The 2026 Byron Writers Festival opens on Bundjalung Country on August 14 with a Calling to Country led by local Arakwal Bundjalung custodian, Delta Kay, who will share her knowledge and connection to land and waters that have sustained her community for generations. It will be a moment of welcome that sets the tone for the coming three days.
Inaugural Rhoda Roberts Oration
This year also marks the inaugural Rhoda Roberts Oration, honouring the late, beloved Rhoda Roberts AO, a proud Widjabul Wiyebal woman of the Bundjalung nation and a visionary cultural leader whose wisdom, wit and generosity in sharing culture remain a gift to all who knew her.
The Oration will be delivered by renowned playwright, theatre director and Chair of Creative Australia, proud Quandamooka man Wesley Enoch, and hosted by Naomi Moran, a Dunghutti and Nyangbal/Arakwal woman of the Bundjalung nation and NSW Treaty Commissioner. Together they will celebrate Rhoda Roberts’ legacy of telling First Nations stories on the global stage, her commitment to truth in media, and her tireless work as a mentor who brought community together.
The inaugural Rhoda Roberts Oration stands as a tribute to one of Australia’s most significant cultural voices.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
