It’s writers on the storm as festival opens doors online

An online Sydney Writers Festival will run not for a week as usual but for the rest of the year.

Poet Alison Whit­taker will address the Sydney Writers Festival theme, Almost Midnight, in six podcasts.

While it looks like the world has slowed the doomsday clock for now, that theme will remain at the centre of an online Sydney Writers Festival that will run not for a week as usual but for the rest of the year.

Indigenous poet Alison Whit­taker, who was to have been an opening-night speaker this week, will now address the festival theme, Almost Midnight, in the first of six podcasts available for free via the SWF website.

This first batch of about 50 ­“reimagined” festival sessions will also feature American novelists and friends Ann Patchett and Kevin Wilson, Stella Prize ­winner Jess Hill and Australian writer Rebecca Giggs.

The six podcasts will be available from Friday morning and the SWF organisers hope to release at least two new ones every week until Christmas. “We want to bring the writing, ideas and debates­ from the 2020 program to audiences around Australia and the world,” said SWF artistic director Michaela McGuire.

Michaela McGuire

“We are heartened that storytellers and story lovers can come together as an online community. We hope these conversations lift spirits, provide comfort and offer a sense of community.”

A pre-festival podcast, with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull talking to Annabel Crabb about his memoir, A Bigger Picture, has been made available.

The online festival was partly funded by the Copyright Agency, which is working to help Australian writers through the econo­mic downturn.

The Mildura Writers Festival, which turns 25 this year, is also going ahead with a free online festival­ from July 17-19.

Sydney Writers Festival online program: swf.org.au;
Mildura Writers Festival: mildurawritersfestival.com