2025 may so far seem like an emotional rollercoaster, but in Woollahra everything is aligning. The suburb’s postcode and the year have finally collided, and so to celebrate Woollahra 2025 the Woollahra Festival is pulling out all the stops. For the first time, alongside the Festival’s jam-packed programme, there will be a Writers Festival, curated by Nicole Abadee, and hosted by Tim Olsen at the Olsen Gallery, 63 Jersey Road.
Over the weekend of 29 and 30 March, Woollahra Writers festival will bring some wonderful speakers together, many of whom are local and have deep connections to the area.
Giles Edmonds, who is the overall Festival organiser, and President of The Queen Street & West Woollahra Association, told Irresistible how pleased he was to have writers at the event. “It’s all about encouraging people to visit Woollahra, and we have fantastic music and shopping and family events, even a dog show, but the Writer’s Festival is going to be very special. I can’t wait to get to some of the talks myself.”
Nicole Abadee has been in the books industry for over 15 years, and is the books writer for Good Weekend, as well as a frequent moderator at other literary festivals. Nicole told Irresistible, “As a resident of Woollahra for over 22 years I am delighted to present such an exciting program of some of our greatest writers. I love this community and it’s been an absolute honour to put this program together.”
Saturday
10am: LITERARY LIVES
Susan Wyndham is the co-editor of Hazzard and Harrower: The Letters, a curated collection of letters between two of Australia’s leading writers, Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower, and is also writing a biography of Elizabeth Harrower. In conversation with Nicole Abadee, she talks about what their 40-year correspondence reveals about them, and about the pressing social, political and cultural issues of their times, as well as how to go about writing a literary biography.
11am:CHALLENGING THE PATRIARCHY
Anna Funder (Wifedom) and Suzie Miller (Prima Facie) are two of Australia’s most exciting and internationally successful writers. In their most recent work, each takes on the patriarchy – Anna by revealing George Orwell’s failings as a husband and putting his brilliant wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, back in the picture, and Suzie by exposing a criminal justice system (shaped by men) manifestly unfair to female sexual assault victims. In conversation with the ABC’s Kate Evans from the much-loved Radio National book show, The Bookshelf.
12pm: LIARS
Join TV and radio host James O’Loghlin in conversation with Suzanne Leal about James’s latest book, Liars, a murder mystery set in a sleepy coastal town where all is not as it seems. Both are former criminal lawyers turned writers, so expect a lively conversation about practising in crime and writing – and where the two may intersect.
2pm: ART: A LIFE’S WORK
What’s it like to be the child of a renowned artist? How do you carve out your own space in the art world? Join Richard Morecroft in discussion with Tim Olsen about his memoir, Son of the Brush, and Christabel Blackman about her book, Charles and Barbara Blackman: A Decade of Art and Love.
3pm: SIGNS OF DAMAGE
Join Diana Reid (a Woollahra local), whose bestselling debut novel Love and Virtue won multiple awards (and praise from Helen Garner), to discuss her latest, Signs of Damage, with Suzanne Leal. Expect trauma, intrigue and (as always with Diana’s work) moral ambiguity.
SUNDAY
10am: WING
One of Australia’s leading writers, Nikki Gemmell, in conversation with Michaela Kalowski about her latest novel, Wing, literary thriller and feminist mystery. When a group of private schoolgirls goes missing on a school excursion all hell breaks loose. Powerful, compelling and provocative, Wing explores what it means to be a young woman today.
11am: ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE
Join two of Australia’s most-beloved thespians, John Bell (Some Achieve Greatness) and Heather Mitchell (Everything and Nothing) in conversation with (former actor) Ailsa Piper about their lives on stage, and how the theatre has shaped their reading and writing lives.
12pm: UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Shankari Chandran won the 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award for her blistering novel Chai Time in Cinnamon Gardens. In her latest novel, Unfinished Business, a respected local journalist is assassinated in broad daylight in postwar Sri Lanka. In conversation with Nicole Abadee she talks political intrigue, international skulduggery and the legacy of Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war.
2pm: FOR LIFE
When writer Ailsa Piper suffered an unfathomable loss she turned to nature for solace. Here she talks with Michaela Kalowski about her memoir For Life – a profound exploration of grief, a hymn of praise to love and to life and a radiant beacon of hope.
