The historical record can be an unreliable narrator, tending to prioritise the stories of those in power. The historian’s task, then, requires not just research but interpretation as well as, at times, imagination. When the stories being studied are deeply personal, the line between historian and memoirist blurs and the past is dragged into the present with insight and emotion.
Join historian Naomi Parry Duncan, legal anthropologist Marika Sosnowski and New Zealand writer and journalist Hazel Phillips, for a challenging and informative discussion of their three very different books, spanning legendary colonial warriors and contested Australian history, the narratives of Holocaust survivors, Israeli war criminals and Syrian revolutionaries, and a generation of bold women who made mountaineering history around Aoraki Mount Cook, as they defied conventions to forge a legacy for every woman who followed.
Marika Sosnowski is a legal anthropologist and the granddaughter of Polish and Dutch Holocaust survivors. 58 Facets: On law, violence and revolution was shortlisted for the 2026 Stella Prize and the 2026 Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction.
Naomi Parry Duncan is a historian specialising in First Nations history and family history who is descended from convicts and colonists. She is co-author of New South Wales and the Great War, and winner of the 2022 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship. Her latest book is Musquito: The real story of a legendary colonial warrior.
Hazel Phillips is a New Zealand writer, journalist and the author of five books, including: Great Hearts: First Ladies of Aoraki Mount Cook; Fire & Ice: Secrets, histories, treasures and mysteries of Tongariro National Park; Solo: Backcountry adventuring in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Philippa McGuiness is the co-editor of The Library That Made Me: 200 Years of the State Library of NSW. A writer of narrative non-fiction, her books include Skin Deep: The inside story of our outer selves and The Year Everything Changed --- 2001.
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Tickets to main program events are included in weekend and day passes. Single tickets may be available from September 8, subject to availability.
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This venue is wheelchair accessible, and AUSLAN interpreters are available upon request. Please email hello@bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au if you have any accessibility requests or wish to book an AUSLAN interpreter. More info about accessibility can be found on our Accessibility page.