston, who penned the Rear Window column in the Australian Financial Review for more than a decade, The Book Thief author Markus Zusak and Miles Franklin award-winning writer Michelle de Kretser will also speak at the event, which will be held at Bangalow Showground from August 8 to 10.

Several Indigenous writers will also talk at the festival. They include Thomas Mayo, who co-wrote The Voice to Parliament Handbook with former 730 host Kerry O’Brien, and Song of the Crocodile author Nardi Simpson.

Byron Writers Festival artistic director Jessica Alice, who revealed the first set of authors at a launch event at The Book Room in Byron Bay on Tuesday night, said she was thrilled with the high calibre of speakers.

She said Freud’s new book, My Sister and Other Lovers, will be published just weeks before the event.

“People at the festival will be among the first to read the book from an esteemed novelist who’s so important to the cultural landscape,” she said.

Freud, who is also the daughter of British painter Lucian Freud, has written several other books, including Hideous Kinky, The Wild and The Sea House.

Chick will talk about her memoir We Are the Stars, while Aston will discuss The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out.

Alice said the event was different to all the other writers’ festivals in the country because it has a music festival-like set up.

“It’s like a music festival for people who love books,” she said. “It’s a lovely environment under the trees with a convivial, relaxed setting and atmosphere.”

The full program of more than 100 writers, thinkers and commentators will be revealed in June.

Earlybird three-day passes are available until April 9 via Humantix.