Program Land, Identity and Who Gets to Belong BUY TICKETS DATE: Saturday 21 March, 2026 TIME: 1.00-2.00pm COST: $25.00 Manly Youth Centre PATHWAY: Country and Who We Are HOST : Jack Toohey < VIEW ALL SESSIONS Joshua Gilbert Tyree Barnette Who gets to belong in Australia, and on whose terms? From very different starting points, Joshua Gilbert and Tyree Barnette reflect on how land, race and power shape ideas of identity and home. Gilbert brings an Indigenous, future-focused perspective grounded in Country, agriculture and cultural continuity. Barnette offers the lens of a Black American migrant learning how race, privilege and belonging shift across national borders. Together, they examine the stories Australia tells about itself and the tensions between welcome, ownership and sovereignty. This is a conversation about belonging that rejects easy answers and what it might mean to build a shared future without erasing difference or history.

Program The Nightmare Sequence: Art, Witnessing and Fracture BUY TICKETS DATE: Saturday 21 March, 2026 TIME: 11.30-12.30pm COST: $25.00 Manly Youth Centre PATHWAY: Australia In the World HOST : Nick Bogiatzis < VIEW ALL SESSIONS Omar Sakr Safdar Ahmed How do artists respond when the world fractures around them? Safdar Ahmed and Omar Sakr discuss The Nightmare Sequence, a collaborative work that blends art, poetry and political witnessing. This literary session explores form, trauma and the limits of language — asking what art can do in moments of rupture, and how creative work carries memory, anger and hope. Challenging and deeply literary. Content note: This session includes discussion related to the war in Gaza that some people may find challenging.

Program Inside the General Hospital BUY TICKETS DATE: Sunday 22 March, 2026 TIME: 11.30-12.30pm COST: $25.00 Manly Youth Centre PATHWAY: Stories and Storytellers HOST : Nick Place < VIEW ALL SESSIONS Anne Buist AO Graeme Simsion Drawing on Anne Buist’s experience as a psychiatrist and Graeme Simsion’s gift for humane storytelling, The General Hospital explores care, crisis and connection inside a pressured institution. In this conversation, Simsion and Buist discuss writing about institutional life with empathy, the emotional labour of care, and how fiction can illuminate the systems we depend on at moments of vulnerability. Content note: This session includes discussion of issues affecting mental health.

Program History’s Long Shadow: Writing the Past BUY TICKETS DATE: Sunday 22 March, 2026 TIME: 2.30-3.30pm COST: $25.00 Manly Youth Centre PATHWAY: Stories and Storytellers HOST : Martin Thomas < VIEW ALL SESSIONS Candida Baker Susan Francis From overlooked lives to quiet acts of endurance, Baker and Francis explore how fiction engages with history, memory and recovery. This session examines the moral responsibility of writing about the past, the role of imagination in historical storytelling, and why unresolved histories continue to shape the present.

Program Lives That Don’t Follow the Script BUY TICKETS DATE: Sunday 22 March, 2026 TIME: 1.00-2.00pm COST: $25.00 Manly Youth Centre PATHWAY: Personal Reckonings HOST : Summer Land < VIEW ALL SESSIONS Kumi Taguchi Lucy Nelson Not every life follows the path we’re told to expect, and not every choice is freely made. In this intimate and thoughtful conversation, Kumi Taguchi and Lucy Nelson reflect on identity, womanhood, expectation and silence. From choosing — or being unable — to have children, to navigating lives shaped by loss, constraint and self-definition, this session shares stories that are often overlooked.

Program Open Book: Writing Lived Experience BUY TICKETS DATE: Saturday 21 March, 2026 TIME: 4.00-5.00pm COST: $25.00 Sky Theatre PATHWAY: Stories and Storytellers HOST : Liz Deep-Jones < VIEW ALL SESSIONS Natalie Scott Tracy Crisp 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. Pearls by Tracy Crisp is a memoir that reflects on displacement and survival, tracing how early experiences continue to shape a life over time. A Secret Grief by Natalie Scott is a novel centred on a girl growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, grappling with her relationship with her mother—a relationship marked by emotional distance, misunderstanding and the stories we tell ourselves about being loved. In this Open Book session, Crisp and Scott read from their work and talk about writing lived experience — how personal histories, perceptions and memory are shaped into a story through memoir.

Program The Great Australian Dream, or The Great Australian Obsession? BUY TICKETS DATE: Sunday 22 March, 2026 TIME: 2.30-3.15pm COST: $20.00 Manly Youth Centre PATHWAY: Living Today HOST : Michael Brissenden < VIEW ALL SESSIONS Saul Eslake Is Australia’s housing story built on facts — or comfortable myths? Housing affordability dominates national conversation, yet much of what we think we know is incomplete, misunderstood or contested. In this masterclass-style session, leading independent economist Saul Eslake cuts through the slogans to explain what is really driving prices in Australia today. From tax settings and migration to supply constraints, intergenerational inequality and the politics of home ownership, this conversation separates short-term pressures from deeper structural forces. Do rising house prices actually make Australia wealthier? Or do they simply shift advantage between generations and groups? Known for his clarity, independence and plain speaking, Eslake brings evidence and context to one of the country’s most emotionally charged issues — with plenty of time for audience questions. A timely, big-picture conversation about housing, economics and the future of the Australian dream.

43926107-1f6a-48e9-af71-8d03f109faa6 Sky Theatre VENUE DETAILS 54 Raglan Street, Manly (St Andrew's Church Hall) Rooms Used: xxx < VIEW ALL VENUES NEXT VENUE > 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.

424b306c-90a6-4fc0-bdcf-86131beba2f7 Manly Surf Life Saving Club VENUE DETAILS South Steyne, Manly Rooms Used: xxx < VIEW ALL VENUES NEXT VENUE > 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.

26303b25-7a46-44fa-af95-7d73dc31c266 Manly Art Gallery VENUE DETAILS West Esplanade, Manly Rooms Used: xxx < VIEW ALL VENUES NEXT VENUE > 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.

8a321e96-8306-47f3-9826-94f3df9df895 Manly Wharf Events VENUE DETAILS L1, Manly Wharf, East Esplanade, Manly Rooms Used: xxx < VIEW ALL VENUES NEXT VENUE > 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.

0898fe24-d59a-469f-9a9c-11b643cf7eb5 Manly Youth Centre (Festival Hub & Main Bookstore) VENUE DETAILS Kangaroo Street, Manly Rooms Used: xxx < VIEW ALL VENUES NEXT VENUE > 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.