Award-winning author Trent Dalton, known for Boy Swallows Universe and Love Stories, is among dozens of new names to withdraw from Adelaide Writers’ Week, an Adelaide Festival spokesperson confirmed to InDaily. 

He joins authors Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper, Sarah Krasnostein, who were all meant to appear at an event titled Mushrooms, Money, Murder and Marriage to promote their new book The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a Triple Murder Trial. 

Author and ABC Global Affairs Editor Laura Tingle, journalist and crime fiction author Chris Hammer and award-winning Green Dot author Madeleine Gray are among others who have walked.

They joined prominent authors, including international writers Zadie Smith, M. Gessen and Yanis Varoufakis and high-profile Australian journalist Peter Greste, a media freedom advocate known for being imprisoned in Egypt for 400 days.

So many writers had contacted the festival that it cleared its online list of 124 authors, saying “In respect of the wishes of the writers who have recently indicated their withdrawal from the Writers’ Week 2026 program we have temporarily unpublished the list of participants and events while we work through changes to the website”.

Writers SA, the state’s peak literary body, announced it was withdrawing from Adelaide Writers’ Week in solidarity with Abdel-Fattah, saying “the decision by the Adelaide Festival board to silence Randa undermines the purpose of writing and of writers festivals”.

Group Readers and Writers Against the Genocide said its list of authors abandoning the high-profile literary festival was quickly growing and nearing 100 on Friday afternoon.

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While not all have put out public statements about their departure, it is understood that their management has contacted festival organisers to withdraw.

The walkout comes after the Adelaide Festival board decision to drop Palestinian advocate Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from the Adelaide Writers’ Week lineup.

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The decision to drop her was made without the input of Director Louise Adler or the Adelaide Writers’ Week team, and has been criticised in an email to authors from event staff, signed off “best wishes during dark days”.

Premier Peter Malinauskas has backed the board’s decision and told ABC Radio Adelaide on Friday it was “for some good reason” that Abdel-Fattah be removed.

Malinauskas said that in February 2024, Abdel-Fattah wrote to the Adelaide Festival board advocating for the removal of a pro-Israeli speaker named Dr Thomas Freedman.

“This is lost for most people, but on the 6^th of February of 2024, Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah who is the person subject to this board decision, she herself wrote to the Adelaide Festival board advocating for the removal of a pro-Israeli speaker in 2024 a gentleman by the name of Dr Thomas Freedman,” Malinauskas said.

Abdel-Fattah was one of 10 signatories on the letter – seen by InDaily – to the Adelaide Festival board requesting Freedman’s removal.

“Mr Freedman wrote an article that was deemed to be offensive to the Palestinian community.  Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah advocated for his removal from the Adelaide Writers’ Week program in 2024 and in that instance the board made a decision to remove that pro-Israeli speaker,” Malinauskas said.

“Fast forward to where we are today and now Dr Abdel-Fattah finds herself [subject] to the same types of advocacy against her. And I think for some good reason.”

Malinauskas pointed to Abdel-Fattah’s social media posts, which he claimed were of concern.

“I think the board has made the right judgment to seek to preserve the contest of ideas as distinct from silencing people by denying them cultural safety.”

Malinauskas said on Thursday that under legislation he was prevented from directing the board, but “when asked for my opinion, I was happy to make it clear that the state government did not support the inclusion of Dr Abdel-Fattah on the Adelaide Writers’ Week program”.

The Jewish Council of Australia was among those who condemned the board’s decision “in the strongest possible terms”.

“The fact that yet another institution has caved to a relentless campaign waged against Dr Abdel-Fattah and supporters of Palestinians should be deeply concerning to all who value a plural and open society,” the statement read on Instagram.

Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Friday that writers’ concerns were being collated and shared with the board. It advised it would turn off social media comments on its platforms over the weekend and reopen them on Monday morning.

“Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week staff thank you all for your commentary these past couple of days,” the Instagram post read.

“We reiterate that community discussion is still encouraged and throughout this time you can contact us by email, via our website, with any concerns.”

The public list of writers understood to have withdrawn from the event: