Six of the best in May with BWF
This month Brisbane Writers Festival gives its main October event a run for its money with six author events across Brisbane, including an audience with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
Have we got a story for you! May is giving the October main event of Brisbane Writers Festival a run for its money with six blockbuster literary events featuring acclaimed Australian and international authors across several Brisbane venues.
International highlights include bestselling English author of the Slough House series (adapted to TV as Slow Horses), Mick Herron; Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales; Canadian writer Yann Martel, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Life of Pi; and bestselling American author of Babel, Yellowface and Katabasis, R.F. Kuang.
Australian authors visiting Brisbane in May include Lisa Wilkinson, one of Australia’s most recognised journalists and broadcasters, discussing her new book The Titanic Story of Evelyn, as well as author, journalist and podcaster Sarah Wilson.
As well as its main festival from October 8 to 11, to be held at the Brisbane Powerhouse, the Brisbane Writers Festival will witness its largest-ever out-of-season events program this year.
With six events already under its belt, including sold-out evenings with Frances Whiting and Ben Crowe, plus more announcements to come, Brisbane Writers Festival is fast becoming a year-round destination for book lovers. Here’s who you can catch up with in May:
Jimmy Wales (May 19, 5,30pm, Brisbane City Hall) is an internet entrepreneur who is best known as the founder of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.
You might like
Named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People, he was also acknowledged by the World Economic Forum as one of the top 250 leaders across the world for his professional accomplishments, his commitment to society and his potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. Born in Huntsville, Alabama, he lives with his family in London.
R.F. Kuang (May 12, 7.45pm, Brisbane Powerhouse) is a Marshall Scholar, Chinese-English translator and the Astounding Award-winning and the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award-nominated author of the Poppy War trilogy and Babel.
Her work has won the Crawford Award and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.
Mick Herron (May 19, 7.30pm, Brisbane City Hall) is the Number One Sunday Times bestselling author of the Slough House thrillers, which have been published in more than 25 languages and are the basis of the award-winning TV series Slow Horses, starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.
Among his other novels are the Zoë Boehm series, also now adapted for TV starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson, and the standalone novels The Secret Hours and Nobody Walks. Mick’s awards include the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and the CWA Gold, Steel and Diamond Daggers. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and now lives in Oxford.
Subscribe for updates
Yann Martel (May 13, 7.30pm, Brisbane Powerhouse) is the author of a short story collection, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, and of five novels, Life of Pi (for which he was awarded the 2002 Man Booker Prize), Self, Beatrice & Virgil, The High Mountains of Portugal and Son of Nobody.
Life of Pi was adapted for the silver screen by Ang Lee, garnering four Oscars. Martel also ran a guerilla book club with Stephen Harper, sending the former prime minister of Canada a book every two weeks for four years. The letters that accompanied the books were published as 101 Letters to a Prime Minister.
Martel lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with the writer Alice Kuipers and their four children.
Lisa Wilkinson (May 14, 6.30pm, Calile Hotel) is one of Australia’s most popular, admired and respected journalists. An early groundbreaking publishing career – Lisa was the youngest-ever editor of a national magazine, Dolly, at the age of 21, then spent 10 years as editor of the iconic and bestselling Cleo magazine – led to stints in all forms of media, including newspapers, TV, radio and online.
She is probably best known, though, for her work in television, spending more than a decade as co-host of the Nine Network’s Today Show, followed by five years as co-host of Network Ten’s primetime news and current affairs 
program, The Project, her interviews regularly making headlines across the country.
The Titanic Story of Evelyn is her second book, following her bestselling autobiography, It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, published in 2021.
Lisa is married to journalist, former Wallaby and bestselling author Peter FitzSimons. They have three children.
Sarah Wilson (May 12, 6pm, Brisbane Powerhouse) is a multi-New York Times and Amazon bestselling author, social philosopher, international keynote speaker, minimalist and philanthropist. She edited Cosmopolitan magazine Australia at 29, founded the global I Quit Sugar movement, hosted the most-watched TV series in the nation’s history – Masterchef Australia – and wrote the international bestseller First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, which Mark Manson described as “the best book on living with anxiety that I’ve ever read”.
Her most recent book, This One Wild and Precious Life, won the US Gold Nautilus Prize and her recent TEDx talk on the collapse of civilisation is an editor’s pick on the global site.
Wilson leads dynamic, global conversations about modern philosophy, creativity, existential risk and climate change via her keynote speaking, Wild podcast, and her Substack and social communities of half a million followers.
She lives nomadically, but is based between Paris and Sydney, is a compulsive hiker and adventurer.
Brisbane Writers Festival presents: Sarah Wilson, May 12, 6pm, Brisbane Powerhouse; R.F. Kuang, May 12, 7.45pm, Brisbane Powerhouse; Yann Martel, May 13, 7.30pm, Brisbane Powerhouse; Lisa Wilkinson, May 14, 6.30pm, Calile Hotel, James St, Fortitude Valley; Jimmy Wales, May 19, Brisbane City Hall, 5,30pm; and Mick Herron, May 19, 7.30pm, Brisbane City Hall.
Want to see more stories from InDaily Qld in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily Qld as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily Qld". That's it.
Free to share
This article may be shared online or in print under a Creative Commons licence