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Feed your mind. Be provoked. One big idea at a time. Your brain will love you for it. Grab your front row seat to the best live forums and festivals with Natasha Mitchell.

Big Ideas

Esther Freud’s first semi-autobiographical novel Hideous Kinky became a film starring Kate Winslet and told the wild story of two little girls living in Morocco with their bohemian mother. More than 30 years on, those girls are back and growing up fast in her sequel, My Sister and Other Lovers. Esther joins Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell at the Byron Writers Festival to explore the ties that bind, that tether, and that can traumatise in complicated families. Esther’s great-grandfather was the psychologist Sigmund Freud, her late father was the artist Lucian Freud, and her sister is the fashion designer Bella Freud. How has fiction helped her make sense of her own family? And what is it about sisterly love that can sustain through it all? 

Speaker

Esther FreudNovelist and playwrightAuthor, My Sister and Other Lovers (2025) Thanks to festival director Jessica Alice and team.

The Byron Writers Festival has a series of author events throughout the year. See their website for details.

Thanks to festival director Jessica Alice and team.

My Sister and Other Lovers — Esther Freud with Natasha Mitchell at Byron Writers Festival

What happens when the harsh realities of our daily lives — death, war, illness, hardship — invade that most private of realms — our sleep? Four poets and writers explore how things show up in dreams that otherwise can't be expressed, and how they've used the subconscious to inspire their creative work.

This conversation was recorded at the Addi Road Writers Festival on 17 May 2025.

Speakers

Mireille Juchau - Essayist, novelist, critic, author of The World Without Us and more

Peter Boyle - Poet and translator, author of nine poetry collections including Companions, Ancestors, Inscriptions (shortlisted, 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Awards)

Šime Knežević Poet and playwright, author of the poetry collection In Your Dreams

Felicity Plunkett (host) Critic, editor and poet, author of Vanishing Point and more

Further information:

How Dreams Change Under Authoritarianism — New Yorker magazine, 7 November 2019

Red Room Poetry Month 2025

The neuroscience of sleep and its disorders - Big Ideas, Monday 9 May 2022

When dreams speak truth — exploring the relationship between our realities and the subconscious

With Donald Trump mediating conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, what has become of the United States' strategy in the Asia Pacific region?

The event Asia Disrupted: Trump's First Six Months was recorded at La Trobe Asia on 1 August 2025.

Speakers

Daniel Flitton — Managing Editor, The Interpreter The Lowy Institute

Dr Lupita Wijaya — Research fellow, La Trobe Asia

Ambika Vishwanath — Principal Research Fellow, La Trobe Asia

Professor Nick Bisley — Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University

Professor Bec Strating (host) — Director, La Trobe Asia

The US was meant to pivot to Asia — has Donald Trump changed course?

Even years later, children's books can hold a special place in our hearts, and they also teach, comfort, inspire, and grow young minds, and set kids up for life. Two of Australia's best loved children's authors explore the importance of storytelling for children, and reflect on the books that have changed their lives.

This talk was recorded at the Sorrento Writers Festival on 24 April 2025.

Speakers

Alison Lester - Author, Magic Beach, Imagine, Noni the Pony, Kissed by the Moon and many more, Inaugural Children's Laureate 2012-13, Ambassador, Indigenous Literacy Foundation

Jane Godwin - Gogo and the Silver Shoes, Today we have no plans, Red House, Blue House, Green House, Treehouse, Say Hello and many more

Francesca Carter (host) Sorrento Writers Festival

From the archives:

Which subjects are taboo in children's books?Big Ideas, ABC Radio National, 11 September 2019

Alison Lester and Jane Godwin on how children’s books change lives

From finding the right language to connect to Country, making the world a more poetic place for kids, to a Vulcan salute between two lovers — communication makes the world go round. Three brilliantly creative communicators join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell at the 2025 Byron Writers Festival to consider ways we communicate and how we can do it better. With great communication comes deep connection, understanding, meaning and that wonderful feeling of being understood and understanding another. With bad communication comes deep misunderstanding, disconnection, confusion, and conflict.

Speakers

Dr Debra DankGudanji, Wakaja, Kalkadoon womanEnterprise Fellow, University of South AustraliaAuthor of Terraglossia (2025) and We Come With This Place (2022)Winner of four New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards in 2023, including Book of the Year.

Maxine Beneba ClarkWriter, poet, author and children's author of Afro-Caribbean descentMulti-award winning author of more than fifteen books including The Hate Race (2018), Foreign Soil (2017), Carrying the World, Stuff I'm Not Sorry For: 99 poems for young people (2025) and forthcoming in 2025 is Beautiful Changelings.Inaugural Poet in Residence at the University of MelbourneWinner of the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry

Dr Damon YoungAward-winning philosopher, author and children's authorAuthor of thirteen books including On Getting Off: Sex and Philosophy (2020), The Art of Reading (2016), Philosophy in the Garden (2012), and Immortal Gestures: Journeys Into the Unspoken (2025)

Our thanks to the 2025 Byron Writers Festival director Jessica Alice and team.

From devil horns to deep listening — Maxine Beneba Clark, Debra Dank, Damon Young on the power of communication

A brass band, goulash cooking in giant pots over open flames, people dancing around a bonfire — a pan-European picnic at the border between Hungary and Austria in 1989 was the beginning of the end of the Cold War. Suddenly hundreds of East Germans stormed the border into the West and freedom. It's a moment in history where the power of ordinary people changed the world.

An Escape to Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain was presented at the Adelaide Writers' Week

Speakers

Matthew LongoAuthor of The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron CurtainAssistant Professor of Political Science at Leiden University

Annabelle Quince (host)ABC broadcaster and presenter of ABC Radio National's Rear Vision

How a picnic started the fall of the Iron Curtain

Without permission, or payment, artificial intelligence has stolen the published words of thousands of Australian writers, and it seems that they have little power to stop it. What does this mean for the future of human creativity?

Anna Funder's speech was recorded live at the 2025 Sydney Writers Festival.

The panel discussion, Can Australian literature survive in the age of streamers & AI? was recorded at Readings bookshop in Hawthorn.

Speakers

Anna Funder - Author, Wifedom, Stasiland, All that I Am

Sophie Cunningham - Writer, artist, teacher, speaker and advocate, Chair of the Board of the Australian Society of Authors, non- executive director of the Copyright Agency

Emily Bitto - Author, The Strays (2015 Stella Prize winner), Wild Abandon

Jenny Darling - Literary agent, Jenny Darling & Associates

Ben Eltham (host) - Arts, media and cultural critic, commentator and journalist

Anna Funder — Bears out there, writing in the age of bots and broligarchs

Marie Curie is arguably the most famous scientist in history, for her breakthroughs in the field of radioactivity. But Curie also redefined what was possible for women in science, inspiring generations to follow her.

Dava Sobel's 2025 For Future Reference Lecture A woman's word (about science) was recorded at the State Library of Victoria.

Speakers

Dava SobelAuthor, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science and many more

Belinda Smith (host)

Award-winning science journalist, Host, Labnotes, ABC Radio National

The remarkable life of Marie Curie and the women scientists she inspired — with Dava Sobel

It's Team Wellness Warriors versus Team Medical Miracles. Hear the arguments and you decide! The wellness industry is booming. It's worth billions and its influencers are all over social media spruiking miracle pills and mystery remedies, crystal healing and cancer cures. Some are even steaming their vaginas (hellooooo Gywneth Paltrow!). Have they done the research that mainstream medicine refuses to? Is your doctor really the best person to help you be the healthiest you can be? Or ... are many wellness influencers shysters and swindlers, selling hoax cures, making unproven claims, and putting your bank balance and your health at serious risk? Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell from the stage of the 2025 World Science Festival Brisbane for an hilarious hour of science and comedy. Laughing is good for your health, that's for sure.

Speakers

TEAM WELLNESS WARRIORSDr Joel Gilmore Clean energy expert, physicist, and science communicatorAssociate professor, Griffith University

Dr Lily BentleyMarine biologistUniversity of Queensland

Ting LimStand-up comic and star of ABC TV's Fisk

TEAM MEDICAL MIRACLESStacey Thomson aka TV's Ranger StaceyHost of the former long-running TV show Totally Wild

Dr Mike TodorovichMedical educator and host of the Dr Matt and Dr Mike Youtube channelAssociate Professor of Medicine, Bond University

Steven OliverComedian, poet, playwright, cabaret performer, and star of ABC TV's Black Comedy

Thanks to event producers Jane O'Hara, Dr Rob Bell, and the whole World Science Festival Brisbane team.

Wellness influencers will outlive us all! The Science Smackdown Debate at World Science Festival Brisbane

The American essayist, philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said that all life is an experiment, and the more experiments you make, the better. So can experimenting with your career, your health, where you live or who you love, improve your life, by helping you to make better decisions?

This event Test and learn: living an experimental life was recorded at the University of Sydney's Raising the Bar night.

Speakers

May Samali - Founder and CEO of the Human Leadership Lab

How a picnic started the fall of the Iron Curtain

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