The National Young Writers' Festival (NYWF) occurs annually in the city of

Newcastle, New South Wales Newcastle, also commonly referred to as Greater Newcastle ( ; ), is a large Metropolitan area, metropolitan area and the second-most-populous such area of New South Wales, Australia. It includes the cities of City of Newcastle, Newcastle and Ci ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, over the New South Wales' Labour Day Holiday Weekend in late September/early October. It is the country's largest gathering of young and innovative writers working in both new and traditional forms including

zines A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

ging,

screenwriting Screenwriting or scriptwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for mass media such as feature films, television productions or video games. It is often a freelance profession. Screenwriters are responsible for researching the story, dev ...

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

spoken word Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 20th-century continuation of an oral tradition, ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetic ...

hip hop music Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music Music genre, genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African Americans, African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide r ...

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

songwriting A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...

and

prose Prose is language that follows the natural flow or rhythm of speech, ordinary grammatical structures, or, in writing, typical conventions and formatting. Thus, prose ranges from informal speaking to formal academic writing. Prose differs most n ...

. NYWF presents 'writing' in its broadest sense through panels, discussions, workshops, launches, performances and readings. NYWF gives young writers a place to present their work and share ideas, to learn about the industry in which they write and to meet with like-minded people in a friendly festival atmosphere. The festival's current lead artistic director is Tina Huang. The festival's previous directors include Lex Hirst (2014 - 2015), Alexandra Neill (2014 - 2015), Jessica Alice (2014 - 2015) and Sian Campbell (2015 - 2016).

History

The National Young Writers Festival was founded as an independent festival in 1998. The founders included

Marcus Westbury Marcus Westbury OAM (born 1974) is an Australian urbanist, festival director, TV presenter, writer and broadcaster. He is based in Melbourne, Australia where he filmed the TV series '' Not Quite Art''. for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation s ...

and Sean Healy, who were associated with the Octapod Association - a

based arts and media organisation. In 2000 the National Young Writers' Festival became a key part of a broader coalition of arts and media festivals known as

This Is Not Art This Is Not Art (TiNA) is a national festival of new media and arts organized in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia each year over the October long weekend since 1998. TiNA is dedicated to the work and ideas of artistic communities not general ...

, held in the city over the same weekend. The 23rd went virtual in 2020. Due to difficulties, the 2024 festival was cancelled, and it returned in 2025.

Past Guests

The 2007 festival featured poets

Judith Beveridge Judith Beveridge (born 1956) is a contemporary Australian poet, editor and academic. She is a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award. Biography Judith Beveridge was born in London, England, arriving in Australia with her parents in 1960. S ...

and Andy Jackson. The 2008 festival featured poets Sam Byfield, Ella Holcombe and Geoff Lemon. The 2012 festival featured international guest Christian Lander, author of Stuff White People Like. The 2023 Special Guest was Anwen Crawford.

References

External links

National Young Writers' Festival websiteThis Is Not Art website
{{coord missing, New South Wales Festivals established in 1998 Literary festivals in Australia Festivals in New South Wales 1998 establishments in Australia

History

Past Guests

See also

References

External links