Cassie McCullagh

Well, Kate Evans, it's a week on since the Sydney Writers' Festival.

I'm almost over my hangovers.

LAUGHTER

You must be breathing a sigh of relief after all the sessions that you did.

You did four different sessions.

Yeah, you love that book.

It sure sounds like it would make me cry too.

But, Kate, of course, this time last week we were on stage with our guests for the Bookshelf Live from the Sydney Writers' Festival.

We had Jennifer Egan, author of Manhattan Beach, Tayari Jones, who wrote An American Marriage, and Junot Diaz, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Something quite shocking happened with Junot Diaz.

It was at another session.

You happened to be there in the audience with...

What happened?

How did it unfold?

Yeah, well, a sad event for everyone involved and a lot's been said, a lot more will be said and I guess we'll follow that.

The Hub on Books with Claire Nicholls touched on that this week as well.

But Kate, that aside, the festival was a great success, hundreds of events.

What was the highlight for you?

It's like the biggest cryptic crossword of all time to have pulled that off.

What about you though, Cassie?