2024 Festival Highlights | Maria Ressa: How to Stand Up to a Dictator

2024 Festival Highlights | Maria Ressa: How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Author: Ubud Writers & Readers Festival November 28, 2024 Duration: 1:04:30

In this first episode, Nobel Prize–winning author and journalist Maria Ressa explores the impact of social media on journalism, the fight for press freedom, and the need for ethical storytelling in a fractured world, moderated by Janet Steele.

In an era of disinformation and heightened political tensions, Maria explains in this clip how lies spread faster than truths and how these platforms are being used on a grand scale as manipulation tools by authoritarian regimes.

To watch the full session, visit our website at ubudwritersfestival.com/media, or click the link in our bio to listen to this session on podcast platforms Spotify and Simplecast.

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There’s a particular energy that fills the air during the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival Podcast, a feeling of being part of a vital, global conversation. Produced by the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival team, this series captures the essence of the annual gathering, preserving its most compelling dialogues for anyone who couldn’t be there in person or who wants to revisit a moment of insight. Each episode is drawn from the festival’s 2025 highlights program, featuring a rich mix of local and international voices from the worlds of literature, art, and social thought. What you’ll hear are not just interviews, but genuine, meandering conversations where ideas collide-discussions that grapple with history, dissect our current realities, and thoughtfully consider how the stories we tell influence what comes next. This podcast serves as an invitation to linger in those spaces where writing meets activism, where personal narrative intersects with culture, and where reflection sparks new understanding. It’s for anyone curious about the power of words and the people who wield them to shape our collective future. Tune in for a dose of intellectual vitality and the kind of authentic exchange that makes the Ubud festival a landmark event.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Ubud Writers & Readers Festival Podcast
Podcast Episodes
#UWRF23 Festival Highlights | Unsettling Colonial Structures [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:03
Revisit our 2023 Festival highlight conversation recorded live at Indus Restaurant. Listen as Professors Aaron Corn, Marcia Langton, and Todung Mulya Lubis join Katie Carr to discuss their personal approaches on how indi…
#UWRF23 Festival Highlights | High Tea Book Club [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:06
On this week's 2023 highlight conversation program, watch the Festival High Tea Book Club recorded live at Ubud's most iconic hotel Amandari with host Laksmi DeNeefe Suardana and dazzling female guests Tracey Lien, Claud…
#UWRF23 Festival Highlights | Geetanjali Shree's Literary Reflections [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:46
In an extraordinary conversation, eminent Indian author and Hindi language novelist Geetanjali Shree takes the stage to reflect on her literary journey. Winner of the International Booker Prize for her recently translate…
#UWRF23 Festival Highlights | Geraldine Brooks – Horse [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:07
For our next 2023 Festival Live-Recorded highlight conversation, listen to Geraldine Brooks, an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, as she discusses her recent novel 'Horse' with Australian journalist Leigh Sales.…
#UWRF23 Festival Highlights | Journey to Freedom [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:36
In a compassionate conversation, Cuban American artist Edel Rodriguez, Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani, and Indonesian artist Agus Nur Amal (PM Toh) speak of their personal experience as refugees. Appearing i…
#UWRF23 Festival Highlights | Women Shaping Indonesian Literature [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:30
Listen to another of the highlight conversation recorded live from the 2023 Festival featuring Intan Paramaditha, Dee Lestari, and Lala Bohang. These three Indonesian literary powerhouses spearhead the Indonesian literar…