Brisbane Writers Festival Program Announced for 2016

Brisbane Writers Festival will connect bright and curious minds -writers, artists, thinkers, innovators - for a city-wide conversation.

The Festival will be presented this year for the first time by UPLIT, as Brisbane Writers Festival the organisation evolves to reflect fifty years of organic and significant growth and encompass a year-long suite of events and community programs. Brisbane Writers Festival will continue to thrive and hold its place of cultural importance as the UPLIT centrepiece.

Festival Director and CEO Julie Beveridge in launching the 2016 program said, "The themes for Brisbane Writers Festival 2016 are connection and belonging. Connection makes us. Alone we are curious individuals - collectively we build greater understanding, more insight and meaningful exchange. When connected we can change the world."

Over the 5 days of the Festival we will create a vibrant platform to come together in one place to stoke the fire of our collective curiosity. The program is full to bursting with an amazing line up of writers, thinkers, scientists, musicians, journalists, parents and poets, engineers and educators, lovers, losers and local heroes.

Acclaimed international author Lionel Shriver will open this year's Festival with her reflections on why we identify with each other in communities and how belonging to one group shouldn't preclude us from exploring another.

Other International authors lining up to share their stories this September include comedian Alexei Sayle who assures us comedy is no laughing matter, philosopher A C Grayling who will be part of BWF's Great Debate which is back again tackling big ideas and politics and Award-
winning Irish author Chris Cleave who asks us to escape with him for a discussion about love via long distance wartime mail.

Self-declared free-range Aspergian John Elder Robinson shares his personal experience with a revolutionary new brain therapy promising to unlock emotional intelligence while South Korean born American novelist and investigative journalist Suki Kim discusses going undercover in North Korea to infiltrate and understand a world built on secrecy and lies.

Leading the long list of Australian authors heading to BWF is Thomas Keneally who has written a fast-paced, witty and gripping historical crime series with daughter Meg Keneally. Festival favourite Nick Earls returns with his latest work Wisdom Tree which takes the form of 6 novellas, released one per month May through September, read live by guest authors on the program.

Toni Jordan and Avalanche author Julia Leigh, who brings us her courageous personal account of the expensive and emotional limbo that is IVF, will be on a panel with Joshua Yeldham who has created a beautiful art book that includes poetry, journal entries and letters to his daughter born through IVF.

From creating life to inevitable death - Steve Amsterdam, Matt Vickers and Dr Leah Kaminsky open up a conversation about another "taboo" topic - discussing why dignity for the dying is so important.

Master conversationalist Richard Fidler swaps positions and will be the interviewee this time - about his new book Ghost Empire which is both a love letter to a lost civilisation and a personal voyage of discussion.

Bringing some beautiful musical chat to the program is country's finest Troy Cassar-Daley who will discuss his memoir Things I Carry Around, while Elspeth Muir shares her deeply personal story about the real costs of excessive alcohol consumption in our society.

The always popular Masterclasses - a staple of the Brisbane Writers Festival experience -return with 23 different authors to choose from! These masterclasses are for any aspiring writers who want to learn from the experts.

2016 will also see the introduction of a Philosophers in Residence program with two participants roaming the Festival, exploring the content, posing questions, listening to the audience and sharing their experiences at the Closing Address on Sunday 11 September.

The world spins ever faster and the expectation is that we are culturally, politically and socially literate. Festivals like BWF are a platform to interrogate our understanding of the world around us and how we can better connect with each other.

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