2025 PROGRAM
Open Book: What the Writing Reveals
DATE:
Saturday 21 March, 2026
LOCATION:
Henry G's
COST:
$25.00
Open Book sessions centre on the work itself. Writers read from their books and speak briefly about the choices and discoveries that shaped the writing.
Twisted River by James Dunbar is a crime novel set in regional Australia, centred on a dangerous river, a tight-knit community, and the consequences of secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Kill Your Boss by Jack Heath is a sharp, fast-paced thriller that turns work place resentment into something far darker driven by the dangerous appeal of an unthinkable idea. Broke Road by Matthew Spencer follows a series of crimes linked by a single stretch of road, exposing corruption, desperation and lives pushed to breaking point. Sound Mind, Dead Body by Dave Warner blends a compelling investigation with social insight, probing motive, consequence and moral uncertainty.
In this Open Book session, Dunbar, Heath, Spencer, and Warner read from their work and reflect on what emerges in the act of writing — how setting, character and plot begin to carry meanings the author may not have fully anticipated, and how crime fiction can reveal as much about the world it observes as the stories it tells.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
The Manly Writers' Festival acknowledges and thanks the original storytellers on the lands on which our events take place, the Gameraygal people of the Eora Nation. We acknowledge and respect their continuing connection and culture, and we pay our respects to ancestors and Elders, past and present, as well as emerging leaders.