Manly Writers' Festival

09/09/2026

RIP Blanche d'Alpuget.

We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Blanche d’Alpuget.

Blanche was a remarkable Australian writer, and it was an enormous privilege for Fair Play Publishing to publish her final novel, The Bunny Club, in 2025.

We were immensely proud that Blanche entrusted her book to our small independent publishing house, and grateful for the opportunity to work with her.

Our thoughts are with Blanche’s family and those who loved her.

Vale Blanche. It was an honour to be your publisher.

03/09/2026

Recently, we asked which three books everyone should read in their lifetime.

Your nominations have taken us from much-loved Australian writing to international classics, contemporary fiction, memoir, fantasy, satire and childhood favourites.

Only one book has received more than one nomination so far: A.B. Facey’s enduring Australian memoir, A Fortunate Life.

Other Australian writers nominated include Thomas Keneally for Schindler's Ark, Kate Grenville for The Secret River, Tim Winton for Cloudstreet, Alexis Wright for Carpentaria, Colleen McCullough for The Thorn Birds, Mavis Thorpe Clarke for The Min Min and local author and 2026 MWF guest, Joanna Nell for The Funeral Crashers.

International choices range from Catch-22, Midnight’s Children, Inside Outside and Man’s Search for Meaning to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Trainspotting and All the Light We Cannot See.

There are books chosen for their social and historical importance; books that offer pure imaginative joy; books that have stayed with readers for years; and even one treasured childhood favourite, Susannah of the Mounties.

What does this tell us?

Perhaps only that choosing three essential books is intensely personal, and that a festival session on the subject could provoke some very lively discussion indeed!

Haven’t nominated yours yet? We’re still listening.

Email us with the three books you think everyone should read in their lifetime. [email protected]

04/08/2026

Some books entertain us. Others change how we understand ourselves or others.

We’re considering a session for the 2027 Manly Writers’ Festival called Three Books You Must Read in Your Life, and we’d love your nominations.

Which three books would you choose?

They may be novels, memoirs, histories, poetry, children’s books, textbooks or something that defies categorisation entirely. They don’t have to be literary classics. They simply need to be books you believe other people should experience at least once.

Tell us your three titles and, if you like, a sentence about why each one matters.

At this stage of our planning, the festival begins not with names but with ideas: the questions that matter, the conversations we aren’t having, and the stories we want to hear.

Your nominations for Three Books You Must Read in Your Life will be part of that thinking.

We’re looking forward to discovering which books rise to the top, and which choices provoke some vigorous, but respectful, disagreement.

Email us at: [email protected]

01/07/2026

One prompt. One hour. Writers vs AI. 🤖✍️ A horse breeder's reckoning. A 2am twist. A spider-induced meet-cute. A Muppet-themed night out. And then… ChatGPT had a go. Then it was the musicians turn. Soulful jazz saxophone, and modern Australian rock up against the machine.

🎧 New BackStory: Human Creativity vs AI, Part 2 — listen now.
https://soundcloud.com/fairplaybooks/manly-wf-2026-human-1

29/06/2026

We're not the most urgent EOFY ask in your feed this week, and we won't pretend to be. Some causes can't wait - give to those first.

But if you've covered the urgent things and still believe in the slow ones, such as the festivals, the rooms where ideas are made, a tax-deductible gift before 30 June would be much appreciated.

Link in bio, or here:
https://www.manlywritersfestival.org.au/donations

23/06/2026

"Claude ain't going to sit down with them, is he?" 🎙️

In our latest BackStory episode, Heather Morris explains why the stories behind her novels, the survivors she sat with, the faces she can't forget, are something no AI could ever write.

She's joined by AI researcher Cory Alpert for a lively, honest conversation about machines, creativity and the human heart, recorded live at the Manly Writers' Festival.

🎧 Have a listen: https://soundcloud.com/fairplaybooks/sets/manly-writers-festival

11/06/2026

The festival may be over. The conversations are not.

Since March, we've been steadily releasing podcasts from the 2026 Manly Writers' Festival, bringing some of the most thoughtful and engaging sessions to audiences well beyond Manly.

Recent episodes include:

🎧 Lives That Don't Follow the Script – Kumi Taguchi and Lucy Nelson on identity, womanhood, motherhood, grief and lives that don't always fit expectations.

🎧 Bring Back Yesterday – Bob Carr on love, loss and life after the death of his wife Helena.

🎧 Frontlines – Mike Amor and Kylie Moore-Gilbert on some of the world's most dangerous places.

🎧 The Diplomat – Bob Bowker, Ian Kemish and Lachlan Strahan, all former heads of mission, on Australia's place in a changing world.

🎧 Ruptured Lives, Resilient Voices – stories of resilience and rebuilding with Elana Benjamin, Joanne Fedler, Lee Kofman and Kylie Moore-Gilbert.

🎧 The World on Edge – examining the chaotic, shifting global order with Bob Carr, Peter Hartcher and Michael Pembroke.

🎧 Just Saying – Hugh Mackay on empathy, community and what holds us together.

You can listen to these and other sessions anytime via our channel on SoundCloud:

🎙 Listen to the Manly Writers' Festival podcast collection here: https://soundcloud.com/fairplaybooks/sets/manly-writers-festival

28/05/2026

The world feels increasingly unstable. Alliances are shifting. Democracies are under pressure. And Australia is navigating an era few imagined even a decade ago.

At the Manly Writers’ Festival, The World on Edge brought together leading voices to unpack the forces reshaping global politics, from Trump and China to AUKUS, war and Australia’s place in an uncertain century.

Now the conversation is available as a podcast.

🎧 Listen now. https://soundcloud.com/fairplaybooks/manly-wf-2026-the-world-on

27/05/2026

on display (top left) at London’s courtesy of a Festival visitor. 😀🌊🏄‍♂️💙

22/05/2026

National Volunteer Week confession:

The Manly Writers’ Festival does not have a large office.

Or paid staff.

Or a mysterious back room where highly trained literary elves organise everything.

It is volunteers.

People who somehow turn spreadsheets into sessions, venues into conversations, and ambitious ideas into actual events.

People who carry boxes. Put up signs. Solve problems. Calm nerves. Find missing cables. Re-stack books. Welcome audiences.

And then come back and do it again next year.

The Manly Writers' Festival exists because a community agreed with the starting point that stories matter.

To everyone who has helped us build it: thank you. We hope to see you in 2027.