2026 Festival

Speaker Profile

Clare Stephens

Clare Stephens is a Sydney-based author, screenwriter, and podcaster. Her bestselling debut novel, The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done, was published in 2025. Her writing appears in Good WeekendThe Sydney Morning HeraldSunday Life, and The Age. She hosts The Pile-On podcast and is a writer and producer on the Logie-nominated Binge series Strife. Clare was formerly the editor-in-chief at Mamamia – Australia’s largest independent women’s network. 

Social Media: Force For Good Or Engine Of Division

Friday April 24
The Ballroom, The Continental
10.30am / 60 mins

Richard King, Ruby Kraner-Tucci, Clare Stephens and Thomas Mayo with Laura Macdonald

Via our phones and laptops, we can alienate, divide, polarise and cancel out. We can also bring people together, build social and political activism,  and amplify marginalised voices. Our panel discusses. 


Podcasting Mania: Has it reshaped the media landscape?

Friday April 24
Ellen Grant Hall
3.00pm / 60 mins

Monica Attard, Mark Kenny and Clare Stephens with Libbi Gorr

Urgency Of The Here And Now: How the modern world inspires our writing

Friday April 24
Hotel Sorrento (Cooper Room)
4.30pm / 60 mins

Evelyn Araluen, Clare Stephens and Sarah Walker with Katrina Strickland