Our 15th anniversary Festival is shaping up to be the best one yet, and we can barely contain ourselves from revealing who’ll be sitting in the big red chairs this year!

In this second article of our series on behind the scenes at the BRWF, we sit down with Adam Norris, Program Director. He gives us the scoop on how the program is shaping up this year and, although you won’t find any spoilers (sorry!), there’s plenty of insight!

1. What goes into selecting the authors for the Festival? How do you balance the mix of well-known names and emerging voices?
Good question. The short answer is, the festival team each chooses a library, throws around a bunch of darts and wherever they land, that’s our lineup for the year. Simple!
The better answer is, it’s actually a long and considered process. The BRWF has a strong history now of pairing emerging names with higher-profile authors/guests. I read scores of books across the year, and keep a close eye on prizes and reading trends to see what kind of voices have fired a spark since the previous Festival.
Some of the most exciting and innovative writing comes from emerging voices – particularly First Nations authors and those from cultures whose stories have often been overlooked in Australian literature. The landscape of our writing is changing fast, and in a lot of ways it’s like the Age of Discovery: we have an opportunity to explore worlds that many folk never knew are out there.
Of course, some of the biggest names in writing are also right here in Australia. I think our audiences are going to be gobsmacked at some of the guests who will be joining us in 2025.

2. What themes or trends are shaping this year’s program?
If a theme develops across the program, it’s always an organic process. Were I to insist on a theme prior to settling on any authors, I suspect I would then spend much of my time trying to shoehorn books into certain conversations – I think audiences would see through that. Better to have trends you don’t see coming; after all, the best dinner parties are the ones where the conversation touches on a range of topics.
While I’m always staying abreast of which books are selling well and which are in high circulation at libraries, part of a festival – in my view, at least – is introducing names or stories to people for the first time. At a music festival, it’s often the band you’ve never heard of before who leaves a lasting impact, and I think it’s much the same for a writers festival.

3. How do you handle last-minute changes or other challenges?
Well, we’ve yet to enjoy a Festival without some 11th-hour cancellation or change of plans! From the Covid-cancelled 2020 Festival to the 2021 Melbourne lockdowns, to sickness and emergency, there has always been a challenge. The only ‘trick’ is to have a creative program that can turn on a dime should the need arise. The Australian writing community is an incredibly talented, versatile bunch, and most authors are willing to jump into an unexpected role to keep the circus moving.

4. What’s one part of the programming process that attendees might not realise is so complex?
Because we want each session to feel fresh, you need to know what guests are comfortable talking about – but also what they’ve been talking about at every other event they’ve done recently. The best way to do this is to propose discussions that approach their writing or career from a new angle. So, we do a lot of behind-the-scenes development of session topics: who will appear on each panel, who is best suited to moderate a particular interview, or who audiences might find most surprising. A lot of reading and research goes into it, because the last thing you want is to have an hour of dry Q&A, with no real engagement or enjoyment of what those answers are.

5. What do you hope attendees will take away from the Festival this year?
Certain stories stop me in my tracks. Books can change us like few other influences in our lives, and some novels – hell, some paragraphs – have stayed with me for years. All I want from the BRWF is to bring conversations to Bellingen that you haven’t heard before, that stop you in your tracks. Be it an unexpected pairing of authors, or a memoir of someone’s life that moves you to tears, I hope people leave a Festival session eager to carry on the conversation, to talk among their friends about what they’ve heard. The hope is that whatever discussion is shared on stage stays with you in some way, and lets you see life beyond the Festival with slightly different eyes.

More than anything, I just want you to hear a good story.