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WHAT TO DO ABOUT SYDNEY Fiona Wright, Max Easton and Yumna Kassab in conversation with Fiona Kelly McGregor

  • The Baroque Room 15-47 Katoomba Street Katoomba (map)

Known for her celebrated explorations of Sydney’s underground, Fiona Kelly McGregor is joined by three writers whose latest books tackle the city with heart, humour and sharp observational skill.

Rising housing prices, venues closing, generational divides and suburban politics. What on earth can we do about Sydney, and should the good people of the Blue Mountains even care?

In her brashly titled satire, Kill Your Boomers Fiona Wright takes us to a mould-flecked share house, where Keira considers dark schemes to remain in the city she can no longer afford. The third instalment of Max Easton’s Sydney trilogy, Now Autonomy, charts what's left of counterculture and community in a place that keeps closing in on both. And, inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature Yumna Kassab turns her home city into a personal and civic portrait of one of Sydney's fastest-changing centres, mapping history, belonging and gentrification in Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory.

Fiona Wright is a writer, editor and critic from Sydney. Her first book of essays, Small Acts of Disappearance, won the 2016 Kibble Award and the Queensland Literary Award for non-fiction, and her poetry collections are Knuckled and Domestic Interior. Kill Your Boomers is her debut novel.

Max Easton is a writer from south-west Sydney. NowAutonomy is his third novel with Giramondo, sharing characters and plot threads with The Magpie Wing, which was longlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award, and its acclaimed follow-up, Paradise Estate.

Yumna Kassab is a writer based in Parramatta. She is the author of The House of Youssef, Australiana, The Lovers, Politica, The Theory of Everything and Goodbye, My Love. Her latest book is Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory.

Fiona Kelly McGregor has published nine books, most recently the novel The Trap. Its prequel, Iris, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.

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