Rosemarie Milsom has been appointed the new director of adelaide Writers' Week and will start in mid-May. She is stepping down from her role as director of Newcastle Writers Festival to take the Adelaide post.
Adelaide Festival chair Judy Potter said Milsom was “an outstanding advocate for writers, with a strong understanding of the cultural conversations shaping Australian literature today,” and said her approach “aligns perfectly with the spirit of Adelaide Writers' Week - curious, inclusive and intellectually rigorous.”
Judy Potter on Milsom
Potter also said, “We are thrilled to welcome her and look forward to the vision and energy she will bring to the role.” The appointment gives Adelaide Writers' Week a new leader after a period in which the festival’s direction became a public issue rather than a routine staffing change.
Louise Adler resigned in January after the Adelaide festival board rescinded its invitation to Palestinian-Australian author Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah. More than 180 writers boycotted Adelaide Writers' Week in protest, and this year's event was cancelled.
Adelaide Writers' Week dispute
A month later, the board that disinvited Abdel-Fattah was replaced with a new board that reinvited her to next year's Adelaide Writers' Week. National media attention then turned to Newcastle Writers Festival, where Abdel-Fattah was next due to speak, and Milsom stood firm over that appearance.
Milsom said in February that inviting artists with diverse views and politics did not represent endorsement. That position now carries into Adelaide, where she takes over a festival that has already been through a board change, a resignation and a cancelled edition before her first day in the job.
Her start in mid-May gives the festival a reset point before the next edition under a new director, with the programme now tied to a leader who already managed one literary festival through public pressure and dispute.
