Sydney Writers' Festival

Literary festival

May

Annual

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

27

1997

300

100,000

http://www.swf.org.au

1997–2000:

Geraldine Doogue

Late 2000–Dec 2011: AO

Sandra Yates

Jan 2012–Jan 2018: Deena Shiff

Feb 2018– : Mark Scott

1999 – ,[7] and Peter Porter[8]

Alan Duff

2002 – ,[9] Lloyd Jones, Giles Milton and Neil Hanson[10]

Jodi Picoult

2003 – , Jonathan Franzen, Catherine Millet, Janette Turner Hospital, Nicholas Shakespeare, and CK Stead[11]

Antony Beevor

2004 – , Alain de Botton, Hilary Mantel, Tim Krabbe, Susanna Moore, Jane Campion, Louis de Bernières, Salam Pax, John W. Dean, Harvey Pekar, Alexei Sayle, ZZ Packer, and David Sedaris[12]

Alan Bennett

2005 – , Alan Hollinghurst, Deirdre Bair, Professor Harold Bloom, Tariq Ali, David Suzuki, Jared Diamond, Suad Amiry, Michael Winter, Colin McAdam and Miriam Toews[13]

Lewis Lapham

2006 – , Anna Politkovskaya, Michael Burleigh, Andy Borowitz, Susan Orlean, Aleksandar Hemon, Hendrik Hertzberg, Mark Danner, Haifa Zangana, John Banville, Edmund White, and Maya Angelou[14]

Naomi Wolf

2007 – , Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bei Dao, Will Hutton, Antony Beevor, William Dalyrmple, Lionel Shriver, Richard Ford, Andrei Makine, Rachel Seiffert, Mohsin Hamid and Steven Hall[15]

Andrew O'Hagan

2008 – , Andrew J. Bacevich, Michael Pollan, John Gray, and Jeanette Winterson[16]

Jon Lee Anderson

2009 – , Alex Ross, and Kazuo Ishiguro[17]

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2010 – , Colm Tóibín, Lionel Shriver, Yiyun Li, John Ralston Saul, Bill McKibben, and Raj Patel[18]

John Carey

2011 – , Howard Jacobson, A. A. Gill, Anthony Bourdain, Téa Obreht, Izzeldin Abuelaish, Kei Miller, Kader Abdolah, Michael Cunningham, David Mitchell, AC Grayling, Michael Connelly, Gail Dines, and Daniel Altman

Ingrid Betancourt

2012 – , Jeffrey Eugenides, Dava Sobel[19]

Hisham Matar

2013 – , Ruby Wax, Claire Messud[20]

Molly Ringwald

2014 – , Vince Gilligan, Alice Walker

Irvine Welsh

2015 – , Anthony Horowitz, Douglas Coupland, Norman Doidge, Alan Cumming, Atul Gawande, David Walliams, Michael Frayn, James Patterson (out of season event)

Michael Connelly

2016 – , Jonathan Franzen, Marlon James, Julian Barnes, William Boyd, Jeanette Winterson, Kae Tempest, Yanis Varoufakis, Hanya Yanagihara, Paul Muldoon, Yeonmi Park

Gloria Steinem

2017 – , Henry Marsh, Ian Rankin, George Saunders, A. N. Wilson[21]

Anne Enright

2018 – , Min Jin Lee, Alexis Okeowo, Masha Gessen, Jennifer Egan, Tayari Jones

André Aciman

2019 – , Rachel Kushner, Susan Orlean, George Saunders, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Meg Wolitzer, Akala, Andrew Sean Greer, Alexander Chee

Fatima Bhutto

Past guests have included:

1997 – ,[1] Andrew McGahan, Matthew Condon, Bernard Cohen, Christos Tsiolkas, Gillian Mears[2]

Robert Dessaix

2001 – [22]

Lee Tulloch

2002 – , Bernard Cohen[10]

Geoffrey Atherden

2003 – , David Malouf, Danny Katz, Louis Nowra[11]

Sonya Hartnett

2005 – and John Kinsella[13]

Bob Carr

2006 – , Robert Drewe, Kate Grenville, Les Murray, Tegan Bennett Daylight, Peter Singer, Tim Flannery, Gail Jones[14]

Alex Miller

2007 – [15]

Raimond Gaita

2008 – , Peter van Onselen, Michelle de Kretser, Gail Jones, Drusilla Modjeska[16]

Mem Fox

2009 –

Elizabeth Farrelly

2010 – , Les Murray, Alex Miller, Ross Garnaut, Clive Hamilton[18]

Peter Carey

2011 – , Annette Shun Wah, David Hicks

Suelette Dreyfus

2012 – [23]

Kathy Lette

2013 – ,[20] Elizabeth Farrelly, Claudia Karvan,

Brendan Cowell

2014 – , Michelle de Kretser, Robert Dessaix

Christos Tsiolkas

2015 – , Annabel Crabb, Leigh Sales, Helen Garner, David Malouf, Les Murray, Andy Griffiths, Julia Gillard

Richard Flanagan

2016 – , Anna Funder, Magda Szubanski, Stan Grant, Kerry O'Brien, Bob Brown, Charlotte Wood

Elizabeth Harrower

2017 – , Jimmy Barnes, Peter Corris, Clementine Ford, Liane Moriarty[21]

Julia Baird

2018 – , Jane Harper, Helen Garner, Christos Tsiolkas, Julia Gillard

Michelle de Kretser

2019

2021- , Tara June Winch, Evelyn Araluen (Opening Night)

Melissa Lucashenko

2022

2023 - , Patrick Abboud, Thomas Hedley, Kate McClymont, Ghassan Hage

Alexis Wright

2011 'Perish the thought'

James Gleick

2012

Dava Sobel

2013 [20]

Claire Messud

2014

Emma Donoghue

2015

Helen Macdonald

2016

Hanya Yanagihara

2017 [24]

Susan Faludi

2018

Jennifer Egan

2019

Fatima Bhutto

2020

2021

2022

2023 Richard Flanagan

Organisational structure[edit]

The festival is led by CEO Brooke Webb and programmed by the Artistic Director, Michael Williams.[25]

List of festivals in Australia

New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards

Man Booker International Prize – 2011

Sydney Writers Walk

Official Sydney Writers' Festival Site

Sydney Writers' Festival – Katoomba Program