In hindsight, the theme of Sydney Writers' Festival's 2020 program was perhaps a little too ominous. Put together with the collective creeping feeling the world was nearing some big apocalyptic event, the doomsday-themed program "Almost Midnight" was to give us the literature and ideas we needed to get through – and maybe even avoid – a catastrophe.

But it never got a chance. The implosion came early in the form of COVID-19 and a slew of suffocating restrictions on public events. The festival launched the program to the public at 9am on March 13; at 4pm Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that non-essential gatherings of more than 500 people would be banned to minimise community transmission of the virus. The festival suspended ticket sales that same afternoon and, three days later, was left with "no choice" but to cancel the event completely.