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Bestselling author Kate Mildenhall knows how to craft speculative fiction about big tech that terrifies and comforts the reader in the same breath. She leads Booker-shortlisted author Steve Toltz and debut sensation Mary Colussi in an astute conversation about AI, authorship and just how afraid we should be.In Touch Grass, Colussi drives us to the extreme possibilities of our present moment, tracing the chronic disembodiment of Charlie — a young woman who deletes other people’s worst moments for a living — as her own consciousness starts spontaneously ejecting from her body.
Meanwhile, Toltz’s protagonist in A Rising of the Lights loses his job to an AI system, inciting an audacious comic lament for a world that no longer knows itself.
*The Baroque Room is an over-18s venue, and children are strictly not permitted.
KEY INFO
Date: Sunday, 1 November 2026
Time: 11:30-12:30pm
Venue: The Baroque Room, The Carrington Hotel
Tickets & More Info: https://www.bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au/events/big-scary-tech
Steve Toltz is the author of A Fraction of the Whole, which was published in 2008. His second novel Quicksand was winner of the 2017 Russell Prize for Humour. His third novel, Here Goes Nothing, was published in May of 2022. His fourth novel, A Rising of the Lights, was published in April 2026.
Mary Colussi is an Australian American writer whose debut novel Touch Grass won the 2025 Penguin Literary Prize and was published by Penguin Random House in 2026.
Kate Mildenhall is the author of Skylarking, The Mother Fault, The Hummingbird Effect and The Hiding Place. In 2024 she released a children's book To Stir With Love, illustrated by Jess Racklyeft. For six years she co-hosted The First Time podcast, interviewing hundreds of writers.
This event is part of the 2026 Blue Mountains Writers Festival, head to bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au for more information.
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Event venue
The Carrington Hotel, 15 Katoomba St, Katoomba NSW 2780, Australia, Katoomba
Tickets
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