Sydney Writers' Festival is an annual literary festival held in the Australian city of Sydney. The Festival's artistic director is Michaela McGuire.
The festival began in January 1997, with most events initially held at the State Library of New South Wales. The first independent Sydney Writers' Festival ran from 12-17 May 1998, with 169 participants appearing in venues in, and around, the centre of Sydney.
Since then, the festival has rapidly expanded. Held mid-to-late May each year, the festival now involves over 400 participants and presents over 300 events in renovated piers in Walsh Bay, Sydney. Other festival locations include Sydney Theatre, Sydney Town Hall, City Recital Hall, and Sydney Opera House. Events are also regularly held in regional and suburban locations including Parramatta, Ashfield, Auburn, Blacktown, Bankstown, Campbelltown, Hornsby, Penrith, the Blue Mountains, and Wollongong.
Approximately one third of all Sydney Writers' Festival events are free of charge. Festival attendances have reached over 80,000 each year since 2007.
Sydney Writers' Festival Limited is a not-for-profit company with an independent board of directors. The inaugural Chair of the Festival was Geraldine Doogue, who held the position for three years. Sandra Yates AO became Chair in late 2000, retiring on 31 December 2011. Deena Shiff became Chair on 1 January 2012. The Festival Director in 1998 was John Nieuwenhuizen, with Meredith Curnow the Program Director. Meredith Curnow became Festival Director for the period 1999-2002. Caro Llewellyn was Artistic Director and Chief Executive from 2003-2006. Wendy Were was Artistic Director and CEO for the three festivals, from 2007-2009. Chip Rolley became the festival's Artistic Director in the middle of 2009, programming the 2010, 2011 and 2012 festivals. Jemma Birrell was the festival's Artistic Director for the four festivals 2013-2016. In 2016, Michaela McGuire was appointed as the festival's new Artistic Director. Ben Strout was the festival's Executive Director from 2009-2014. The festival appointed Jo Dyer as Executive Director in 2015; she was promoted to CEO in November 2016 and also joined the board of directors.
Past guests have included:
1999 – Alan Duff, and Peter Porter
2002 – Jodi Picoult, Lloyd Jones, Giles Milton and Neil Hanson
2003 – Antony Beevor, Jonathan Franzen, Catherine Millet, Janette Turner Hospital, Nicholas Shakespeare, and CK Stead
2004 – Alan Bennett, 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
2005 – Lewis Lapham, Alan Hollinghurst, Deirdre Bair, Professor Harold Bloom, Tariq Ali, David Suzuki, Jared Diamond, Suad Amiry, Michael Winter, Colin McAdam and Miriam Toews
2006 – Naomi Wolf, Anna Politkovskaya, Michael Burleigh, Andy Borowitz, Susan Orlean, Aleksandar Hemon, Hendrik Hertzberg, Mark Danner, Haifa Zangana, John Banville, Edmund White, and Maya Angelou
2007 – Andrew O'Hagan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bei Dao, Will Hutton, Antony Beevor, William Dalyrmple, Lionel Shriver, Richard Ford, Andrei Makine, Rachel Seiffert, Mohsin Hamid and Steven Hall
2008 – Jon Lee Anderson, Andrew J. Bacevich, Michael Pollan, John Gray, and Jeanette Winterson
2009 – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alex Ross, and Kazuo Ishiguro
2010 – John Carey, Colm Tóibín, Lionel Shriver, Yiyun Li, John Ralston Saul, Bill McKibben, and Raj Patel
2011 – Ingrid Betancourt, 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
2012 – Hisham Matar, Jeffrey Eugenides, Dava Sobel
2013 – Molly Ringwald, Ruby Wax, Claire Messud
2014 – Irvine Welsh, Vince Gilligan, Alice Walker
2015 – Michael Connelly, Anthony Horowitz, Douglas Coupland, Norman Doidge, Alan Cumming, Atul Gawande, David Walliams, Michael Frayn, James Patterson (out of season event)
2016 – Gloria Steinem, Jonathan Franzen, Marlon James, Julian Barnes, William Boyd, Jeanette Winterson, Kate Tempest, Yanis Varoufakis, Hanya Yanagihara, Paul Muldoon, Yeonmi Park
1997 – Robert Dessaix, Andrew McGahan, Matthew Condon, Bernard Cohen, Christos Tsiolkas, Gillian Mears
2001 – Lee Tulloch
2002 – Geoffrey Atherden, Bernard Cohen
2003 – Sonya Hartnett, David Malouf, Danny Katz, Louis Nowra
2005 – Bob Carr and John Kinsella
2006 – Alex Miller, Robert Drewe, Kate Grenville, Les Murray, Tegan Bennett Daylight, Peter Singer, Tim Flannery, Gail Jones
2007 – Raimond Gaita
2008 – Mem Fox, Peter van Onselen, Michelle de Kretser, Gail Jones, Drusilla Modjeska
2010 – Peter Carey, Les Murray, Alex Miller, Ross Garnaut, Clive Hamilton
2011 – Suelette Dreyfus, Annette Shun Wah, David Hicks
2012 – Kathy Lette
2013 – Claudia Karvan, Brendan Cowell
2014 – Christos Tsiolkas, Michelle de Kretser, Robert Dessaix
2015 – Richard Flanagan, Annabel Crabb, Leigh Sales, Helen Garner, David Malouf, Les Murray, Andy Griffiths, Julia Gillard
2016 – Elizabeth Harrower, Anna Funder, Magda Szubanski, Stan Grant, Kerry O'Brien, Bob Brown, Charlotte Wood
2011 James Gleick 'Perish the thought'
2012 Dava Sobel
2013 Claire Messud
2014 Emma Donoghue
2015 Helen Macdonald
2016 Hanya Yanagihara
The Festival is organised by the artistic director, with the support of the CEO, who both report to the Board of Sydney Writers' Festival. The current directors of the Festival are:
Deena Shiff (Chair)
Nikki Christer
Jo Dyer
Amelia Lester
David Marr
Lena Nahlous
Mark Scott
Kathy Shand
Emile Sherman
Su-Ming Wong
