Literary Festivals
Australia’s arts calendar is full of writers’ festivals and literary events large and small, across the country and throughout the year which showcase authors and their books. Here are a selection of the major events across mainland Australia:
As part of Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Writers’ Week is Australia’s largest free literary festival, offering both writers and readers a unique opportunity to spend time sharing ideas and literary explorations in a garden setting in Adelaide’s city centre. Each carefully selected program brings the world’s most celebrated established and emerging writers together for a week that delights, surprises and enlightens audiences.
More than any other Australian festival of its kind, it offers a place for cultural and intellectual nourishment, a sense of gathering and of community, led by the inspired programming of directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy.
Brisbane Writers Festival champions curiosity and creativity in Queensland, connecting and growing Queensland’s reading and writing communities through transformative cultural experiences that elevate the vitality of the literary arts and contribute to dynamic public conversation. The Brisbane Writers Festival, presented each September, welcomes thousands of readers, writers and thought-leaders to ignite imaginations, ask big questions, showcase literature, and celebrate stories in all forms.
At BWF our aim is connect Queenslanders through story, celebrate leading writers and thinkers from around the world and inspire deep thought and curiosity. For the past 58 years Brisbane Writers Festival has been bringing communities together to debate, share experiences and celebrate the power and wonder of literature.
Since 2016, the Canberra Writers Festival has been bringing together the best Australian and international writers, thinkers and social and political commentators. The festival is now part of the Canberra community’s cultural fabric – a world-class literary event, feeding an inherent love of words, ideas and debate and showcasing the city.
One of Australia’s most loved literary institutions, Melbourne Writers Festival brings writers and readers together to be inspired, challenged and thrilled by an intelligent, rousing and diverse program of events celebrating books and ideas.
Since 1986, we have entertained hundreds of thousands of readers as the flagship annual writers festival of our UNESCO City of Literature. MWF ignites conversations across Melbourne and inspires curiosity and connection.
The NT Writers Festival is the Northern Territory’s premier literary showcase. Held alternately in Mparntwe | Alice Springs and Garrmalang | Darwin, it is a festival like no other: bringing readers, writers and storytellers together in an annual celebration of ideas, words, stories and languages that showcases our unique NT culture and rich First Nations heritage.
Our programs aim to unearth new talent, provide development opportunities, and amplify First Nations and diverse NT voices and stories.
Since 1953, Perth Festival has seeded and cultivated decades of cultural growth as the oldest arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere. It is Australia’s premier curated multi-arts festival and one of the greatest in the world, known for commissioning major new works, celebrating the unique qualities of Perth and engaging diverse audiences.
Our aspiration is to create a Festival for all – to present art that speaks to many, which balances popularity with integrity and creates an inescapable sense of celebration for everyone.
Sydney Writers’ Festival is one of the world’s leading and most beloved literary institutions. It is a place for readers, writers and thinkers to share ideas, tell stories and celebrate literature.
Since our first Festival in 1997, we have brought thousands of diverse writers and thinkers from Australia and around the globe together in Sydney. In the company of the world’s best novelists, poets, journalists, public intellectuals, economists, politicians, podcasters and scientists, we’ve discussed some of the most pressing issues of our times. We’ve celebrated prize-winning authors, long-awaited novels from writers at the height of their careers, and have introduced debut authors to eager and enthusiastic new audiences.