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Podcast: Bill Hayes: I’ve Been Away for a While

A few months before he died at 82…Oliver [Sacks] looked up from his notepad one evening in our apartment and said to me: ‘The most we can do is to write – intelligently, creatively, critically, evocatively – about what it is like living in the world at this time.’ So, I did.

– Bill Hayes

The last few years have changed us all in profound ways. How have we been surprised, unsettled and enlivened as we return to once-familiar relationships, routines and realities? How are storytellers making sense of how life has changed?

Listen to author and photographer Bill Hayes (Insomniac City, Sweat) as he shares his experiences of living in New York City throughout the pandemic, and how our cities are like our bodies. He also shares a note he received from a reader in a remote part of Australia that illuminated the power of stories to leap across time and space to connect strangers, intimately and empathetically.

Recorded live at Melbourne Writers Festival 2023 

This event was supported through the Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund – a $200 million partnership of the Victorian Government and the City of Melbourne.

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