NT Writers Festival

The 2025 NT Writers Festival takes place from 29 May – 1 June at the Olive Pink Botanic Gardens on vibrant Arrernte Country,  Mparntwe/Alice Springs,  and explores the theme of angkwerre-iweme | healing in the winds of change.

Everyone is connected by our shared need for healing. Angkwerre-iweme is an Arrernte word and practice that describes the traditional healing method to clear us, cleanse us and bring renewal.

We will allow truth-telling to awaken our spirits. We will celebrate local writers and uplift the legacy of First Peoples storytellers. We will remember that healing comes from Country, and so does language: land is the biggest book of all.

Angkwerre-iweme means we allow the winds of change to whirl over us and through us, clearing the path to make way for healing. In the face of adversity and injustice, we come together in solidarity and look to the future, with powerful minds and awakened spirits.

Stay tuned for our program launch on Thurs 10 April 2025.

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

Held annually in iconic outdoor locations, the festival 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, Trent Dalton, Rick Morton, Larissa Behrendt and Alexis Wright.

‘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

 

Video credit: Pin Rada

If you are interested in partnering with us on the 2025 NT Writers Festival, please contact executive@ntwriters.com.au. To find our more about the benefits of sponsorship, download our latest sponsorship package.

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Photos in gallery above: Campfire Stories (Oliver Eclipse Photography); Trent Dalton and Liz Trevaskis (Paz Tassone); Words on the Wharf (Paz Tassone); Eunice Andrada (Oliver Eclipse).