Adelaide Writers' Week Goes Global at Hay Festival

Adelaide Writers’ Week has announced an exclusive partnership with Hay Festival, another of the world’s most celebrated festivals, which takes place in Hay-on-Wye in Wales in the UK. This May, four sessions showcasing the work of some of Australia’s foremost writers will take place at the annual Hay Festival, thanks to both state and federal government funding.

Director of Adelaide Writers’ Week Louise Adler AM said: “It is a privilege for Adelaide Writers’ Week – the first and only Australian festival to which Hay has extended this invitation – to be able to showcase some of Australia’s finest writers in an event once described by former US President Bill Clinton as ‘Woodstock for the mind’. We are delighted to be bringing the Antipodes to the UK, to present the rich diversity of our literary culture. We thank our government partners for their support in assisting us to amplify our voices on an international stage, while our own tents are packed away for another year.”

Hay Festival’s special Adelaide Writers’ Week sessions include Australia and China: Maverick or Model? featuring Australian Financial Review’s International Editor James Curran, former Australian Prime Minister and current Ambassador of Australia to the United States Kevin Rudd and deputy Beijing bureau chief at the Financial Times Yuan Yang; The Power of Words with novelist Pip Williams in conversation with Adelaide Writers’ Week Director Louise Adler; journalist David Marr and award-winning author, filmmaker and host of ABC Radio National’s Speaking Out Larissa Behrendt discussing the brutal truth of Australia’s past in Massacre on the Australian Frontier; and a showcase of two of Australia’s leading First Nations poets Jazz Money and Ellen van Neerven in Always Was, Always Will Be.

Federal Minister for Arts Tony Burke MP said: “Adelaide Writers’ Week has always been bigger than just one city – bringing together voices and stories from around Australia, our region and the world. It’s fitting that those voices and stories are now shared on the world stage. Sharing Australian stories helps us to learn about ourselves, understand each other and let the world get to know us.”

South Australian Minister for Arts Andrea Michaels MP said: “Adelaide Writers’ Week is an extraordinary event on South Australia’s artistic calendar and through this exclusive partnership with Hay Festival, we have an opportunity to showcase the brilliance of Australian literary minds, including South Australia’s own Pip Williams, to an international audience. The Malinauskas Government is a proud ongoing supporting partner of both Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week and congratulates them on this outstanding invitation.”

Founded in 1987, Hay Festival has grown from a community event to a series of major international festivals that take place annually across the globe. The 11-day festival in Hay-on-Wye is the largest and regularly presents over 500 of the world’s leading writers and artists in 650 events each year, attracting audiences of 278,000 to the small rural community of Hay-on-Wye. 

Hay Festival takes place 23 May – 2 June, 2024

Adelaide Writers’ Week will next be held 1 – 6 March, 2025