WellRead's Top 10 Picks of the Sydney Writers' Festival 2020 Program A

The 23^rd Sydney Writers’ Festival runs from Monday 27 April to Sunday 3 May 2020 with more than 400 Australian and international writers considering the theme Almost Midnight.

The program includes the winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, Bernadine Evaristo; Nobel Peace Prize–nominated founder of the Umbrella Movement, Joshua Wong (appearing via video link from Hong Kong); award-winning author Bruce Pascoe; the New York Times bestselling non-fiction writer of Three Women, Lisa Taddeo; award-winning author of The Blazing World and Memories of the Future Siri Hustvedt; and actress Yael Stone.

Drawn from the metaphor of the Doomsday Clock and its current position of just 100 seconds to global catastrophe – the closest to ‘midnight’ we have ever been –festival guests will discuss Almost Midnight in relation to notions of change, potential and renewal, over one week of conversation and storytelling.

The whole program is a doozy but here are our Top 10 Picks:

1) Opening Night Address: Bernadine Evaristo and Alison Whittaker

2) Lisa Taddeo: Three Women Conversation

3) Leslie Jamison: Up Close and Personal

4) Anna Wiener: Uncanny Valley

5) Hope in the Face of Climate Change

6) The Anatomy of Female Desire

7) Almost Midnight: An Evening of Storytelling and Stong

8) After the Flames

9) Algorithmic Time

10) Siri Hustvedt: I'm Writing For My Life