As last year, I would like to thank Colin Steele, who runs the ANU/Meet-the-Author series, for sharing a report on this year’s Canberra Writer’s Festival that was published in the paywalled Books+Publishing*.

The report included some stats:

• the festival sold 10,300 tickets, which is an increase on last year’s figures, but they say that across their full event program, which includes sessions offered at ad hoc times through the year, they have sold 13,000 tickets so far this year.
• the 4-day program included 110 events, featuring 200 authors, with many events sold out, as I know only too well, “and strong audiences for sessions across the program”. Last year’s Festival ran across 5 days, and has 114 events.

Last year CWF presented its inaugural schools program. This was successful, so this year they “tripled” the program, and delivered one primary and two secondary school days for Canberra students at the National Library of Australia.

Unfortunately, this year I was coming out of a bout of Influenza A. I was 8 days in, so no longer coughing or contagious I believe, but my, I was tired, so I felt I went through this year’s festival in a bit of a blur. Having been overseas when the Festival sessions were announced and then falling ill a few days after my return, I left booking quite late. This meant I missed out on the Andrew O’Hagan session that I would like to have attended, and that I scaled back my attendance to six, instead of last year’s seven sessions. As always, of course, the time available, cost and the inevitable clashes – in addition to my reduced energy level – affected decision-making.

That said, it was still a most enjoyable Festival, one that felt nicely balanced across a range of interests, something that early CWFs struggled – to my mind, anyhow – to achieve.

A significant challenge for CWF festival-goers is something I have regularly written about – and is probably not an uncommon issue – is the geographic spread of venues. This year, however, it felt that the Committee had worked very hard to tighten programming and venue options to minimise the impact of this issue. Most of the main sessions were held within the Parliamentary (National) Triangle, making it easier to move between sites. Consequently, this year, I attended three sessions (Friday afternoon, and Saturday) at the National Library of Australia, one session (Sunday morning) at the National Archives of Australian, and two sessions (Sunday afternoon) at the National Portrait Gallery.

Some bits and pieces

I love sharing the Top Ten book sales from the Festival. Last year those came from one of the main participating booksellers, the National Library of Australia Bookshop. This year’s report describes the list as “the bestsellers at the festival (sold by The Book Cow plus venues)”, but I’m not exactly sure what this encompasses. Regardless of how complete this list is across all sites and sellers, it’s at least indicative of what captured people’s attention:

1. Pip Williams, The German ward
2. Durkhanai Ayubi, She who tastes, knows: A memoir of food, exile and awakening
3. Andrew O’Hagan, On friendship
4. Michael Robotham, Tell me something true (Hachette)
5. Andy Griffiths, illustrated by Bill Hope, You and me and the Peanut Butter Beast
6. Chris Hammer, Full Circle (
7. George Megalogenis, Three shocks: Who we are becoming in the 21st century
8. Marc Fennell, Stuff the British stole
9. Corey Tutt, illustrated by Jaelyn Biumaiwai, Before it was called science
10. Amy Remeikis, Screw nice

However, in their regular enews email, the National Library Bookshop published its Festival “bestsellers”, which I’m presuming they have listed by order of number of sales, but I don’t know this for a fact. They only list 8:

• Pip Williams, The German ward
• Malcom Knox, Second child
• Chris Hammer, Full circle
• Michael Robotham, Tell me something true
• Andrew O’Hagan, On friendship
• Anna Goldsworthy, The God we made
• Andy Griffiths, You & me and the Giant Knucklehead
• Corey Tutt, Before it was called science

By way of contrast, a couple of weeks ago, Colin also shared the Top 10 books sold during the Brisbane Film Festival, via the festival bookshop, operated by Harry Hartog Carindale, also as reported in Books+Publishing.

1. Alice Oseman, Heartstopper: Volume six
2. Jacinda Ardern, A different kind of power
3. Suzie Miller, Inter alia
4. Andrew O’Hagan, On friendship
5. Pip Williams, The German ward
6. Josh Silver, Fruit fly
7. Norman Swan, The brain cliff
8. Tahlia Isaac, She is me
9. Kate Grenville, The country schoolmaster
10. George Megalogenis, The three shocks

So, three overlaps with the Canberra festival lists – Pip Williams, Andrew O’Hagan and George Megalogenis.

In the past I have listed my Festival posts in their order of popularity (that is, by number of hits), but I’m not sure how interesting that is to anyone else, so this year I thought I might share one or two of my takeaways or insights from the sessions I attended. They are not the only ones, but tend to be the ideas that had a wider application than just the session I attended.

1. That the best reading is an act of co-creation, meaning when readers are trusted to make their own meaning rather than having it delivered didactically on a plate in neatly finished books (Beejay Silcox, from How to read with joy).
2. That a happy ending does not necessarily deny the possibility of total destruction, but if we can’t envisage how the world can be, what is the point? (Elaine Castillo, from How to read with joy)
3. That genre offers a shorthand, or way into a work, from which you can then play with readers, bounce off conventions, retell stories, and so on. (Jacob and John, from Indigenous Futurisms)
4. That the strict “own voices” movement is undergoing some rethinking, with more nuance (my interpretation of what was said) coming into this space (Mirandi Riwoe, A short history of longans)
5. That while much of journalism is about how harrowing life is, the job of fiction is not to reduce characters to the worst thing that happens to them. (Elaine Castillo, AI and All the lonely people)
6. That while climate change feels hopeless and the losses are real, there are opportunities to re-make (Inga Simpson and Johanna Bell, Cutting edge cli-fi)
7. That story can retrieve you from trauma, knowing is resistance (Merlinda Bobis, ACT Book of the Year Award)

And, perhaps the most provocative of all: Steve Toltz suggested that talking with Chat bots could be healthier than talking with humans on online, because real people can be cruel (from AI and All the Lonely People)

I will end here … and just leave you with the question of whether any of these thoughts speak to you. I’d love to hear from you if they do (or don’t).

* Last year, I checked with the Canberra Writers Festival that they were happy for me to share the information. They were. I didn’t check again this year because I assume they haven’t changed their mind and are happy for any publicity they receive.