Your Full Guide To The Sydney Writers’ Festival Program 2026
Every May, Sydney turns into a city that reads. Not casually, either—properly. For eight days, the Sydney Writers' Festival takes over theatres, halls and hidden corners of the city with conversations that move from page to stage, from politics to poetry.
Running May 17-24, the 2026 edition rolls out more than 200 events featuring over 250 writers, transforming Sydney into a kind of intellectual playground, of sorts. And this year, the names alone are big enough to draw crowds that surpass the size of two SCG stadiums (think over 100,000 people).
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, fantasy juggernaut R.F.Kuang, bestselling Brissy novelist Trent Dalton and First Nations literary heavyweight Tony Birch are just some of the names headlining this year's festival. They're also joined by a few of our personal favourites like journalist Antoinette Lattouf, historian and writer Bruce Pascoe, and the world's most chaotic children's author, Dav Pilkey, the creator of Captain Underpants.
Now in its 29th year, the festival has grown into one of the most significant literary gatherings in the Southern Hemisphere. This particular program has adopted the theme Show Me The Truth, really leaning into ideas around an era shaped by misinformation, algorithmic feeds and political distrust, talks dig into how truth is written and sometimes completely distorted.
On the international front, Kuang (who you know as the mastermind of Babel and Yellowface)—one of the most influential fantasty writers of the past decade is set to unpack how speculative fiction has really become kind of this vehicle for exploring power, empire and mythology. Ardern will appear in conversation about leadership (naturally) and the strange reality of governing during an era of global crisis, particularly pertinent right now.
Closer to home, Aussie writers are tackling equally urgent terrain—Tony Birch (Pictures Of You, The White Girl) will return with reflections on storytelling, history and identity, while Bruce Pascoe continues his work reshaping conversations around Indigenous history and knowledge systems which you no doubt read about in his book Dark Emu.
One of the more talked-about names in the Sydney Writers' Festival program this year is Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, the Palestinian-Australian author and academic is set to appear in multiple sessions across the week-long event. Her inclusion arrives at a pretty charged moment for the Australian literary circuit and off the back of Adelaide Writers' Week being abruptly cancelled after a large group of writers withdrew in protest of the author being dropped from its line-up. It was a decision that sparked a whole lot of national debate around censorship and free expression.
Those are the talks and talent that have stood out to us immediately but across the week, chats will range from democracy and artificial intelligence to grief, culture and the strange ways stories travel from page to screen with comedy debates, late night storytelling sessions and panels too.
As for tickets, they go on sale Saturday 14 March, from 10am.
The Details
What: Sydney Writers' Festival
When: May 17 until May 24
Where: Various locations around Sydney
Image credit: Supplied