NT Writers Festival

Ornament

About the NT Writers Festival

The NT Writers Festival (NTWF) is a four-day festival that emphasises Australia’s cultural and linguistic diversity, bringing people together to share story, language and culture.

Held annually, the festival’s location alternates between Darwin and Alice Springs. With a thousand miles between locations, the festival shifts from the tropics to the desert, from coastal to inland, from Larrakia to Arrernte country, creating a character which reflects the diversity – environmental, cultural and social – of the Northern Territory itself. Founded in 1999, NTWF has hosted an impressive array of some of Australia’s most distinguished writers, thinkers and storytellers, including Bruce Pascoe, Kim Mahood, Christos Tsiolkas, Hannah Kent, Morris Gleitzman, Trent Dalton, Rick Morton, Larissa Behrendt and Alexis Wright.

This year’s festival takes place from 27-30 June 2024 at the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT in Darwin on lush Larrakia land. The 2024 festival theme is reverberations.

‘The perfect small festival…exactly the right atmosphere to explore big and complex ideas in the company of generous minds. All in a location reminding us that stories are the foundation of every civilisation.’ – Morris Gleitzman

2024 NT Writers Festival

The theme of the 2024 NT Writers Festival is reverberations. In a world beset by multiple crises, how do we find the right words? How can we keep trying to connect when others might not be listening, and how do we keep sharing stories and ideas?

In his latest book, The Queen is Dead, esteemed Wiradjuri author and journalist, Stan Grant, asks why people write. He answers that it is to be heard, that people speak in the hope that somewhere their words will echo.*

It is in the spirit of this hope that we have chosen the 2024 NT Writers Festival theme of reverberations. Now, more than ever, it is crucial to consider the impacts of our actions on the world, to reflect upon their ongoing consequences. This requires us to see the world and ourselves relationally. It encourages us to look beyond ourselves to the vast and interconnected networks – social, cultural, environmental, economic – in which we are embedded. Being attuned to reverberations allows us to hear the way the echoes of the past live on in the present and to reflect upon the ramifications of our decisions.

This festival, we invite readers, writers and storytellers to gather together to allow the words of others to reverberate in our minds, connecting and inspiring us.

*Stan Grant, The Queen is Dead, Harper Collins 2023, e-book, p. 36.

Many thanks to the 2024 Festival Advisory Committee – Marie Munkara, Penny Drysdale, Mililma May, Kylie Stevenson, Sally Bothroyd and Tisha Tejaya – for helping shape this year’s festival theme.

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If you are interested in partnering with us on the 2024 NT Writers Festival, please contact festival@ntwriters.com.au. To find our more about the benefits of sponsorship, download our latest sponsorship package.

 

Photos in gallery above: Campfire Stories (Oliver Eclipse Photography); Alice Bishop (Milly Moments Photography); Vessels & Stories (Tim Nicol Photography); Roanna Gonsalves (Anna Cadden); Trent Dalton and Liz Trevaskis (Paz Tassone); Words on the Wharf (Paz Tassone); Eunice Andrada (Oliver Eclipse).