Globally recognised writers are calling South Australia home with an impressive line up of festivals, poetry nights and master classes supporting the craft.
As the high profile Adelaide Writers’ Week draws some of the world’s leading talents to the city in March, Writers SA will play its part in helping share direct insights with the state’s own authors.
It will host master classes with five leading writers appearing during the week including Danish crime writer Mads Peder Nordbo and acclaimed American novelist Rebecca Makkai.
Centre director Jessica Alice, who has previously been program manager of Melbourne Writers’ Festival and director of the National Young Writers’ Festival, says there’s strong support for local talent.
Adelaide Writers’ Week is on March 2–7 in the Pioneer Womens’ Memorial Gardens.
“We want Adelaide and SA to be a place where writers can live and work, everything we do is about employing people as writers, providing pathways to the publishing industry and creating skills they need to sustain their careers,” she says.
The state is already home to well-known names including Hannah Kent whose first novel, the international bestseller and multiple award-winning Burial Rites, was translated into 30 languages.
Then there’s other award winning authors like Mem Fox, Peter Goldsworthy, Eva Hornung, Brian Castro, Anna Goldsworthy, playwright Andrew Bovell and Nick Jose – while South African-born Nobel Laureate John Coetzee has made Adelaide his home since 2002.
Sean Williams, who is appearing at the upcoming Writers’ Week is a bestselling author of more than 100 short stories and 50 award-winning books with his latest solo series Twinmaker, a near-future thriller for young adults.
Book lovers can indulge in six days of literature talks, author meets and story readings.
He and Garth Nix co-authored Have Sword, Will Travel and Troubletwisters, a fantasy for middle grade readers, and in 2014, they co-authored the third novel in the New York Times bestselling Spirit Animals series, Blood Ties.
Jessica Alice from Writers SA says poetry is another growing genre with SA spoken-word poetry a thriving underground art form gaining traction through events like the monthly poetry and open mic night Soul Lounge, and a monthly poetry reading series at the Wheatsheaf Hotel called No Wave.
She says poets received welcome inspiration from SA Aboriginal poet Ali Cobby Eckermann when she won the prestigious $200,000 American Windham Campbell prize.
“She is now known internationally as this huge poet and contributes much to SA,” Alice says. “There’s also a new poetry publisher in SA, Jill Jones who is one of Australia’s finest poets and works at the University of Adelaide and Alison Flett, who are now promoting Australian and SA poets to the world through Little Windows Press.
“Romance is big in SA, there’s a very strong Romance Writers of Australia group and SA has a particularly strong contingent.”
SA author and poet Molly Murn. Photo by Jula Bulire, Adelaide Festival.
Among their ranks, Fiona McIntosh, author of The Chocolate Tin, The Tailor’s Girl and Tapestry, and Trish Morey who has sold thirty titles to Harlequin with sales in excess of six million globally, her books printed in more than 30 languages worldwide.
Jessica, who has been at the helm of Writers SA with its more than 850 members for eight months, says “there’s so much going on at a grassroots level” from a flourishing network of book groups to organisations like the Salisbury City Council running its own writers’ festival.
Guildhouse and Country Arts SA are all “nurturing local talent” while libraries host regular readings and author appearances.
Director of Australia’s largest free literary festival, Adelaide Writers’ Week, Jo Dyer says Adelaide’s livability makes it an attractive place to be a writer, with several successful SA authors appearing at 2019 Writers’ Week (March 2–7).
They include James Bradley, who is now based in NSW and wrote the dystopian page-turner The Change Trilogy, and author Phil Cummings, who had three books recognised in the Children’s Book Council of Australia awards for 2018.
Adelaide Writers’ Week director Jo Dyer says Adelaide’s livability makes it an attractive place to become an author.
There’s also internationally published illustrator and author Andrew Joyner whose books include The Terrible Plop, written by Ursula Dubosarsky (shortlisted for the CBCA awards and the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards), and the Boris series.
Local author and poet Molly Murn’s debut novel is Heart of the Grass Tree, Penguin Random House 2019 – she holds a Bachelor of Dance, a Masters in Creative Arts, and is currently a PhD candidate in creative writing at Flinders University.
“It’s worth noting that a number of noted SA writers published new books in 2017/early 2018 and so featured in the 2018 festival,” Jo says.
“We look forward to featuring their next books in future festivals.”
They included Jennifer Mills (Dyschronia, Jan 2018), Rebecca Clarkson (Barking Dogs, Feb 2017), Eva Hornung (The Last Garden, May 2017), Cath McKinnon, now based in NSW, (Storyland, Mar 2017) and Maggie Beer (Maggie’s Recipe for Life, Oct 2017).
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