Adelaide Writers' Week
Adelaide Writers' Week, known locally as Writers' Week or WW, is a large and mostly free literary festival held annually in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia in February and March. It forms part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts and comes under its governance. Writers' Week is held outdoors in the Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden, where attendees meet, listen, and discuss literature with Australian and international writers in "Meet the Author" sessions, readings, and lectures.
Each Adelaide Writers' Week includes six days of free panel-sessions presented live in the gardens, later made available online via podcast. Selected sessions are shown live via videolink in some libraries. There are also free events for children and young adults, at which children's authors present their work for a range of ages, and other activities take place. The programme also features a series of ticketed special events, both at Adelaide Festival time and throughout the year.
History
The first Adelaide Writers' Week was held in 1960 as part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts, biennially in March. It is the longest-running dedicated writers' festival in Australia. The first event was organised by a committee headed by state librarian Hedley Brideson, in collaboration with the Fellowship of Australian Writers. Initially intended as a forum for writers, the event soon became popular with the public, in particular when guests included famous writers such as Russian poet Yevgeni Yevtushenko in 1966, followed in the early 1970s by Anthony Burgess, Edna O'Brien, John Updike, and Allen Ginsberg. In those years it was held at the State Library and University of Adelaide, which proved too small to accommodate audiences, so in 1976 was moved to the Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden, alongside King William Road next to the Torrens Parade Ground. At this time, the event took place under one tent.The event soon grew, and publishers were drawn by the commercial opportunities. In 1986 a second tent was added to allow two sessions to run contemporaneously. From 2012, along with the Festival, Writers' Week became an annual event, based on an election promise by Premier Mike Rann.
In some years, WW has been dedicated to a writer; these have included Colin Thiele, Thomas Shapcott, Margo Lanagan, Christopher Koch, Judith Wright, Jessica Anderson, A. D. Hope, and Alexis Wright.
It has grown bigger year by year. In 2014, graphic novels and comics, represented by their authors
and illustrators, were showcased in a dedicated one-day program.
At the 2023 edition, three authors, Ukrainian-born Australian, Maria Tumarkin, along with Ukrainian writers Olesya Khromeychuk and Kateryna Babkina, withdrew, owing to the inclusion of Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa, who had shared a tweet from Vladimir Putin saying which included the words "DeNazify Ukraine". Three large sponsors subsequently withdrew their support for the festival.
In its 40th edition in 2025, Writers' Week was attended by around 160,000 over the six days, breaking previous records.
2026 boycott
On 8 January 2026, the Adelaide Festival Board announced that Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah's scheduled appearance at AWW had been cancelled, following a request from the Jewish Community Council of South Australia, due to concerns over "cultural sensitivity", following the December 2025 Bondi Beach shooting. Abdel-Fattah has frequently criticised Israel. The board's decision was supported by state premier Peter Malinauskas. There was immediate and strong backlash from writers and the public to this decision. After 180 participants, 6 of 7 board members, and the festival director had withdrawn or resigned, the event was completely cancelled on 13 January, with a new AF board announced later that day, led by former chair Judy Potter.A one-off festival titled Constellations is being organised by Writers SA, independent publisher Pink Shorts Press, and other community groups. An afternoon event featuring former Greek Finance Minister and author Yanis Varoufakis, along with former Greens leader Bob Brown and others, was announced on 28 January.
Description
Writers' Week is a mostly free daytime week-long literary festival held mostly outdoors in the shady Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden, north of Adelaide CBD. A few sessions have been held indoors in the evening, usually themed events with a panel of authors on stage. It is considered one of the world's pre-eminent literary events, described by literary magazine Kill Your Darlings as "Arguably Australia’s most exciting and influential writers' festival". In 2022, 180 writers presented sessions: 119 in-person and 25 virtually.A major event, it is a part of the Adelaide Festival and run by a dedicated Writers' Week director. Each Adelaide Writers' Week includes six days of free panel sessions presented live in the gardens. After each presentation, audience members are encouraged to ask questions, and lively debate sometimes ensues.
Each day starts with "Breakfast with Papers" in the West Tent, at 8am, sponsored by The Advertiser and hosted by journalists from Guardian Australia and the ABC. In 2024 this was hosted by Tory Shepherd of The Guardian and Jonathan Green of ABC Radio National. The programme also features a series of ticketed special events, both at festival time and throughout the year, and there is a free "Kids' Weekend", at which children's authors present their work for a range of ages and other activities are held. In recent years, Saturday sessions in the Torrens Tent have been for younger children, while Sundays present books and authors for young adults. "Twilight Talks" are presented at 6:30 on some days for people who cannot get to the festival.
For those who are unable to attend the event, all East Stage sessions are livestreamed in some libraries, community centres, schools, aged care communities, and retirement villages. In 2022, 111 locations were covered. From 2021, the "Curated Dozen" – 13 sessions – were made available to be livestreamed at home on a pay-what-you-can basis. In addition, since 2021, most of the presentations have later been made available online via podcast.
In conjunction with Writers, Week, Writers SA hosts workshops for Adelaide writers, with visiting authors as special guests to help provide guidance.
Media coverage and advertising of the event is widespread across major media outlets as well as social media, and was estimated to reach a cumulative audience of more than 116 million people in 2022.
As well as being good entertainment for patrons, the festival has become an increasingly important marketing venue for publishers as well as authors. Representatives from major publishers around the world attend the event. Authors sign their books at scheduled times outside the Book Tent, where books by all attending authors are on sale. In 2024 there are three stages: East, West, and North Stages, as well as the Book Tent and the Torrens Tent. Beverages and food are on sale in a separate tent, and there is a block of many portaloos. Plastic chairs are provided for the audiences, and events are run at all stages throughout each day of the festival. The programme is published in hardcopy and online before the event
Sponsorship of the event has varied through the years. In 1990, the major sponsors were the Literature Board of the Australia Council and SGIC; in 2024, major partners were the Government of South Australia, Adelaide Economic Development Agency, City of Adelaide, 9News, University of Adelaide, ECH, and The Advertiser, with additional sponsorship by a number of commercial sponsors and cultural institutions.
Awards
MUD Literary Prize
The MUD Literary Prize has been awarded to an emerging talent for a debut novel at Writers' Week each year since 2018, and the MUD Literary Club, a philanthropic organisation dedicated to Australian literature, also sponsors an established author as well as an emerging author at the event each year.Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature
The biennial Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature were created by the Government of South Australia in 1986, and awarded during Writers' Week. The State Library of South Australia took over administration of the awards from Arts South Australia in 2020, and ran the event for two years, during which they were run at 4pm on the last day of Writers' Week. Library director Geoff Strempel felt that the awards should be uncoupled from the event in order to give them greater prominence, in line with interstate equivalents, and so rebranded the awards the South Australian Literaray Awards, with the inaugural event taking place in October 2024.Directors
In the early years, the role of director of Writers' Week had various titles: in 1990, Angela Dawes was "Writers' Week Coordinator" and in 2008 Rose Wight was "executive producer".Directors of Writers' Week have included:
- Angela Dawes
- Rose Wight
- Laura Kroetsch
- Jo Dyer
- Louise Adler
Featured writers by year