2024 PROGRAM
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Welcome to the 2024 Tamar Valley Writers Festival program. You can either scroll through the events below and click the corresponding buttons for ticket purchases, or download the pdf schedule below. Happy perusing, and we'll see you there!
PRE-FESTIVAL EVENT: WRITING FAMILY, HISTORY & THE TASMANIAN LANDSCAPE
Thursday September 12
6:30 - 8:30Pm
Peppers Silos Hotel
The Tasmanian landscape is rich with stories. Its mountains and coastlines, trees and rocks speak powerfully into the literary space, as do the people who have walked its soil. Penguin prize-winning author Annette Higgs (On A Bright Hillside in Paradise) and author and former journalist Claire van Ryn (The Secrets of the Huon Wren) join to discuss how family, history and the Tasmanian landscape drive their fiction writing.
LIGHTS UP! FESTIVAL LAUNCH
Friday October 11
7-9pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
Join us for a celebration to launch Tamar Valley Writers Festival 2024! Enjoy a glass of bubbles and platters with TVWF guests, a keynote address from Markus Zusak, live music, and celebrate the launch of Forty South’s Short Story Anthology 2024.
WHAT THE HEART WANTS - WHY WE LOVE ROMANCE
Saturday October 12
9:30am - 10:30am
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
No matter how dark or cynical the world gets, when it comes to Romance, we can’t get enough. In this session, Cameron Hindrum discusses our enduring love of seeing people connect and the art of creating fiction with heart, with panelists Amal Awad (Bitter & Sweet), Minnie Darke (Danielle Wood) (With Love From Wish & Co), and Clare Fletcher (Five Bush Weddings).
BENJAMIN STEVENSON IN CONVERSATION
Saturday October 12
11am - 12m
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
An award-winning comedian who took his work to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Benjamin Stevenson is a man of many identities, most recently as the author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone and Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect. TVWF Co-President Georgie Todman talks to Benjamin about how his writing identity has shaped over time, and his journey to becoming an iconic new voice in Australian crime fiction.
WORKSHOP: SHORT FORM PUBLISHING
Saturday October 12
12:30 - 1:30pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
There is no doubt that Tasmania is producing some of the finest short form writing and publications in the country, many of which have been the proving ground for our finest writers. Join Island’s Jane Rawson and Forty South’s Rayne Allinson for a deep dive into creating quality short form Tasmanian writing, and find out just what these wonderful outlets are looking for.
MARTIN FLANAGAN & KYLIE MOORE-GILBERT
Saturday October 12
12:30 - 1:30pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
Detained during a research trip to Iran, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, author of The Uncaged Sky, served more than two years of a ten-year sentence before being freed in November 2020. She speaks with renowned writer and journalist Martin Flanagan, author of The Empty Honour Board, a compelling memoir about his Catholic boarding school days that chronicles experiences many have had but few have talked about.
MARKUS ZUSAK IN CONVERSATION
Saturday October 12
2:00 - 3:00pm
School of Architecture, UTAS Inveresk
Markus Zusak is an internationally bestselling Australian writer, perhaps best known for The Book Thief and The Messenger, both of which have been adapted for the screen. In this conversation with festival Co-President Lyndon Riggall, Markus discusses his journey as a writer and the moments that have brought him here: the release of Three Wild Dogs And The Truth, a tender, motley and exquisitely written memoir about the human need for both connection and disorder.
FUNNY BONES: WHY WE LAUGH IN THE FACE OF DEATH
Saturday October 12
4:00 - 5:00pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
They say that a good joke “kills,” but some writers take that literally. Whether it’s death by natural or not-so-natural causes, there’s plenty of literary comedy to be found in death, illness and injury. But is dark humour ever too dark? Join us for a forensic examination of why we find our own mortality so funny, as Tansy Rayner Roberts talks to masters of “Comedy Crime” Mark Mupotsa-Russell (The Hitwoman’s Guide to Reducing Household Debt) and Benjamin Stevenson (Everyone on this Train is a Suspect), and beloved writer, GP and advocate for positive ageing Joanna Nell (The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village).
BOOK LAUNCH - DUSK BY ROBBIE ARNOTT
Saturday October 12
5:30 - 6:00pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
In the distant highlands, a puma named Dusk is killing shepherds. Down in the lowlands, twins Iris and Floyd are out of work, money and friends. When they hear that a bounty has been placed on Dusk, they reluctantly decide to join the hunt. As they journey up into this wild, haunted country, they discover there's far more to the land and people of the highlands than they imagined. And as they close in on their prey, they're forced to reckon with conflicts both ancient and deeply personal. Join us for the launch of a brand new masterpiece from the valley’s own Robbie Arnott.
Free event (booking required)
SMUT! 🌶️
Saturday October 12
6:45 - 9:15pm
Sports Garden Hotel
23 George St, Launceston
When the lights begin to fade, the festival gets naughty! Love it or hate it, there is no denying that spicy fiction is part of the literary landscape now, hiding somewhere in all those handbags and backpacks, lingering in every second Kindle and Kobo, and it’s here to stay! Join the TVWF and gender variant performance artist Enya Arsenal for drinks, nibbles, and a swoon-worthy, blush-inducing, hilarious celebration of the best and worst of sex in fiction. Click 'submit' to learn how you can contribute to this event too.
THE LIGHT IN THE DARK
Sunday October 13
9:30 - 10:30am
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
It is easy to feel despair in the modern world. How can writing help us find the light in the dark? In the keynote panel of Tamar Valley Writers Festival 2024, Ruby Ashby-Orr talks to Robbie Arnott (Dusk), Kylie Moore-Gilbert (The Uncaged Sky), and Erin Riley (A Real Piece of Work) about how we keep the light alive, and the points of confluence where hope and art collide.
GREG FRENCH & ADAM THOMPSON
Sunday October 13
11:00am - 12:00pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
Adam Thompson is a pakana writer and screen producer from Launceston, the author of Born Into This and Little J and Big Cuz: The Stormy Night. In this session, he talks to Greg French, track ranger, trout master and globe-trotter, whose fishing guidebooks have become legendary and whose much-loved collections of short stories include Frog Call, The Last Wild Trout and Wild Heart of Tasmania. Together, they discuss life, art, and their connection to this island at the bottom of the world.
WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT
Kids' session with Lian Tanner
Sunday October 13
11:00am - 12:00pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
Lian Tanner’s latest picture book, illustrated by Jonathan Bentley, tells the story of a family learning to find joy on a night without light. Join Lian for a hands-on session for children to celebrate a captivating adventure that beautifully captures our 2024 festival theme!
Free event (bookings required)
PITCHING & PUBLISHING WITH RUBY ASHBY-ORR
Sunday October 13
12:30 - 1:30pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
Affirm Press’s commissioning editor, Ruby Ashby-Orr has worked on novels by Christian White and Pip Williams, memoirs by Dennis Lillee and Kevin Sheedy, and many more. In this session, she offers advice about publishing and pitching so that you can give your manuscript its very best chance in a competitive industry.
PLAYREADING: FLINT BY CAMERON HINDRUM
Sunday October 13
12:30 - 1:30pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
Three women. Two hours. One small town. One approaching catastrophe.
Unfolding in nearly real time one Saturday morning, Flint introduces Sarah, Ruth and Annie; Sarah is confronted by the need to evacuate her house as a bushfire approaches, Ruth must convince her to leave, and Annie is desperately searching for her own closure. All three must navigate their shared and collective histories, their secrets and their friendship in the face of a cataclysmic natural disaster. Who – and what – will survive.
MARTIN FLANAGAN IN CONVERSATION
Sunday October 13
2:00 - 3:00pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
Martin Flanagan is the author of more than twenty works and a veteran sports writer for The Age, where Gideon Haigh described him as having “a finesse and feeling that no current Australian sports-writer approaches, let alone equals.” In this intimate conversation, festival Co-President Georgie Todman talks to a remarkable man about the literary journey that has led him to his latest book, The Empty Honour Board, a prison diary, a story of brotherly love, and a journey of redemption. It covers his years in Catholic boarding school in north-west Tasmania in which three of the twelve priests were later sent to prison for sexual crimes against the boys in their care.
SPACE, TIME & SORCERY -
THE LURE OF SPECULATIVE FICTION
Sunday October 13
4:00 - 5:00pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
Sometimes the way we find our way out of the darkness is to escape somewhere wildly different from our own world. In this illuminating panel about why we are so drawn to writing and reading speculative fiction, Lian Tanner talks to Eugen Bacon (Serengotti), Angela Slatter (The Briar Book of the Dead), and Alice Robinson (If You Go) about fantasy and science fiction as so much more than mere distraction.
BOOK LAUNCH: THE BUNA SHOTS
By Stephen Dando-Collins, launched by ABC-TV news presenter Guy Stayner
Sunday October 13
5:30 - 6:00pm
UTAS River's Edge, Inveresk
The Buna Shots is the amazing story behind two photos that changed the course of World War Two. The photos in question? One, an iconic picture of a blinded Australian soldier being helped along a track outside Buna in New Guinea by a Papuan carrier, and the other showing three dead American soldiers on Buna Beach, described by Time magazine in 2014 as 'the photo that won World War Two'.
These pictures were taken within days and kilometres of each other in 1942 by two combat photographers who were both named George. Both Georges would defy their governments to get the pictures published; one George would be fired and accused of treason, the other would have his case taken all the way to US President Franklin D Roosevelt. Celebrate the launch of this fantastic true story with festival founder Stephen Dando-Collins. Free event.