Adelaide Writers' Week reveals final 2019 program

In keeping with the festival’s Zeitgeist-baiting theme of ‘Telling Truths’, the state of political journalism in the age of ‘fake news’ looks set to be a recurring topic in 2019 with the addition of ABC legend Kerry O’Brien, journalist and author David Marr, Guardian Australia political editor Katharine Murphy, Crikey politics editor Bernard Keane, New York Times Australian bureau head Damien Cave, and Guardian journalist Gabrielle Chan. Murphy and Keane will ask ‘WTF Australia?’ in a panel discussion of the same name on Tuesday, March 5.

The political theme continues with former Democrats leader Natasha Stott-Despoja, Australian Sex Party (now Reason Party) founder Fiona Patten and author and speechwriter Don Watson joining the likes of Bob Carr, Professor Gillian Triggs and Scott Ludlam in the 2019 program.

Newly announced emerging writers include Nigerian author Oyinkan Braithwaite, whose hyped debut novel My Sister, The Serial Killer has just hit shelves, One Hundred Years Of Dirt author and social affairs writer for The Australian Rick Morton, and South Australian writer Molly Murn, whose first novel Heart of the Grass Tree is due in February.

Australia’s best-known film critic David Stratton and poet David Malouf join Marr in a rare programming trifecta of Australia’s leading Davids, while Ben Quilty, in town for the launch of the Art Gallery of South Australia’s major survey exhibition Quilty, will speak on art, advocacy and ambition on Monday, March 4.

For the first time Writers Week will also dedicate a day to teen and adolescent readers on March 3, including slam poetry from Laniyuk, Melanie Mununggurr-Williams, Audrey Mason-Hyde, Dominic Symes and Solli Raphel, who in 2017 became the youngest winner of the Australian Poetry Slam aged 12.

Historian Dr Clare Wright will replace Germaine Greer at March 6’s The Zeigtgeist Series: Rage, Rape and Revolution, whose withdrawal from the event was quietly announced earlier in January.

These latest additions join the likes of Ben Okri, Leigh Sales and Chloe Hooper announced in October.

Adelaide Writers Week 
March 2 – 7
adelaidefestival.com.au/writers-week/

Adelaide Writers Week second announcement

Gina Apostol
Aunty Sue Blacklock
James Bradley
Oyinkan Braithwaite
Dr Bernadette Brennan
Damien Cave
Gabrielle Chan
Reg Dodd
Ceridwen Dovey
Enza Gandolfo
Rose George
Moreno Giovannoni
Jane Gleeson-White
Morris Gleitzman
Jan Golembiewski
Andrea Goldsmith
Peter Goldsworthy
Tom Griffiths
Chris Hammer
Sarah Henstra
Leta Hong Fincher
Annaleese Jochems
Toni Jordan
Bernard Keane
David Malouf
David Marr
Rebecca Makkai
Richard McGregor
Malcolm McKinnon
Rick Morton
Katharine Murphy
Molly Murn
Kerry O’Brien
Kristina Olsson
Eileen Ormsby
Ben Quilty
Fiona Patten
J.P. Pomare
Bram Presser
Sarah Smarsh
Hwang Sok-yong
Jeff Sparrow
Natasha Stott Despoja
David Stratton
Carrie Tiffany
Don Watson
Fiona Wright
Eddie Woo
Carl Zimmer
John Zubrzycki

First announcement

Sohaila Abdulali
Stephanie Bishop
Paul Bloom
Bob Carr
Soraya Chemaly
Peter Cochrane
Trent Dalton
Megan Davis
Esi Edugyan
Kassem Eid
Carolin Emcke
Future D Fidel
David Frum
Sujatha Gidla
Germaine Greer
Mohammed Hanif
Jane Harper
Chloe Hooper
Leslie Jamison
Kirk Wallace Johnson
Gail Jones
Birgitta Jonsdottir
Jing Jing Lee
Melissa Lucashenko
Darren McGarvey
Bruno Maçães
Will Mackin
Nancy Maclean
Terese Marie Mailhot
Ndaba Mandela
Maeve Marsden
George Megalogenis
Andrew Miller
Margaret Morgan
Robin Morgan
Bob Murphy
Alice Nelson
Mads Peder Nordbo
Patrick Nunn
Ben Okri
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Anuradha Roy
Lyndall Ryan
Ahmed Saadawi
Amy Sackville
Leigh Sales
Preti Taneji
Joelle Taylor
Gillian Triggs
Maria Tumarkin
Marlene van Nierkerk
Adam Wakeling
Toby Walsh
Clare Wright
Markus Zusak