23. In this episode of Fully Lit Live, we present The Critics Report, an event hosted by the Sydney Review of Books at the State Library of NSW in December 2025.

Moderated by SRB deputy editor Tiffany Tsao, the conversation brings together critics, editors and scholars to assess a year that placed unprecedented pressure on Australian arts and cultural institutions — and on the artists and writers who depend upon them.

Australia’s 2025 Venice Biennale entrants and Martu writer Karen Wyld, along with journalist Antionette Lattouf, all felt the impact of efforts to set the boundaries of acceptable expression.

What are the longer-term effects of these cultural eruptions? And with “social cohesion” high on the political agenda, how might the arts respond? What can the arts tell us about what makes a society cohere in the first place?

(Note that our panel took place before Adelaide Writers’ Week imploded, an event that suggests these questions remain urgent, and before the happy news that QUT had stepped up to rescue Meanjin.)

The discussion ranges over other important questions, including the role of government and universities as cultural funders, the potential impacts of AI on the arts, and the strain placed on literary journals and critics asked to defend culture while also keeping it alive.

Host

Tiffany Tsao is Deputy Editor of the Sydney Review of Books. She is a novelist, translator and critic whose work has appeared in major Australian and international publications. Alongside her editorial work at the SRB, she has published multiple novels and is widely recognised for her literary translations from Indonesian to English.

Guests

Daniel Browning is a Bundjalung and Kullilli writer, journalist and radio broadcaster, and Professor of Indigenous Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Sydney — a newly established leadership role within the School of Art, Communication and English. He is a former presenter of The Art Show and Arts in 30 on ABC Radio National.

Nicholas Croggan is an art historian and critic, and Public Programs Coordinator at the Power Institute at the University of Sydney. He completed his PhD in Art History at Columbia University, New York.

Roanna Gonsalves is editor of Southerly, Australia’s oldest literary journal, and a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at UNSW Sydney. She is the author of The Permanent Resident (UWAP), and her novel The Servants will be published in November 2026.

James Jiang is Editor of the Sydney Review of Books. Prior to joining the SRB, he was Assistant Editor at Griffith Reviewand Australian Book Review. He holds a PhD in Modernist Literature from the University of Cambridge and has taught in the English and Theatre Studies Program at the University of Melbourne.

Credits

Fully Lit is brought to you by...

In this episode of Fully Lit Live, we bring you a panel discussion recorded at the Blue Mountains Writers Festival in November 2025.

James Jiang, editor of the Sydney Review of Books, hosts Willo Drummond and Hasib Hourani for an exploration of how poems work - in the body, on the page, and in your ears.

From a discussion of formative reading experiences to a shared close reading of Emma Lew’s Marshes, this conversation is an intimate encounter with poetry and its enduring value.

If you’re a devoted reader of poetry, or someone who is yet to approach it, this episode is for you.

GUESTS

Hasib Hourani is a Lebanese-Palestinian writer, editor, arts worker and educator. His debut book, rock flight, won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and the Mary Gilmore Award, and was shortlisted for the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry.

Willo Drummond is a poet and lecturer in creative writing. Her debut collection Moon Wrasse was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and commended in the Five Islands Poetry Prize for a First Book of Poetry.

James Jiang is a critic and scholar, and editor of the Sydney Review of Books.

CREDITS

Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books, and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros.

Executive Producer: Sarah Gilbert

Mixed by Siobhan Moylan

Alexis Wright’s novels are often thought of as “difficult,” but this episode of Fully Lit Live challenges that label, and asks what that word is really doing.

Critic Geordie Williamson is the author of the recent On Alexis Wright, part of Black Ink’s 'Writers on Writers' series. In this conversation with Ivor Indyk, Wright’s publisher and editor at Giramondo, we learn how to read Wright’s books on their own terms — with attention to rhythm, repetition, and scale rather than plot alone.

Moving through Carpentaria, The Swan Book, and Praiseworthy, the discussion centres on Wright’s idea of ‘all time’: a narrative field where ancestral, mythic, and present time coexist, and where people, animals, weather systems and spirits all speak.

What happens when we make space for Wright’s digressions and tonal shifts, and allow ourselves the time she demands?

GUESTS

Geordie Williamson has been chief literary critic of The Australian since 2008. He is publisher of the Picador imprint at Pan Macmillan, a former editor of Island Magazine and Best Australian Essays, and author of The Burning Library, a collection of essays on neglected figures from Australian literature. He lives in Hobart.

Ivor Indyk is the publisher of the Giramondo book imprint and Whitlam Chair in the Writing & Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney.

CREDITS

This episode is brought to you in partnership with our friends at Gleebooks. Head to the Gleebooks events page to discover more great literary events featuring some of Australia’s best and best known authors.

Fully Lit is brought to you by Impact Studios at UTS, the Sydney Review of Books and the UTS Writing and Publishing Program, and is produced by Regina Botros.

Executive Producer, Sarah Gilbert. This episode was mixed by Siobhan Moylan.

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