author event: kathryn heyman
thursday 16 april || 6pm
Join us for an evening of conversation with one of Australia’s most acclaimed writers, Kathryn Heyman. We look forward to hearing about Kathryn’s writing journey and the release of her new novel, Circle of Wonders. A luminously beautiful and personal novel, in store on the 31st March.
And as a very special door prize for the event, Kathryn is offering a one-off online mentoring session with her – all you have to do book a ticket, turn up to the event and put your name in a hat!
TICKETS $20 | BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL
Circle of Wonders
Available 31 March 2026
From acclaimed writer Kathryn Heyman comes a luminously beautiful and personal novel, Circle of Wonders. It is the story of two deaths, but more importantly, it is the story of the legacy of life that flows from them – an uplifting celebratory song to life, and a homage to human resilience.
Roni is running out of time. As cancer claims her body, she begins a Book of Wonders, capturing the small, luminous moments she once overlooked. It’s a final gift to the people she loves, and completing it means reckoning with both the flawed life she has lived and the fractured family she’s about to leave behind.
Over one charged lunar month, the women closest to her gather: Belle, her daughter, fresh from rehab and trying to stay upright; Anna, her brilliant sister, returning from London with all her old certainties cracking; and Sylvie, her estranged mother, approaching her own death across the mountain ridge. Meanwhile, Roni’s ex – the Drone, as she’s dubbed him – refuses to leave the house, casting shade on the light Roni is fighting to keep burning.
Extraordinary, luminous and heart-expanding, Circle of Wonders is about facing death while rediscovering life, and about the messy grace that emerges when people who’ve hurt one another still choose to love.
about the author
KATHRYN HEYMAN is the author of seven novels, including her new Circle of Wonders, in store now. She has won numerous awards including an Arts Council of England Writers Award, the Wingate and the Southern Arts Awards, and been nominated for the Orange Prize, the Scottish Writer of the Year Award, the Edinburgh Fringe Critics’ Awards, the Kibble Prize, and the West Australian Premier’s Book Awards. Her radio plays for BBC Radio include adaptations of her own work.
Kathryn Heyman has taught writing for many years, including as Scottish Arts Council Writing Fellow for the University of Glasgow, and teaching fiction and poetry for the University of Oxford. From 2011 – 2013, she was the Senior Judge for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, and an advisor to the awards team in 2016. Kathryn Heyman was the founding director of the fiction program for Faber Academy Australia. Since 2016 she has been Honorary Professor of Humanities at the University of Newcastle. Kathryn was awarded the CAL Author Fellowship for work on her memoir, Fury.
Kathryn Heyman is a renowned writing teacher and mentor, named as “…one of the world’s best creative writing teachers” by Harper’s Bazaar. Kathryn has taught writing all over the world, including for the University of Oxford, where she was a Royal Literary Fellow. Kathryn has coached hundreds of writers from idea to publication, and helped hundreds more recover their creative spark.
She founded the Australian Writers Mentoring Program in 2010 – writers who credit the Australian Writers Mentoring Program with their success include Pip Williams (Dictionary of Lost Words), Jane Caro (Lyrebird), Ali Lowe (The Trivia Night), Sam Guthrie (The Peak) and many many more. Sienna Brown, winner of the MUD Literary Prize, wrote, “Kathryn is a brilliant mentor, and I will always be grateful for her guidance.”
Writers who have acknowledged Kathryn’s influence include Mark Haddon, who wrote, “The structure of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time owes a great deal to Kathryn Heyman, with whom I was teaching a course. She was talking to the students about structure… as she spoke, the heavens parted and angels sang”. As journalist Caroline Baum wrote, “Wherever you are in the process, Kathryn is a wizard at getting you unstuck… she makes it seem fun but has such a deep lasting impact..”