Writers Victoria, one of a national network of centres providing crucial support and employment to writers, has lost its funding – putting its “very survival” at risk. Its loss would make Victoria (whose capital, Melbourne, is a UNESCO City of Literature) the only mainland state without a state government-funded peak organisation for writers.

Creative Victoria has provided emergency funding for the first six months of 2026. But it is not enough to cover existing contractual obligations to authors, staff salaries and a rental lease, Writers Victoria chair Janice Gobey told the Australian. She has launched a petition to the Parliament of Victoria to restore state funding. So far, it has garnered about 2,000 signatures.

Why does it matter if we lose Writers Victoria? What do these state and territory writers’ centres do? We’ve had them since South Australia opened the first one in 1985, roughly 40 years ago. Now, they “play a fundamental role in our literary ecosystem,” Jennifer Mills, chair of the Australian Society of Authors and Miles Franklin shortlisted author, told The Conversation.

Novelist Toni Jordan told us Writers Victoria was “instrumental” in the creation and success of her Miles Franklin longlisted debut novel, Addition, released as a feature film this week. “Writers Victoria workshops helped me write it, and I met my publisher at an ‘ask the publishers’ event run by Writers Victoria.” Mills met her first publisher at a similar writers’ centre event, run by NT Writers’ Centre.

Jordan described the organisation, which she became a patron of this month, as an “incubator for new generations of writing talent every year”. She worries about the established writers who might not reach this career stage in five or ten years without it.

While Mills praised writers’ centres’ role in helping new writers connect with community and professional opportunities, she also emphasised their role in supporting established ones. “Writers’ centres pay,” she said. “They directly employ authors and usually pay fair rates for appearances, workshops and mentoring.”

Writers Victoria received about A$150,000 per year from 2022 to 2025. The 37-year-old organisation is “now exploring alternative funding pathways, partnerships, and philanthropic solutions” for beyond June.

CEO Jill Brown told me the organisation “hasn’t bounced back” since 2020. She called this “a Melbourne problem”, related to the ongoing impact of the city’s long lockdowns.

This – along with cost-of-living pressures – manifested in a membership decline. In Writers Victoria’s last........

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