Canberra Writers Festival 2025 program announced
The program for this year’s Canberra Writers Festival (CWF), running 22–26 October 2025, has been announced.
International guests include Griffin Dunne, Eric Puchner, Cheng Lei, Sophie Gilbert and Omar El Akkad.
Among the Australian headliners are Chris Hammer, Omar Musa, Virginia Haussegger, Madeleine Gray, Gail Jones, Hannah Kent, Evelyn Araluen, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Jack Heath, Rachael Johns, Alli Parker, Thomas Mayo, Kimberley Freeman, Lisa Fuller, Steve MinOn, Andy Griffiths, Heather Rose, Trent Dalton and Garry Disher.
The festival will open with ‘The Haunting Australia of Jane Harper’, featuring Harper in conversation with Alex Sloan, and close with ‘Whitlam’s Dismissal’, a panel discussion featuring Esther Anatolitis, Evelyn Araluen, and Virginia Haussegger.
Other events include the announcement of the ACT Book of the Year Awards, a live edition of Insiders with David Speers, podcaster and comedien Em Rusciano in conversation with podcast partner and screenwriter Michael Lucas, workshops, spoken word performances, and the presentation of the Emerging Playwright Commission Award.
Panels and conversations cover, among other topics, museum heists with Walter Marsh, cosy books with Rachael Johns and Alli Parker, cults with Liz Cameron and Tim Pocock, Australian gothic with Jessica Mansour-Nahra, stoicism with Brigid Delaney, chosen family with Madeleine Gray, and First Nations writing with Evelyn Araluen, Jasmin McGaughey, and Lisa Fuller.
A CYA program will run on 25 October, and will include a Q&A with Craig Silvey; a panel on love with YA authors Sasha Vey and Gabrielle Tozer; a ‘Draw Off’ showdown with illustrators Bill Hope, Eleri Harris and David Conley; and drawing, poetry and book making workshops for kids.
The Book Cow Kingston will be the festival’s official bookseller.
ACT chief minister Andrew Barr, said, ‘Each year, the festival celebrates literature, creativity and the exchange of ideas, reflecting the diversity of our city and the value we place on storytelling in all its forms.’
More information and the full program is available on the CWF website.
Category: Events Festivals Local news
