Adelaide Festival Corporation has announced Rosemarie Milsom as the new director of Adelaide Writers’ Week for the 2027 to 2029 festivals.
Milsom, the long-serving founding director of Newcastle Writers Festival, is a former journalist and broadcaster. She is a member of the NSW Government’s Literature Board and City of Newcastle’s Community and Culture Strategic Advisory Committee, and also serves on the steering committee of the Global Association of Literary Festivals. In 2023 and 2024, she was Panel Chair for the Walkley Book Award.
Milsom’s appointment follows the festival’s very public crisis in January, which resulted in the sudden departure of former Writers’ Week director Louise Adler, the resignation of numerous festival board members and the mass exodus of writers from the program – leading to the event being cancelled for 2026. An alternative independent Adelaide festival – Constellations: Not Writers’ Week – was established in the aftermath, taking place in February and March and featuring more than 100 authors.
The Adelaide Writers’ Week crisis was initiated by the former board rescinding an invitation to Palestinian-Australian author and academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah on 8 January.
Announcing her resignation in an opinion piece in The Guardian a few days later, Louise Adler wrote:
‘I cannot be party to silencing writers so, with a heavy heart, I am resigning from my role as the director of the AWW. Writers and writing matters, even when they are presenting ideas that discomfort and challenge us.
‘We need writers now more than ever, as our media closes up, as our politicians grow daily more cowed by real power, as Australia grows more unjust and unequal.
‘AWW is the canary in the coalmine. Friends and colleagues in the arts, beware of the future.’
Adelaide Writers’ Week: new board
On 13 January, South Australian Minister for the Arts Andrea Michaels MP appointed a new Adelaide Writers’ Festival board after the majority of the former board resigned amid the backlash that resulted from Abdel-Fattah’s cancellation.
In its first public statement in January, the board apologised for the actions of its predecesors, stating:
‘On 8 January 2026 the Adelaide Festival Corporation published a statement announcing that it had decided to exclude Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from participating as a speaker at Adelaide Writers’ Week this year. We stated that this was because it would be culturally insensitive to allow her to participate.
‘We retract that statement. We have reversed the decision and will reinstate Dr Abdel-Fattah’s invitation to speak at the next Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2027. We apologise to Dr Abdel-Fattah unreservedly for the harm the Adelaide Festival Corporation has caused her.
‘Intellectual and artistic freedom is a powerful human right. Our goal is to uphold it, and in this instance Adelaide Festival Corporation fell well short.’
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Adelaide Festival Chair Judy Potter welcomed Milsom’s appointment to lead Adelaide Writers’ Week into a new era:
‘Rosemarie is an outstanding advocate for writers, with a strong understanding of the cultural conversations shaping Australian literature today.
‘Her approach aligns perfectly with the spirit of Adelaide Writers’ Week – curious, inclusive and intellectually rigorous. We are thrilled to welcome her and look forward to the vision and energy she will bring to the role. We are confident Rosemarie’s tremendous breadth of knowledge and connection with writers and readers will build on the special place that Adelaide Writers’ Week has locally, nationally and internationally.’
Milsom said she was ‘honoured’ to be appointed director of the festival.
‘Adelaide Writers’ Week has a remarkable legacy and an engaged, passionate audience,’ she said. ‘I look forward to contributing to its continued evolution.’
Milsom will start in the role in mid-May. The next Adelaide Writers’ Week will run from 27 February to 4 March 2027, with program details being released 27 October 2026.
A timeline of the Adelaide Writers’ Week crisis
- Adelaide Writers’ Week in disarray as almost 100 writers boycott
- Adelaide Writers’ Week: Adelaide Festival leaders call on Board to reinstate Randa Abdel-Fattah
- Director Louise Adler quits as Adelaide Writers’ Week crisis deepens
- Adelaide Writers’ Week cancelled, remaining Board members step down
- New Adelaide Festival Board apologises to Randa Abdel-Fattah
- Arts boards in crisis: how have we landed here, yet again?
