A message from our board

It is with sadness that we are announcing the difficult but necessary decision to close Wollongong Writers Festival due to funding constraints. This follows the loss of funding from our major supporter, Create NSW.

Since its launch in 2013, Wollongong Writers Festival has been first and foremost a labour of love by a small group of people who believe in the organisation's mission to foster and support the arts within our regional community. But running a not-for-profit festival also comes with overhead expenses, and the loss of this key state grant means we are regrettably unable to continue paying our staff, artists, contractors and other operating costs.

We know we are not alone in the pain of having to make a decision like this. Many of our peers in the literary community have had their funding applications denied in recent years. There is also the ongoing pressure on arts organisations under COVID-19. We offer our solidarity to those organisations whose futures are uncertain or untenable as a result.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Create NSW for its support over the last four years. The funding it provided helped us to bring celebrated writers such as Helen Garner, Tara June Winch, Tony Birch and Charlotte Wood to Wollongong or, as was the case in 2020, into our homes via Zoom.

We also thank our other major sponsors, University of Wollongong, Wollongong Art Gallery, Wollongong City Council, Multicultural NSW, the BlueScopeWIN Community Partners program and the Mental Health Commission of NSW for their support.

Our sincere thanks to our numerous community partners and supporters, including the South Coast Writers Centre, Mascara Literary Review, Enough Said Poetry Slam, Culture Bank and Cocoon Floatation among many others.

Thank you to our staff, volunteers and contractors whose collective imagination and passion created an experience for audiences that pushed the boundaries on what a literary festival could offer.

It has been an honour presenting Wollongong Writers Festival and we will be forever grateful to the Wollongong literary community, our artists, our staff and volunteers, our funding bodies and other supporters and our audiences for helping us to bring the world to Wollongong and share the stories of Wollongong with the world.

Yours in literature,
The Wollongong Writers Festival board.