Adelaide Writers’ Week reveals full 2025 program
The schedule for Writers’ Week has been released, with 231 writers and eight live recordings of some of the country’s most popular podcasts.
This year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week will take place from March 1-6 at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden with the theme “Words Matter”.
There are 231 writers across 140 free sessions and 11 ticketed events for this year’s festival including already-announced authors Helen Garner, Geraldine Brooks, Tim Winton and Marcus Zusak.
Among the ticketed events are eight sessions under the new Podfestinitiative curated by ABC Manager of Podcasts Monique Bowley. The program includes live recordings of high-ranking podcasts including Ladies, We Need to Talk with Yumi Stynes, Matt Bevan’s If You’re Listening and Mundanara Bayles’ award-winning podcast Black Magic Woman.
Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler. Photo: Kristoffer Paulsen
This is the fourth year the literary festival has been curated by former publisher Louise Adler AM, with the festival announcing she’ll lead the 2026 edition as well.
You might like
Adelaide Festival Chair Tracey Whiting said Adler’s “expertise, insight, and exceptional curatorial instinct have been instrumental in elevating Adelaide Writers’ Week to new heights”.
Adler said curating Writers’ Week is “a privilege”.
“This year writers will join us from around the world for six days and nights of conversations about the way we live, love and work in these tumultuous times,” she said.
“On the agenda – the state of the nation, the world and ourselves. Novelists, poets, scriptwriters, essayists, academics, intellectuals and journalists will share with us their latest books, the issues that keep them up at night and where they find moments of solace.”
Subscribe for updates
Making sense of some of the biggest headlines of the past year include podcast host Kara Swisher on Elon Musk, inside Silicon Valley and the legacy of tech bros, and The Chairman’s Lounge author Joe Aston on the “delusion, greed and shameless profiteering” that brought Qantas down.
Award-winning non-fiction author Helen Garner will talk about her latest book The Season, in a session on the theatre of footy and masculinity and bestselling author of Love & Virtue Diana Reid will talk about her third novel Signs of Damage, memory and morality.
Annabel Crabb and David Marr captain teams in the Great Debate, tackling whether “true friends stab you in the front” with former defence minister Christopher Pyne, Nick Ryan, Louise Milligan and John Crace.
Markus Zusak is also scheduled to speak with Nicole Abadee about how his family has taken on three feral dogs over the years in Dog Days, a free session on the East Stage on Sunday, March 2. This picture: supplied.
In ticketed events, New Yorker editor David Remnick will join ABC’s Sarah Ferguson to discuss a Trump redux and the United States’ place in the world and Marcus Zusak celebrates 20 years since The Book Thief was published, reflecting on why it resonates today.
Before this year’s festival officially opens on March 1, Writers’ Week will offer Schools Day on Friday, February 28 with sessions specifically for primary and secondary students.
Sunday, March 2 is also packed with sessions for newer bookworms dubbed Young Readers’ Day. This includes a kids program filled with picture books and sessions targeted at middle-grade and young adult readers such as “Is My Phone Reading My Mind” with Dr Matt Agnew and “Talking About Love” with Sophie Gonzales, Erin Gough and Anthony Nocera.
In new talent, the 2025 MUD Literary Prize for best debut novel by an Australian writer will be presented on Monday, March 3 on the west stage. Previous winners of the prize include Pip Williams for The Dictionary of Lost Words and Trent Dalton for Boy Swallows Universe.
The Stella Prize longlist will also be announced at the festival on the north stage on Tuesday, March 4.
Adelaide Writers’ Week 2025 will take place from March 1-6 at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden.
The full Writers’ Week program is available to view online via the Adelaide Festival website.