A panel consisting of Shane Maloney, Wayne Macauley, John Tranter and Susan Wyndham, Chaired by Jane Gleeson-White discussed 'Our Literary Heritage: What role do the classics play in our culture?' at the Byron Bay Writers' Festival.



John Tranter defined the classic, in Latin - classicus, a work of superior literature.



Tranter said that: "classics can change your life".



The panel discussed Michael Hayward's Text Publishing Classics. Hayward believes his 30…

The Byron Bay Writers' Festival session titled 'The Future of Reading' featured James Cowan, Andy Griffiths, Rhoda Roberts and Vikki Wakefield.



Andy Griffiths believes that "all text stories still have their own appeal, and win!" By all text stories Griffiths is talking about children's books that don't contain pictures. He believes that this is because 'all text stories' "allow for imagination!"



I was startled by the figure shared in this panel - "46% of Australians…

Saturday the 21st of July I headed off to the inaugural Southern Highlands Writers' Festival. It was a great day, with the highlight being Paula McLean's conversation with Mark Tredinnick titled 'Poetry in Motion'.



Paula began the chat describing poetry as like a window to the world, which Mark responded, "well a window is the obvious place for one to observe the world from". Tredinnick then read out his poem 'Catching Fire; or, The Art of Sitting', which is coming out in…