Sydney Writers’ Festival Announces 2025 Program
Image: Carriageworks
The Sydney Writers’ Festival has officially announced its full program of authors as it returns for its 28th year, running from 19–27 May 2025.
Amidst recent controversy as the festival’s director stepped down over debates about the Israel-Palestine conflict, the festival has released its final list of authors and events, including 40+ international authors and 100+ Australian authors. The program also highlights that there will be over 200 events throughout the course of the festival.
The headline guests of the festival include various rising stars from around the world. Some of the headliners include Samantha Harvey who won the 2024 Booker Prize for her novel Orbital, which traces the lives of six astronauts aboard the International Space Station, also headlining is Torrey Peters, the first openly trans woman nominated for the Women’s Prize in Fiction, who will be talking about her latest book, Stag Dance.
One of the headliners featured is Colm Tóibín whose latest novel Long Island, serves as the highly anticipated sequel to his 2009 novel Brooklyn.
On the non-fiction front, the festival features acclaimed historian Ben Macintyre and his gripping account of the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London in his book, The Siege. Philosopher A.C. Grayling will also be at the festival, along with his book Discriminations, which unpacks cancel culture and advocates for civil discourse in modern times.
Writers festival favourites return
Returning to the festival is the much loved event, the SWF Great Debate, this year with the topic “True Friends Stab You in the Front,” with Annabel Crabb and David Marr leading opposing sides in this debate tackling Oscar Wilde’s famous observation on betrayal.
The festival also aims to highlight the Australian First Nations’ movements for change and the future in the event, Past and Future of Indigenous Recognition, which will be led by human rights advocate Thomas Mayo, historian Clare Wright, and Walkley award-winning journalist Lorena Allam.
Trumpocalypse Now has Nick Bryant, Emma Shortis, and Peter Beinart come together with host Barrie Cassidy to discuss what the next four years of a Trump presidency will look like for America and for the rest of the world
The festival opens on 20th May with an evening of readings and performances that celebrate this year’s theme, In This Together. The event highlights Thomas Mayo, as well as the 2025 Festival Guest Curator, Yuwaalaraay writer and performer Nardi Simpson, Sunday Times–bestselling poet Lemn Sissay, and internationally acclaimed writer Jeanette Winterson.
The festival closes on 25th May with a talk led by Australian writer Anna Funder and her thoughts on writing in the age of AI, and how people can prevent being used as fodder for technology in what is sure to be an explosive Closing Address.
