Is Sydney Writers’ Festival screwing its writers? This isn’t fiction

April 11, 2026 — 1:30pm

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The Sydney Writers’ Festival prides itself on being “a barometer of the world around us” that “helps sustain Australia’s literary community and culture as a whole”. So why is it courting another controversy this year by doing business like an elite mafia, sparking accusations of restraint of trade and causing bestselling authors such as Michael Robotham to weigh in against its conduct?

Let me explain. Last year, the Sydney Writers’ Festival and the State Library of NSW jointly received $1.5 million from the NSW government to expand events beyond the usual week-long festival (this year, May 17-24) into year-round programming. The devil in the detail is that authors appearing at festival events with more than 50 attendees – even the satellite events throughout the year – are contractually barred from appearing at similar gatherings of readers in Sydney for four weeks before and two weeks after their SWF appearance.

This non-compete clause is a disaster for independent bookshops like the one I work for, the........

© The Sydney Morning Herald