WTF happend to Adelaide Writers' Week?

As mentioned in this week's WTF now?! round up, yesterday Adelaide Festival announced the “deeply regrettable outcome” that Adelaide Writers’ Week “can no longer go ahead as scheduled for this year.” The cancellation comes after a tumultuous few days for the literary event. Not even a week ago, the Adelaide Festival Board went around the then Director of the event and rescinded an invitation to speak that had been made to Palestinian-Australian Muslim author, academic, lawyer and human rights advocate Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah. A lot has happened in those five days.

WTF happened?!

Back to yesterday's statement, in it the Board:

• announced the cancellation of Writer's Week,
• announced that “to allow for an orderly transition to a new Board to secure the success of the 2026 Adelaide Festival and beyond” all remaining members of the Adelaide Festival Board had stepped down (except Mary Couros, Councillor for the North Ward of the City of Adelaide, who is the Council’s representative on the Board and whose term expires on 2 February 2026), and
• apologised to Dr Abdel-Fattah for "how the decision was represented" in their original statement.

This is part of the statement:

“We recognise and deeply regret the distress this decision has caused to our audience, artists and writers, donors, corporate partners, the government and our own staff and people. We also apologise to Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah for how the decision was represented and reiterate this is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history.

We acknowledge and are committed to rebuilding trust with our artistic community and audience to enable open and respectful discussions at future Adelaide Writers' Week events.

The focus is now on ensuring a successful Adelaide Festival proceeds in a way which safeguards the long and rich cultural legacy of our state but also protects the hardworking staff delivering this important event.”

Dr Adel-Fattah responded via an Intagram post rejecting the Board’s apology as “disingenuous”, saying it adds “insult to injury” because their regret is merely for “how the message of [Dr Abdel-Fattah’s] cancellation was conveyed, not the decision itself.”

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A post shared by Randa Abdel-Fattah (@randaafattah)

Back up. How did it get to this?!

If you have somehow missed the calamitous implosion of one of Australia’s most respected and adored literary events, here’s a rundown of how things happened:

Back on Thursday 8 January the Board announced it had rescinded Dr Abdel-Fattah’s invitation to participate in the 2026 event. In the statement, the Board said:

“In this shared time of both mourning and reflection, we have spent the last weeks commencing a review across our current and planned operations and interactions through the lens of the current national community context and the role of Adelaide Festival in promoting community cohesion.

Consideration of the appropriate response to such a tragedy is a human exercise that we understand is subjective in nature. We also understand others will undoubtedly form different judgments. These judgments may likely even change as the landscape and context evolves.

As the Board responsible for the Adelaide Festival organisation and all Adelaide Writers’ Week events, staff, volunteers and participants, we have today advised scheduled writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah that the Board has formed the judgment that we do not wish to proceed with her scheduled appearance at next month’s Writers’ Week.

Whilst we do not suggest in any way that Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s or her writings have any connection with the tragedy at Bondi, given her past statements we have formed the view that it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”

There have been claims that South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas put pressure on the Board to disinvite Dr Abdel-Fattah, which Malinauskas denies, even though he did tell ABC Radio Adelaide, “I absolutely made clear to the Board that I did not think it was wise, post a race-based terror attack that has never really happened before in the history of our country occurring, that I did not think it was wise to have someone who has been accused of antisemitism at best, or done it at worst, appearing at Adelaide Writers’ Week.”

Over the next few days more and more speakers announced they had pulled out of the event, including Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko, former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Jane Caro, Peter Fitzsimons, and journalist Peter Greste, who wrote an evocative piece on the his decision for The Guardian:

“I do not need to agree with Abdel-Fattah’s views to believe that removing her in this way is wrong. The issue is not about ideological alignment; it is about principle and precedent. If writers can be disqualified from public forums based on past statements and changing political winds, then participation becomes contingent on institutional nervousness rather than intellectual integrity.

My withdrawal is not a repudiation of Adelaide writers’ week as a whole, nor of the many people who work in good faith to sustain it. It is a protest against a decision that undermines the festival’s role as a guardian of the grey zone.

Extremist violence seeks to polarise. It aims to strip away nuance and force us into ideological, sectarian or ethnic camps. Our response should not be to help that project by shrinking civic space further.

That is why I am stepping away. Not to inflame tensions but to insist that fear must not be allowed to do the work of extremists for them – and that the grey zone remains worth protecting.”

Three board members resigned at an extraordinary board meeting on Saturday – the same day that 11 former Adelaide Festival leaders issued a letter calling for Dr Abdel-Fattah’s reinstatement and cautioning that “The open discussion of ideas, beliefs, facts and opinion is ultimately the pathway to community cohesion. Silencing and censorship are not.”

On Sunday, the Chair Travey Whiting AM announced on LinkedIn that she had also resigned.

Also on Sunday, Dr Abdel-Fattah through legal representation reportedly sent a letter to Whiting asking for details of the “past statements made by [Dr Abdel-Fattah] on which the board relied in making the decision deciding [to disinvite her].”

As of yesterday, over 180 writers had pulled out.

Also yesterday, Adelaide Writers’ Week Director Louise Adler announced her resignation through a piece in The Guardian. Not only does it situate the controversy within a broader set of arts and politics dramas that have happened at other organisations. Adler has a lot to say, but these points are particularly poignant:

“In my view, boards composed of individuals with little experience in the arts, and blind to the moral implications of abandoning the principle of freedom of expression, have been unnerved by the pressure exerted by politicians calculating their electoral prospects and relentless, coordinated letter-writing campaigns.”

“The board’s statement cites community cohesion, an oft-referenced anxiety which should be treated with scepticism. This is a managerialist term intended to stop thinking. Who, after all, would argue in favour of social division? Presumably only a terrorist or a nihilist. The raison d’être of art and literature is to disrupt the status quo: and one doesn’t have to be a student of history to know that art in the service of “social cohesion” is propaganda.

The arts have allegedly become “unsafe” and artists are a danger to the community’s psycho-social wellbeing. But, let’s be quite clear, the routine invocation of “safety” is code for “I don’t want to hear your opinion”. In this instance, it appears to apply only to a Palestinian invitee.”

AWW is the canary in the coalmine. Friends and colleagues in the arts, beware of the future.

They are coming for you.

Later that evening, she spoke further to her points in her resignation letter on 7.30 about the ramifications of the disinvitation debacle: it demonstrates the “capacity for political interest groups and politicians of the day and citizens who have chequebook are able to influence the curatorial independence and judgements of various arts organisations.”

Just hours after the Adelaide Festival announcement yesterday the South Australian Government announced a new Board, including the return of respected arts leader Judy Potter as Chair. Also on the Board are arts board stalwarts Rob Brookman AM, Jane Doyle OAM and John Irving AM. ⟨ Yep, that’s a lot of Order of Australia award recipients! ⟩

Adding complexity to the matter is claims of inconsistency in how the Board has handled similar situations in the past.

What can we take away from the situation?

The rhetoric of the Board seems to view Writers’ Week not as a ‘safe place for respectful and civilised discussion (including disagreement)’ but rather a ‘safe place’ from ideas (or certain ideas, at least). For me, the controversy is not merely about the decision to sideline a Palestinian guest; it is about the collision of fundamentally different world views in increasingly polemic and divisive times.

There is a lot to unpack:

• different perspectives and positions in relation to geopolitical conflict,
• the erosion of social cohesion and the rise of polarisation and political divisiveness,
• freedom of speech and whose freedom is respected,
• censorship in the guise of cultural sensitivity,
• the importance of ‘arms length’ and artistic independence,
• the potential for political interference in art making and cutatorial decisions by politicians and interest groups,
• funding and the threat of its withdrawal by governments, sponsors and philanthropists,
• the potential for other types of reprisals,
• self-censoring in response to perceived or actual interference or reprisals,
• arts governance, the make up of Boards and artists and arts workers on Boards ⟨ although, it is worth remembering that there were artists on the Creative Australia board when it dumped Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representation at the 2026 Venice Biennale ⟩,
• funding pacarity and corporatisation of arts nonprofits, and
• the role and purpose of artists and arts and culture.

To illustrate, many of these things can be found beneath the surface of comments made in the Australian Financial Review ⟨ the link is behind a paywall, sorry! ⟩ by former Chair of Sydney Writers' Festival Kathy Shand OAM – who stepped off that event’s Board in February last year over her concerns with how the festival was balancing views on Gazar. She draws a tenuous link between carefully selected comments by Dr Abdel-Fattah and the atrocious acts that occurred at Bondi Beach in December last year. She then calls out authors’ withdrawals and social media criticism, minimising them to nothing more than a performative “pile-on”. While she is at it, she accuses some festival directors of “present[ing] partisan views and limited perspectives” while making their events “no longer inclusive spaces” and claims that “the very wide blanket of free speech is thrown out to hose down those who express concerns”.

Turning her attack to free speech, she goes on to say:

“It is disingenuous to suggest this issue is one of freedom of speech when it is this very freedom that is being subverted to allow hateful, abhorrent comments to be made with impunity under the banners of literary festivals.”

Rounding out her rant, she declares that it is “imperative” that the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion investigates “the role of cultural organisations in the normalisation of antisemitic sentiment in this country in the last two years”.

Beyond being self-serving, Shand’s argument oversimplifies freedom of expression. It frames free speech as a trade off against cultural sensitivity and community cohesion. It assumes divisiveness, thereby undermining any worthwhile contributions to public discourse a stigmatised commentator could bring while also equating avoidance of divisiveness with responsible programming or curatorship. Intentionally excluding voices because that person’s view are unpopular or contested risks undermining open discourse, a core purpose of writers’ festivals. Likewise, in my opinion, those festivals are also meant to foster public debate and connect authors and their ideas with readers.

I need some more time to think about where to from here for the arts, but a few things seem immediately obvious to me:

• Artistic independence and artistic freedom need to be codified. These concepts need solid foundations in organisation’s enabling legislation and organisational rules that clearly separate roles and insulate art making and curatorial and programming decisions from outside interference. Artists and commentators must be confident that having and voicing an opinion or position will not be met with reprisal.
• To support that, transparent codes of conduct should set the terms of engagement – for all stakeholders: Boards, arts leaders, artists, audiences, funders and partners – and seek to reestablish arts and cultural fora as places where quality debate of challenging topics can take place in safe and respectfully ways.
• Emphasising the importance inclusiveness, pluralism and giving space for diverse voices is crucial, as is facilitation and a right of reply. We must remind our audiences and stakeholders that challenging ideas and uncomfortableness are okay.
• Risk management should focus on safety and respect for all. It seems lots of risk management at the moment is prioritising organisational self-preservation or the ideological comfort of some.
• At a macro-level, the arts and cultural industry needs to articulate its value and its role in the community convincingly and with conviction. At an organisational level, arts organisations must be clear about their artistic, programmatic or curatorial rationale and be transparent about how they make decisions in pursuit of that intention.

Colophon

AI use

AI was used to generate the first version of the TL;DR summary but the AI-generated text was not included verbatim. The main body copy was not generated using AI, nor was it modified or improved using AI.

The banner graphic (i.e. the first image at the top of the blog post) was adapted from vector graphics generated in Adobe Illustrator using Firefly 4 with 'Subject' content type selected and the lowest level of detail set. { Text to Vector Graphic prompt: Book exploding, very large simple shapes, 80s retro style, line drawing, visible layers }

Provenance

This blog post was first published on Wednesday 14 January 2026. It has not been updated. This is version 1.0.