A grassroots group of authors, publishers and booksellers in Adelaide have scrambled to pull together an entirely new literary festival for the city in just two weeks, after the controversial cancellation of this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week.
Constellations – also jokingly dubbed “Not Writers’ Week” – is being put on by “a loose coalition” of writers and publishers and the support of not-for-profit Writers SA, with dozens of free events to be staged from 28 February to 5 March.
AWW was originally scheduled to run that week, before it was called off due to the Adelaide festival board’s contentious intervention to disinvite the Palestinian-Australian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah after the Bondi terror attack.
Among the organisers of Constellations is Adelaide author Jennifer Mills, the current chair of the Australian Society of Authors, who was among more than 100 authors who pulled out of AWW in protest of Abdel-Fattah’s ejection.
“It’s gone from a big disappointment and heartbreak to a really strong community response very quickly. I’m really proud,” she says.
Literary festivals provide writers with financial support, public spotlight and crucial networking opportunities, Mills says, and Constellations would help authors in the absence of AWW, which has been running since 1960.
She described Constellations as an “umbrella festival”, which will rely on donations, community ideas and volunteers to get off the ground.
“It’s a massive community effort to put something like this together, and it’s taking a lot of people and energy, but the spirits are very strong,” she says.
“We’re not going to replace AWW. We’re not looking to reenact [AWW director] Louise Adler’s programming or anything like that. But we’re all pretty determined to not lose the opportunity that AWW presents. It’s not just the writers who miss out – it’s the audiences, it’s the booksellers, it’s the city as a whole that misses out.”
The festival’s major events will be announced next week – but Constellations organisers are also asking bookshops, libraries, schools and community venues across Adelaide and South Australia to come up with their own literary events and register them as part of the festival.
Participants can organise a Constellations event themselves, or submit a proposal for an event to the festival, who will then help with locking in authors, venues and logistics.
Volunteers are also being sought to help with tasks such as setting up venues, ushering or driving. “A lot of people are already putting their hands up to volunteer, which is really fantastic to see,” says Mills.
A small committee will curate the festival based on its guidelines, which include that every event should be free to attend, or by donation, with any profits prioritised for paying writers a speaking fee.
“Festivals represent a really significant income for writers who, on average, earn $18,200 a year – we’re not in this for the money,” Mills says. “Appearance fees are very meaningful to writers, as are book sales, as are the professional connections that you make. We’re not going to be able to replace all that income for authors, but we’re going to do what we can.”
A special Adelaide city council meeting was convened on 19 January, where councillors voted in favour of providing council-owned or controlled buildings and public spaces as venues for Constellations events.
However the council did vote down one councillor’s proposal to provide up to $250,000 in funding, which Mills says the festival had not requested. “We’re not receiving or asking for any funding from any level of government,” she adds.
The decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah over her past comments on Israel and Gaza provoked authors to drop out of AWW en masse, with Adelaide festival opening act Pulp also threatening to boycott if Abdel-Fattah did not receive an apology she could accept.
Hours after AWW director Louise Adler resigned in protest, the free annual literary event was called off entirely and the entire festival board resigned, replaced within hours by a new board that almost immediately apologised to Abdel-Fattah and invited her to speak at AWW in 2027.
Constellations’ guidelines asks that participants “create a safe space that celebrates writers and reading. One that supports and encourages open discourse and the sharing of ideas. We note that the right to freedom of speech should never be conflated with speech that supports racism, violent ideologies and harmful narratives.”
Asked what this could mean for authors, so soon after Abdel-Fattah’s strong criticism of Israel was deemed enough to dump her from AWW, Mills says: “Look, we’re not going to be going back through people’s social media. I don’t have the time or energy for that … we’re not in the business of policing what artists can and can’t say, and we don’t think festivals should be either.”
“We really want to see AWW come back next year, better and stronger and with more artist engagement in the governance structure,” she adds. “We’re not trying to replace it, or shut it down. It’s a lot of work for a lot of people at the moment, but I think it’s going to be a really positive thing for the city to see.”
