‘If it was the board’s decision, why did half its members resign?’: Boycotting author reflects on Writers’ Week wake |
In the wake of the Adelaide Writers’ Week fallout, local author and InReview editor Walter Marsh tells how “this episode has left our small literary pond feeling just as sick” as the algal bloom threatening the state’s tourism industry.
For most weeks of the year, writers and readers on Kaurna Yarta know we’re a long way from the centre of the literary universe. But we keep at it, writing our stories and building community until those few days in February and March when Adelaide Writers’ Week brings the world’s biggest fish to our small pond.
Even beyond Adelaide, Writers’ Week is widely regarded as a dream festival for authors and audiences alike; a free, open-air festival, where people of all ages listen, engage, ask long-winded questions, and open their wallets in the book tent. It’s the kind of generous public good that would never get greenlit today – six days devoted to late capitalism’s most devalued activities: reading, listening, and thinking.
It was a privilege to finally share those garden stages and join those conversations after the publication of my first book in 2024. I returned as a moderator in 2025, and was set to appear again this March across three slots including a session on my latest book.
Over at InReview, we already had a pipeline of planned coverage of both Adelaide Writers’ Week and the broader festival.
Then, on Thursday January 8, the Adelaide Festival Board announced it had summarily removed Palestinian Australian author and academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from the lineup – citing ‘cultural sensitivity’ following the Bondi terror attack. My colleagues at InDaily have comprehensively reported the board’s statement and its fallout.
No one has suggested the two Bondi gunmen were........