Back in February, as Adelaide Writers’ Week went into a tailspin, I found myself being cc’d into long email threads, and invited into open-call meetings full of other local writers, publishers, editors and organisers. These were all people who had spent years passionately making and sharing stories around the state – but it was rare to see all their paths converge at once.

The first outcome of those talks was Constellations Festival, the grassroots, open-access festival that sought to fill the immediate void left by Writers’ Week’s cancellation. But those spontaneous conversations and connections also highlighted a collective ambition to support the local scene beyond six days in February and March.

“I think it’s highlighted just how much of a community we are,” says Writers SA CEO Claire Hicks, who wasn’t long in the job when South Australia’s literary scene was unexpectedly thrust into the national spotlight.

“Constellations has reminded folk of how we can come together to build something special and that working together makes a better outcome for readers and writers.”

From August, Adelaide will host a string of shorter, smaller, and more community-focussed festivals that Writers SA is promoting under the umbrella ‘Spring Writes’. First up is Writers Assemble!, a three-day spread run by Flinders University’s Assemblage Centre for Creative Practice Research. According to author and Flinders Creative Writing lecturer Alex Cothren, it was originally conceived in 2025 as a gentle “counter-programming” to the “flagship” of Adelaide Writers’ Week.

“They bring a lot of internationals and nationals, which is great,” Cothren tells InReview. “But we have so many writers in this state that we thought it’d be really cool to headline South Australian writers. So from the start, we’ve aimed for around 75% South Australian writers for each event.”

Cothren, who published his debut short story collection Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere last year through local indie publisher Pink Shorts Press, says that genre and audience distinctions can leave some local readers and writers out of the conversation.

“Genre, for example, doesn’t get a huge amount of focus at Adelaide Writers’ Week, which is a bit of a problem for Flinders because we specialise in genre fiction – romance, science fiction, fantasy, and horror is what we teach our students.”

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Cothren cites Clare Connelly, a locally based, largely self-published romance writer whose success has barely registered on the literary festival circuit despite selling millions of books.

“She would be one of the most successful South Australian writers there are, if not Australian,” he says. “But she’s never been invited to Adelaide Writers’ Week.”

Connolly is joined on the second Writers Assemble! lineup by Lainie Anderson, Natalie Harkin, Sharon Kernot, Andrew Roff and Danielle Clode, alongside a handful of interstate visitors like Melbourne’s Alison Goodman and Perth author turned DIY publisher Patrick Marlborough.

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For Hicks and Cothren, the distinction between writing and publishing is an important through-line across the spring festivals.

“Yes, there are writers with new and recent publications, those who are already or soon will have awards for their latest publication, a mix of local and interstate – but their involvement is not driven by what’s new on the shelves of book shops. It leans into the needs of our South Australian communities, both writers and readers, and plays to the strengths of the local sector.”

Cothren says Writers Assemble! also has a focus on craft.

“The actual craft of writing doesn’t really matter what age group we’re writing for. Obviously there are different choices you have to make, but often you’re still going for the same emotions, the same effect. So, very deliberately, we jumble up our panels across genres and across age groups.”

In November, Writers SA will also bring back its free Context Writers’ Festival, which this year will be co-curated by Courtney Jaye, a Ngarrindjeri writer and past recipient of InReview First Nations Arts Writing mentorship, alongside Tamara Montina and Olivia De Zilva (Editor’s note: like Constellations, I’ve also appeared on sessions at previous Context festivals).

For De Zilva, who this week releases her new poetry collection Sick Note – which she describes as a response to being “chronically ill and chronically online” – these smaller festivals are a way to spotlight local writers who feel the Writers’ Week stage seems an “unattainable” goal.

“Context definitely focuses on the margins, and different perspectives that you wouldn’t usually see at a big, commercial writers’ festival,” De Zilva says of the 2026 program, which is still to be announced. “I think it’s a really big opportunity to mix emerging and established voices, but also come away with discussions that aren’t usually touched upon.”

In addition to running No Wave poetry reading nights at the Wheatsheaf, De Zilva also co-founded the Opinionated book club and event series alongside Montina, which is pitched at women of colour in response to a lack of diversity they encountered in the mainstream publishing industry and festival circuit. Like many, De Zilva hopes to carry on the example set by Constellations, which she says became “a melting pot of ideas” and “delicate and divisive conversations”.

“Community was the most important part of Constellations, and I think that’s what the most important part of writing is, and the most important part of storytelling. So when those elements came together, it became much more fulfilling.”

"Community was the most important part of Constellations, and I think that’s what the most important part of writing is, and the most important part of storytelling."

Sami Shah, the Melbourne-based journalist and curator of OzAsia Festival’s Weekend of Words, is no stranger to literary festivals, and says it’s the “nature of the beast” that many bigger literary festivals have “a level of sameness that kind of blurs together after a while”.

His first brush with Weekend of Words – formerly titled In Other Words – felt entirely different, a “therapeutic and cathartic” experience for speakers and audiences.

“It was a festival for a community, and we’d never all been gathered together in one space before,” he says of its focus on Asian and Asian Australian writers and commentators.

“Being able to have the conversations that we want to have, without having to worry, ‘Am I the token person of colour on this panel?’ or ‘How do I frame this conversation for a white panelist or a white moderator?’

“It became very empowering. And for me, it was right away the best festival I’d ever done.”

This year’s single-day program on Saturday October 24 includes nationally recognised names such as Antoinette Lattouf, Nam Le, Yumi Stines, Benjamin Law, Miles Franklin winner Siang Lu, alongside local writers like Durkhanai Ayubi and Smirti Daniel. While the broader OzAsia Festival is slated to be retired after its 20^th anniversary program in 2026, Shah isn’t sure what the future holds for Weekend of Words – but he’s hopeful it will live on.

“I’ve curated for three years – I’d love to hand over the baton to someone else and see what they do with it, and keep building these conversations and having this kind of space. There’s a reason why every single writer who has done it has then said, myself included, that it’s the highlight of their year.”

With Adelaide Writers’ Week set to dust itself off in 2027 under new director Rosemarie Milsom, it’s hoped Adelaide’s other literary festivals will contribute to a continuing, year-round interest in South Australia’s literary landscape – not to fill a gap, but to widen the net.

“Adelaide Writers’ Week is not to be missed, and we are really looking forward to its return next year, but it is only one week,” Hicks reflects. “There are another 51 weeks of the year when we want to connect with writers and writing, to engage with the people and stories they contain, and to grapple with ideas and emotions.”

Writers Assemble! runs from September 11 – 12 at the State Library of South Australia. OzAsia Festival’s Weekend of Words is on Saturday October 24. Context Writers Festival runs from November 20 – 22.