Adelaide Festival: A Guide to Writers' Week and Kids' Weekend

If the stellar line-up of authors, poets, and thinkers isn't enough to kick start your literary brain, a few days of relaxing in the gorgeous surrounds of the Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens will get you in the mood to write. Writers’ Week is Australia's largest free literary festival featuring six days of panel discussions, interviews, and readings from local and internationally renowned authors. This year's program features 84 writers and ranges from the short stories of Fiona McFarlane to A. C. Grayling's philosophical essays. This event is an opportunity to ask questions to published authors, meet literary idols and discover new favourites.

This is Laura Kroetsch's final year as director of Writers' Week and she has put together an outstanding program around the theme of change. Kroetsch’s passion for Writers’ Week is clear. “Adelaide Writers’ Week is a cultural institution, one that is beloved by its audiences” she says. “Unlike other literary festivals it has remained dedicated to the book and growing readership for writers. [Writers’ Week] offers anyone the experience of engagement with contemporary literature, ideas, politics, art and entertainment.”

Writers’ Week is an incredibly accessible festival – content for all ages and all tastes, adjustments to be physically accessible and free of charge. In addition, Kroetsch is “thrilled that this year we are able to live-stream three days of the event into retirement villages, schools and libraries through our partnership with Southern Cross Care and Office for the Ageing.”

“There are so many barriers to engaging with arts and ideas and at Writers’ Week anyone can come along. I see Writers’ Week as the best sort of community event and it’s important to me to make that experience as accessible as possible.”

Writers’ Week supports its writers by providing such an accessible platform for discussion and allowing careers to thrive. “We don’t’ sell tickets,” says Kroetsch, “but we do sell books and book are how writers make careers.”

The anticipated standout is The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein, the true story of a woman who specialises in restoring order in bizarre and disturbing places. The celebrated British Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie explores the conflict of family and faith in her Booker Prize nominated novel Home Fires. Michelle de Kretser is longlisted for the Stella Prize with The Life To Come and Alexander McCall Smith returns with a new instalment in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. 

So with such a full program, what are the absolute must-sees? “I can’t possibly pick just one,” says Kroetsch, “so don’t miss Clive Hamilton on China on 4 March, Barbara Kingsolver on 6 March or Sarah Kranostein on Thursday 8 March.”

The focus at Writers' Week is firmly on current literature but the panels often branch into broader social discussions to provide a barometer of culture, philosophy and politics, and Kroetsch acknowledges that we have something special here in Adelaide. “Writers’ Week is the only free writers’ festival in Australia, it offers anyone the experience of engagement with contemporary literature, ideas, politics, art and entertainment.”

While the pace is laid back, the schedule is packed with events split across two stages. Take some time to drift between panels, the book tent and café or have some time out to take in the scenery. Serendipity, sentimentality, and sanguine intellectualism seem to find a perfect balance. Anyone can head along to Writers’ Week with no plan or program only to stumble across an author whose work speaks specifically to them.

Kids' Weekend

Inventive and magical possibilities are brought to life with storytellers and characters to meet at Kids' Weekend on Saturday 3 March and Sunday 4 March 2018. The Story Tent hosts an all-star lineup featuring the beloved Mem Fox, as well as Jackie French, the Little Big Book Club, a foley storytelling experience with Story Trove, and a Kamishibai – a traditional Japanese visual storytelling genre. For some interactive action, Evelyn Roth’s Nylon Zoo will this year feature a quoll and an echidna, and there will be two designers who will be working with the children to create a giant mural. “It’s always lovely to have the students from Walford Anglican School for Girls making fans with children for audiences to use throughout the week” says Kroetsch. Under the blue sails Nest Studio will show budding artists how to publish their own book and open the door to amazing imaginary worlds!

 

Adelaide Writers' Week, part of the Adelaide Festival, Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden, 3-8 Mar, 9.30am-6pm, FREE