The two figures at the centre of the Adelaide festival controversy will reunite to headline the alternative to the cancelled 2026 Adelaide writers’ week.
Palestinian Australian academic and writer Randa Abdel-Fattah and AWW’s former director Louise Adler will appear together at Constellations: Not Writers’ Week, a hastily compiled series of events scheduled to start on 28 February in response to the Adelaide festival board’s decision to scrap Australia’s flagship annual literary festival.
Abdel-Fattah’s invitation to speak in 2026 was withdrawn by the board after controversy and complaints over her past statements, including a social media post claiming Zionists had “no claim to cultural safety” and a Facebook profile image of a paraglider with a Palestinian flag parachute, which was posted the day after the 7 October attack on Israel.
Abdel-Fattah recently told the Full Story podcast that the “cultural safety” statement had been taken out of context and that the paraglider image was “an iconic symbol of freedom” for Palestinians under siege.
Adler, who resigned in protest at the decision, will appear in conversation at the Adelaide town hall on 1 March. The event has been organised by the Australian Friends of Palestine Association.
In keeping with the AWW tradition, this will be one of the few ticketed events at Constellations, with most sessions offering free entry or entry by donation.
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In another event, Miles Franklin winner Melissa Lucashenko and First Nations academic Chelsea Watego are among those scheduled to join Abdel-Fattah for Rivers of Reason. Organised by boycotting writer Ren Wyld, the session will explore commonalities between Blak and Arab diaspora writing.
Among the new lineup are some of the 180-plus writers who announced their boycott of AWW after Abdel-Fattah was dumped.
Prominent Greek leftwing politician and economist Yanis Varoufakis will headline a two-panel afternoon presented by The Australia Institute, which pulled its sponsorship of the AWW in protest, to discuss politics and culture with historian Clare Wright, another early boycotter.
Constellations’ co-organiser Jennifer Mills, the chair of the Australian Society of Authors and a strident critic of the previous festival board’s decision to cancel Abdel-Fattah, said the program is set to grow over the next two weeks as more authors, venues and organisers offer their support.
“This is an extraordinary community effort, and we’re really excited to see it come together,” she said in a statement.
“The response from readers, writers, venues and volunteers has been truly heartening.”
On 12 January, Adler resigned as director of AWW, citing the board’s “untenable” interference with editorial independence. A decision to cancel the 2026 event was made the same day. Most of the board had resigned the previous weekend.
A newly appointed interim board issued a formal, public apology to Abdel-Fattah and promised her a seat at the 2027 event, but deemed the 2026 iteration “tragically irretrievable”.
Constellations: Not Writers’ Week runs from 28 February to 5 March.
