Jimmy Barnes, Sarah Blasko, Tex Perkins, Holly Throsby & More Named For Byron Writers Fest

This year's Byron Writers Festival has taken a notably musical tack in curating this year's line-up, with several renowned performer-cum-authors — including Jimmy Barnes, Sarah Blasko, Tex Perkins and Holly Throsby, among other names.

Held over three days this August at Elements Of Byron resort, the festival will welcome the ABIA-winning Barnes to discuss his acclaimed memoir, Working Class Boy (with an undoubted reference or two to its upcoming sequel, Working Class Man), as well as appearing in conversation with Matt Condon at a separate event at Lennox Head Cultural & Community Centre.

Blasko will be engaged in a one-on-one conversation with Erik Jensen of The Saturday Paper, and Perkins will be on hand to chat about his autobiography, Tex, co-authored with renowned journalist Stuart Coupe, as well as joining Barnesy for a special ABC Radio National session with Sarah Kanowski.

Meanwhile, Throsby — who was also nominated for dual ABIAs this year for her novel, Goodwood — will go deep into the nitty-gritty of creativity in a session called Blood, Sweat & Tears: The Writing Process, also featuring US author Kayla Rae Whitaker, novelist/poet Heather Taylor Johnson and fellow scribe Jerath Head.

Additionally, Throsby will join forces with Blasko at the Music Makers session. The latter is being down for a separate ticketed event called Bedtime Stories, at which Blasko, John Safran, Jennifer Down, Erik Jensen and Hannah Kent retell their books as if they were made for children.

The broader program will also see appearances from Australian Idol judge Mark Holden, who will discuss his memoir, My Idol Years, as well as teaming up with ABC Radio National's Music Show host Andrew Ford for a session called Music Memoir.

Further guests named on the line-up include actor Richard Roxburgh (Rake), Sudanese refugee and lawyer Deng Adut, novelists Kate Grenville, Ashley Hay, Anita Heiss, Nicolas Rothwell and more, plus crime-writers David Free, Mirandi Riwoe (M.J. Tjia), Michael Robotham and Jock Serong, media types such as Julia Baird, Paul Barclay, Jennifer Byrne, Clementine Ford, Peter Helliar, Kerry O'Brien, Tracey Spicer, Lisa Wilkinson, Tony Jones and stacks of other drawcards.

It all goes down from 4-6 August; tickets are on sale now.

See the festival's website for more details.

Byron Writers Festival — 2017 Guest Line-up

Nicole Abadee
Deng Thiak Adut
Sarah Armstrong
Melissa Ashley
Hilary Badger
Julia Baird
Tristan Bancks
Paul Barclay
Jimmy Barnes
Kuna Basu
Caroline Baum
Jesse Blackadder
Sarah Blasko
Merlinda Bobis
Lisa Brockwell
Phil Brown
Jennifer Byrne
Edna Carew
Susan Carland
Barrie Cassidy
Alan Close
Roger Cohen
Kate Cole-Adams
Matthew Condon
Cosentino
Arielle Cottingham
Bryan Dawe
Tony Doherty
Jennifer Down
Rob Drewe
Jill Eddington
Malcolm Farr
Richard Fidler
Angie Fiedler
Peter FitzSimons
Tim Flannery
Mei Fong
Andrew Ford
Clementine Ford
David Free
Antony Funnell
Nikki Gemmell
David Gillespie
Madeline Gleeson
Morris Gleitzman
Roanna Gonsalves
Kate Grenville
Sophie Hamley
Chris Hanley
Peter Harrison
David George Haskell
Lynda Hawryluk
Ashley Hay
Jerath Head
Jim Hearn
Anita Heiss
Peter Helliar
Lex Hirst
Mark Holden
Rebecca Huntley
Jane Hutcheon
Graeme Innes
Zacharey Jane
Erik Jensen
Barry Jones
Tony Jones
Sarah Kanowski
Delta Kay
Hannah Kent
Andrew Knight
Anneli Knight
Ben Knight
Laura Kroetsch
Eka Kurniawan
Christina Lamb
Steven Lang
Meshel Laurie
Sylvie Le Clezio
Bri Lee
David Leser
Hans Lovejoy
John Lyons
Bec Mac
Kim Mahood
Kenan Malik
David Marr
Pippa Masson
Charles Massy
Ben Mckelvey
Caro Meldrum-Hanna
Miles Merrill
Rosemarie Milsom
Vayu Naidu
Mandy Nolan
Kerry O’Brien
Mick O’Regan
Bruce Pascoe
A.S. Patric
Tex Perkins
Ailsa Piper
Lucas Proudfoot
Alice Pung
Karen Radzyner
Sally Riley
Sally Rippin
Mirandi Riwoe
Michael Robotham
Henry Rosenbloom
Nicholas Rothwell
Richard Roxburgh
Magdalena Roze
Jonathan Safran
Michael Sala
Julianne Schultz
Kim Scott
Jock Serong
Adam Shoemaker
Venkat Raman Singh Shyam
Sebastian Smee
Dava Sobel
Adam Spencer
Tracey Spicer
Adam Suckling
Heather Taylor Johnson
Peter Thompson
Holly Throsby
Laura Tingle
Ian Townsend
Charlie Veron
Sandy Verschoor
Lisa Walker
Wendy Were
Emrys Westacott
Kayla Rae Whitaker
Lisa Wilkinson
Robyn Williams
Geordie Williamson
Susan Wyndham
Josh Yeldham
Lawrie Zion