Which Sorrento Writers Festival sessions are you most looking forward to? I want to go to everything, but my absolute top three have to be Regional Australia and the Climate Change Crisis on Saturday The Redfern Speech, 30 Years On on Saturday and Heat, Dust, Beaches and Blow Flies: The Impact of Landscape on Australian Writing on Friday. Panels and talks feature celebrated Australian contemporary authors – Sally Rippin, Christos Tsiolkas, Jane Harper, Jock Serong and Pip Drysdale, among many others – as well some of the country’s most distinguished journalists and editors –Barrie Cassidy, Caroline Wilson, Kerry O’Brien and Eric Beecher, Kate Legge, and many more – explore themes ranging from crime fiction and “domestic noir” to how to write historical fiction and memoir to the big issues in Australian politics in 2023 to the 2024 US presidential election to discussions around the Voice to Parliament. There are almost 100 events to attend, including conversations with Australian luminaries of literature, film and academia, including author Tom Keneally, filmmaker Fred Schepisi, anthropologist and activist Marcia Langton and Nobel Prize winner Laureate Professor Peter Doherty.

The inaugural Sorrento Writers Festival is a big one, with more than 140 authors, academics, publishers, journalists and other creatives descending on the Mornington Peninsula for four days beginning April 27.

The Autumn Murders by Robert Gott