Sydney Writers' Festival Program Released

Sydney Writers' Festival 2016 is set to run from 16 to 22 May, and they've just announced a stellar program with some events already sold out. 

Here's our pick: 

Kate Tempest will be giving the prestigious opening address, in which the novelist and performer will discuss stories - the stories we tell that tell us who we are, as well as reciting a selection of her poems. Tempest has been dubbed a young Patti Smith and one of Australia's most incredible performers. Catch her at Roslyn Packer Theatre at 6.30pm on 17 May. 

Aussie author John Birmingham will be giving a talk entitled Death Spiral - the Future of Media and Publishing. He is best known from the 1994 memoir He Died With A Felafel In His Hand as well as his Axis Of Time trilogy. He will be speaking as part of the free Curiosity Lecture series, which features 28 talks from 19 - 22 May on the Pier 2/3 Curiosity Stage. 

Acclaimed author Julian Barnes from the UK will talk about The Noise of Time, which is his first novel since The Sense Of An Ending which won him the 2011 Man Booker Prize, as well as his art essays. Catch him at 7pm on 21 May at City Recital Hall, Angel Place. 

Irish Pulitzer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon is the editor of The New Yorker and the author of other 30 collections, most recently One Thousand Things Worth Knowing. See Paul Muldoon: On Seamus Heaney for the free Curiosity Lecture series.

Also from abroad is literary superstar Jonathan Franzen of the USA who will talk about his new novel Purity on 21 May at Sydney Town Hall. He will be joining Anna Funder for a conversation as witty and wide-ranging as the novel itself.

Closing the event will be Hanya Yanagihara, who will give the closing address with a talk entitled The Conversations Between Words which will insight contemplation on whether a writer owes their reader anything more than simply a compelling story. Hear the talk in full at Roslyn Packer Theatre, 6pm on 22 May.