Flawed heroes, bad mothers, and a party in peril - any Canberran can tell you that there are politics, and then there are politics.
But throw in a wounded dictator, the future of AI and an animated blue heeler beloved the world over, and you have yourself a writers festival.
The Canberra Writers Festival, that is, one that, for several years, has been presented under the banner of Power, Politics, Passion.
This year, new artistic director Beejay Silcox is casting the net wide, from Bluey to Putin, Stan Grant to Kate Grenville.
"I chose to interpret politics in its broadest possible sense," she said, in announcing the 2023 program.
"Cultural politics, the politics of life, the politics of bodies, the politics of being in the world. I think that's a really exciting sense of what politics is, that moves far beyond the bounds of Parliament House."
This year's lineup includes more than 120 writers and thinkers, around half of whom are Canberra-based, with only one session held over zoom, a far cry from the last couple of COVID-affected years that saw programs weighed down by virtual events.
There'll be 74 events, including 12 masterclasses, six literary lunches, two "bookish breakfasts", a folk concert, a gala dinner and Canberra's Biggest bookclub, featuring the 2022 novel Bad Art Mother by Edwina Preston.
One of the hottest drawcards will be The Joyful Genius of Bluey, a conversation between Silcox and the show's creator Joe Brumm.
"I think it's some of the most resonant writing in the country and I think it would be a real cultural snobbery to not just admit that it's beautiful and crafted so thoughtfully and compassionately," Silcox said of the blue cartoon juggernaut.
"It has this capacity to represent us to the world just so beautifully, and yet it's something so intrinsically Australian about the way that we make our families and the way we play."
Another big drawcard - and the only author appearing via Zoom - will be American writer Lauren Groff, the author of several novels, including Barack Obama's 2015 favourite Fates and Furies.
And, in this year of the Voice, there will also be more than a dozen events across the program that featuring Indigenous creators, including lawyer Megan Davis, non-binary writer Ellen van Neerven and poet Evelyn Araluen.
"The place that First Nations storytelling has at the heart of the festival is something I'm really proud of," Silcox said.
"A celebration of First Nations storytelling, as opposed to a litigation of the Voice - I think that's deeply important."
And while 25 of the new books in the program are fiction, the rest are non-fiction, which, Ms Silcox said, was "a proportion that reflects the idea-hunger of Canberra readers".
"I wanted to have things about voluntary assisted dying and medical misogyny and how we grapple with our technology and how we even speak to one another and the language of virtue and vice and all of those things which are so intrinsic in what it means to be part of a city and part of who we are as Canberrans," Ms Silcox said.
"The thing I wanted to do - and I've said all along - is I wanted this program to be a mirror that this city would see itself reflected back in all of its beautiful colour.
"I wanted queer Canberra and First Nations Canberra and romance-loving fiction Canberra and political boffin Canberra and idea-hungry Canberra, all of those things to feel like they found a place for themselves in this festival."
- The Canberra Writers Festival is on August 16-20. Program at canberrawritersfestival.com.au
