Various locations across Mparntwe (Alice Springs)
2025 Northern Territory Writers Festival
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.
Catch these UQP author sessions below:
Talk: State Capture
Saturday May 31, 1PM-2PM
OPBG Marquee
Join investigative journalise Royce Kurmelovs on a journey thorough Australia's toxic relationship with Big Oil. From the government's historical choice to ignore warnings of fossil fuels' devastating impacts, to activists standing up against powerful companies, this is an essential look at how the oil and gas industry captured Australia - and how people power fights back.
Panel: Oil and Water
Sunday June 1, 9AM-10AM
Olive Pink Botanic Gardens, 27 Tuncks Rd, Mparntwe
Here in the NT, we are deeply dependent on groundwater to live. What is our relationship to water like? How are fossil fuel interests influencing the government's decisions on water protection? And what are traditional owners saying about these threats to our existence?
Join storyteller and water justice campaigner, Maureen Nampijinpa O'Keefe, journalist and author of Slick: Australia's Toxic Relationship with Big Oil, and art book maker Marilena Hewitt in conversation with Arid Lands Environmental Centre Alex Vaughan.
Lunchtime at the Library: Shapeshifting
Friday May 30, 12:30PM-1:30PM
Alice Springs Public Library, LOT 5134 Gregory Terrace & Leichhardt Terrace, Mparntwe
What could it mean to push the boundaries of the colonial literary imagination? Shapeshifting, the new collection of lyric essays by First Nations Writers, takes inspiration from yarning traditions to bring unconventional forms to nonfiction: from prose-poems to non-linear tales that interweave history, family memory and present. Join co-editor of the anthology, Jeanine Leane, and contributor Daniel Browning, in conversation about First Nations writers reshaping the nonfiction genre.
Feature: The Winds of Change
Friday May 30, 7:30PM-9:30PM
Olive Pink Botanic Gardens, 27 Tuncks Rd, Mparntwe
Life can lift us up like a mighty wind, and turn us upside down. The winds of change whirl over us and through us, clearing the path for healing. So what happens when the winds die down and paths are washed clean? What truths emerge, what constraints are released, what new possibilities arise? Tonight's storytellers will tell brilliant stories about the capacity of change to bring renewal. Featuring: Jeanine Leane, Bebe Oliver, Dave Clark, Emma Trenorden, and more.
Panel: Words to Sing the World Alive
Saturday May 31, 3:30PM-4:30PM
Olive Pink Botanic Gardens (Marquee), 27 Tuncks Rd, Mpartnwe
Words to Sing the World Alive is a stunning new anthology of forty First Nation writers and thinkers who reveal their favourite words. The book reveals that cherishing language is an essential part of rebuilding culture and honouring ancestors. Contributors speak about words that evoke power, memory, family, Country and so much more.
Festival Opening
Friday May 30, 5PM-7PM
Olive Pink Botanic Gardens, 27 Tuncks Rd, Mparntwe
Enter the Olive Pink Botanic Garden as the sun sets to celebrate the official opening of the 2025 NT Writers Festival. We will gather to contemplate angkwerre-iweme | healing in the winds of change, opening with a smoking ceremony.
Sit under the desert sky and be enchanted by melodies by Xavia and readings by Sylvia Purrurle Neale, Sara Saleh, and Daniel Browning.
Feautre: Healing Comes from the Land
Saturday May 31, 7:30PM-9:30PM
Olive Pink Botanic Gardens, 27 Tuncks Rd, Mparntwe
This extraordinary storytelling night embraces the gifts of healing that arises from the land. Plants, animals, trees and rocks can be food, medicine, totem and friend: each storyteller will explore how the land has touched them and brought them wellbeing, care and strength. Relax around a campfire with the stars above and sense into the beauty of Arrernte Country as these stories unfurl around you, accompanied by the sounds of the wind through the leaves above. Featuring Gina Chick, Sara Saleh, Marie Elena Ellis, Sharlene Allsopp, Glen Hunting and others.
Panel: Disrupting Literature
Sunday June 1, 10:15AM-11:15AM
Olive Pink Botanic Gardens, 27 Tuncks Rd, Mparntwe
Australian literature is being faced with interventions that challenge old ways of doing. Indigenous authors write back to mainstream publishing and archives, and create new forms inspired by old traditions. In a time when universities and arts organisations are being increasingly censored, speaking out against genocide is crucial. Join Sara Saleh, Sharlene Allsopp, Theresa Penangke Alice, and and John Kemarre Cavanagh (with Gabriel Curtin) speak about disrupting traditional forms of power.
Facilitator: Kathryn Gilbey
Talk: Writing Communities
Sunday June 1, 3PM-4PM
Olive Pink Botanic Gardens (Gallery), 27 Tuncks Rd, Mparntwe
In Songs for the Dead and the Living, poet Sara Saleh's debut novel, the Husseini family leaves Palestine in search of peace - first in the safety of Lebanon, and ultimately in Australia. Winnie Dunn's debut novel Dirt Poor Islanders follows young Tongan writer Meadow Reed negotiate her cultural identity as she comes of age. Listen in to this brilliant conversation between two powerful writers emerging from the cultural hub of Western Sydney.
Tickets to all sessions can be purchased here.
Gawimarra:
Gathering
Purple Threads
mark the dawn
