True Story 2024: The State of Us

True Story is back!

True Story Festival is a showcase of some of the best creative non-fiction writing in Australia today. This year’s theme, The State of Us, recognises what a complex and at times bruising year we’ve had. Artistic Director Caroline Baum has curated a series of conversations that prompts us to examine what we have in common rather than what divides us.

Early bird tickets now on sale until 1st November. From 1st November, single session tickets will also be on sale, subject to availability.

SCWC members can visit our member page for a $5 discount code on select tickets.

FULL PROGRAM

Friday 15 November

10:00AM – 2:30PM: Researching and Writing Biography (Workshop)
Do you love reading about other people’s lives? Thinking about or started writing a biography? This workshop by biographer Jo Oliver gives you the opportunity to develop ideas, learn research skills and find sources. You will receive tips on planning and organising your work, applying for fellowships and grants and finding publishers. There will be practice writing an engaging narrative and a chance to share work with other writers. 

10:00AM – 1:00PM: Attention and Devotion (Workshop)
Super-observer and memoirist Ailsa Piper (Sinning Across Spain, The Attachment, For Life) invites participants to expand their writerly observational skills, and to explore the selections and the magnification of details that can become markers for character, place and even plot. How can the micro transform, or even become, the macro? How can a miniature hold a world? How can a detail become an entry point, a beginning, or a satisfying resolution? Whether you work in prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama or lyrics, the right detail in the right place can do more work, and carry more weight than pages of exposition or dialogue. Participants are invited to attend with pen, paper, one small but very familiar object, and wide-open eyes.

6:30PM – 8:30PM: Bohemian Rhapsody (Film Screening + Q&A)
In a documentary rich with archival material and interviews with her friends, Life Burns High captures the charisma and appeal of journalist Charmian Clift, who lived a bohemian life in Greece before returning to Australia with her husband George Johnston. What was it about this outspoken unconventional free spirit that made readers adore the weekly column she wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald? Following the screening, director Rachel Lane and co-producer Sue Milliken join definitive Clift biographer Nadia Wheatley to discuss her enduring relevance.

Saturday 16 November

2:00PM – 2:10PM: Welcome to Country with Jodi Edwards

2:10PM – 3:10PM: Exclusive Opening Address with Rick Morton
With Mean Streak, his new investigation of how Robodebt was allowed to create a suicidal wave of despair, Rick Morton proves once again that he has an unflinching instinct for social analysis combining journalistic rigour with an outspoken sense of justice. In our specially commissioned opening address, Rick will reflect on the painful truths he has learned while investigating and exposing brutal policies that ruin lives. But don’t expect a litany of gloom: Rick has a wicked and irreverent sense of humour, so anything is possible.

3:35PM – 4:35PM: All the Pretty Seahorses with Ailsa Piper and Jackie Bailey
Memoirist Ailsa Piper (Sinning Across Spain, The Attachment) describes her latest offering, For Life, as a tale of living, dying and flying, but it is also about swimming, noticing, favourite words, friendship, and finding a home. Written in prose that is both luminous and illuminating, For Life shifts from dark to light as Ailsa reflects on her experiences of loss and recovery. In conversation with celebrant and award-winning author of Eulogy Dr Jackie Bailey, she discusses ritual, belonging and the joys of dictionary definitions.

5:00PM – 6:00PM: Singing Our Stories with Jim Moginie, Glen Humphries and Tanya Ali
Why do some songs catch the imagination of a nation and become anthems? Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie, author of music memoir The Silver River, explores the elusive qualities that make some lyrics resonate to express bigger truths about who we are with rock journalist Glen Humphries, author of Aussie Rock Anthems, and Tanya Ali.

7:00PM – 8:00PM: Off a Duck's Back with Bruce Pascoe and Margaret Throsby
What does it take to disrupt Australia’s history and stand by your views when they are attacked? The answer is: a lot. After the controversy surrounding his bestselling book Dark Emu, First Nations writer Bruce Pascoe was bruised but unbowed. Black Duck, a Year at Yumburra is his personal account of his healing on his farm (where he somehow also found time to write a novel, Imperial Harvest). In a candid conversation, he tells Margaret Throsby what it took to rebuild a life, a marriage, and how custodianship of land renewed his sense of purpose.

Sunday 17 November

10:00AM – 11:00AM: Here's Hoping with Rosie Batty and Jeremy Lasek
Family violence prevention campaigner and 2015 Australian of the Year Rosie Batty is so beloved and admired, she needs no introduction. But having won the sympathy and respect of a nation in the face of the most terrible violence, what next? How do you move forward and restore your faith in human nature? What does Hope (the title of her new book) even mean in the aftermath of tragedy? Rosie Batty shares her remarkable capacity for optimism with Jeremy Lasek.

11:30AM – 12:30PM: The Other Book Thief with Michael Visontay and Sue Turnbull
The desecration of one of the world’s rarest books leads Sydney journalist Michael Visontay across the globe in search of the missing pages of a sacred volume. But how do his adventures as a literary detective tie in with the story of his own family? He tells Sue Turnbull how Noble Fragments sent him on an obsessive quest searching for clues…

*NEW TIME* 1:30PM – 2:00PM: Whale Writer with Jodi Edwards and *NEW GUEST* Lillian Rodrigues-Pang
Local First Nations author Jodi Edwards has been teaching us the Dharawal language at the festival these past couple of years. But she is also continuing to pursue her own academic research into the relationship of coastal First Nations people to the whale population that migrates past our beaches. Jodi will come to True Story fresh from delivering the keynote speech at the international Society for Marine Mammalogy’s first ever conference in Australia. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear about her groundbreaking work with Lillian Rodrigues-Pang.

*NEW TIME* 2:30PM – 3:30PM: Alone Together with Gina Chick and Caroline Baum
When Gina Chick won the first Australian season of Alone, she captured the hearts of millions with her survival skills and earth-mother personality. Now, in We Are the Stars, she has written an exuberant, roaring affirmation of life in the face of loss and triumph. Join Gina for a high-octane hit of inspiration exploring what it takes to thrive beyond the wilderness, with Caroline Baum.