How are the programs for writers festivals put together, and where does YA come into them?

Ask Alice is an online column written by our former Secretary, Dr Alice Boer-Endacott, who has published several young adult fantasy novels and a non-fiction mini, under ‘A B Endacott’.

Ask Alice is designed to unpack all aspects of the Australian young adult literary scene, so if you’ve got a question, go ahead and Ask Alice!

One of the Ask Alice yearly features is a review of YA events and authors at some of Australia’s major writers festivals. Often, it contains under (or over) tones of light critique at the way YA authors are often siloed into schools or children’s programs.

However, this year, I was thinking that it’s really easy for me to sit back and pass judgement. It’s a lot harder to understand how and why programs are put together, let alone to be the person to actually undertake such a task.

So as a lead up to my yearly fixture, I thought it might be useful to understand how the programs for writers festivals are put together, and where YA comes into it.

Three absolute superstars helped me answer this question: Emily Bowman Youth Programs Manager Brisbane Writers Festival (9–12 October, 2025), Nathan Luff, Manager of Children’s & YA Programs for Sydney Writers Festival (18–28 May, 2025), and Veronica Sullivan, Festival Director, Melbourne Writers Festival (8–11 May, 2024) (NB. I reached out to the organisers of the Adelaide Writers Week but they did not respond to my email).

Starting with an overview of the process, it became quickly apparent that availability of authors, what’s actually been recently released, and consideration of all sectors of an audience are the key factors directing an approach to programming.

Emily revealed of the process, “we receive the majority of our pitches from publicists, but it’s also important to be aware of what’s on the market that publishers might leave off their lists. And of course, anyone is welcome to send a pitch themselves.”

In last year’s round up of the writers festivals, I declared Brisbane Writers Festival “kicks absolute goals in my heart” due to the existence of “the free Love YA Day, its dedicated schools program…as well as the inclusion of YA events and authors in their main program.” As a result, it’s no surprise that Emily said, “cross-programming is something we consider very early on when curating the program. When we receive a pitch list from a publisher, we take into consideration how an author (especially an author travelling from interstate) can fit into multiple streams of programming.”

She elaborated that one way this is achieved is by looking at work the author has produced beyond the work for which they’re being pitched (generally a new release). She shared, “the feedback we’ve had from a few of the artists we’ve programmed this way is that they appreciate feeling like they’re part of the wider festival and not siloed to just the schools or YA program.”

Nathan’s response was similar to Emily’s: “One of the first steps is to speak with the publicists from the various publishers in Australia to get a sense of what titles are coming out prior to the next festival […] Some authors also pitch themselves directly.”

Nathan elaborated that in narrowing down the choice, “at SWF, we like to include international speakers […] as they can bring interesting perspectives outside of our Australian publishing scene, so often the process of programming might start there and who’s available/interested to come. For panels, what I’m looking for are different trends, or things I can put together that make sense.”

Similarly, Veronica spoke about publishers pitching authors, as well as the importance of an author’s availability lining up with the festival fates. Her response overlapped significantly with Nathan’s in the importance she placed on tapping into current trends and conversations: “I read as widely as possible across new and forthcoming books, and meet regularly with publishers who pitch their lists of authors who might be a good fit for the program. I also read reviews locally and overseas, listen to bookish podcasts, and keep an eye out in bookstores and online for what people are reading and talking about.”

One thing I wasn’t expecting was how much effort goes into considering how to uplift emerging, or less ‘popular’ artists. Emily shared: “one of the most important things is whether we think there will be audience interest for a particular author or topic, and if it’s a new or niche voice but we still want to program them, then how can we generate interest?” In the instances of newer or more niche authors, “we might program them alongside a well-established name on a panel […] audiences will book tickets for the author they’re familiar with, and find a new author they want to read when they attend the session.”

So that tells us how a festival program is put together. But what about a dedicated schools, or younger readers, program? Obviously, when putting together a schools program, festivals need to also take into account author availability, as well as accommodate the very different needs of different age ranges – as well as a different kind of engagement in the audience. 

For Nathan, a primary focus in crafting the schools program is “for a diverse range of speakers and genres,” bearing in mind that “I’m often catering for a range of ages and sometimes reading ability as well […] Our School Days current structure requires dynamic speakers who can take to the stage solo and be engaging for 45 minutes, whereas a panel at All Day YA or Family Day might be more suited to a softer-spoken author.”

This focus shifts slightly when looking at the Primary School Days and Family Day program, as they are explicitly “focused on inspiring a joy of reading,” with the awareness that “the students who are brought along to these events are not always readers, like you would get in the main festival.”

Both the Sydney and Melbourne Schools programs have events specifically targeted at years 7-10, which excludes upper YA, a very popular and significant tranche of the genre. I asked Nathan and Veronica about this.

Nathan replied, “we have had some feedback in the past where the texts have been a bit too advanced or mature for years 7 and 8 readers […] Our All Day YA program does allow us to program any upper YA titles that we couldn’t make work for the school program.”

Things get interesting in schools program at that upper level, as there is often a direct intersection between the years 11 and 12 English curriculum and what’s programmed.

The Sydney Writers festival has a separate program for students in years 11 and 12 (Student Sessions), focused on the prescribed texts and craft of writing requirements for English Syllabus.

For Melbourne Writers Festival, Veronica shared, “the paramount difference between programming for MWF Schools and the MWF general program is that curriculum links and the ability to tie authors and their works back to the classroom are essential for MWF Schools.” As part of developing this program, she emphasised “the deep expertise and input of our incredible Education Advisor, Karys McEwen,” who “met with publishers, provided advice on authors and programming ideas, identified curriculum links and developed educational resources for teachers and students who attend this year’s events.”

I’m interested in this approach from Melbourne and Sydney. Certainly, many students in years 11 and 12 would see enormous benefit in events which explicitly tie into the tasks required of them as by their respective English curricula.

However, as I noted a couple of months ago, most of the books on year 11 and 12 syllabi are adult. Indeed, Nathan noted, “we borrow from the adult program for our Student Session program, giving HSC students access to a range of authors.”

On principle, I do worry at the suggestion implicit within this; there comes a time when reading for pleasure is mutually exclusive with reading tied to an explicit outcome.

With that being said, Sydney’s all Day YA is a soft counter to this, and, as Veronica said, “this is my first year as Director of MWF, so I am looking closely at the responses to all of our activities and thinking about what we might do more of, or do differently, in future years. Thinking about how we serve older students, and how we include upper YA and New Adult writing in both MWF Schools and the general program, is very much part of that process.”

So with that in mind, it’s hardly a grim dystopia.

Moreover, there is permeation between the general and schools programs. Veronica pointed to an example in this year’s program, Jessica Townsend: as the “long-awaited fourth book in the Nevermoor series, Silverborn, is due to be released the week before this year’s festival. That made it natural for us to seek Jessica’s involvement in the MWF Schools program, where she will be speaking to students who love her books, as well as in the general program, given the wide range of readers (many of them long past school age!) who love her work.” Veronica made an interesting point, that many readers follow a YA series into their adulthood, which renders them ineligible for attending schools programs and thus makes a strong case for putting YA authors in general programs.

Of course, it’s not just that people might follow a series they started in their teen years into adulthood. There’s a clear appetite for YA titles among adult readers. More than a quarter of YA readers are over 28; well past adolescence. Veronica acknowledged, “YA writers are absolutely brilliant storytellers, beautiful prose stylists, and think deeply and intentionally about their work and their readers. These qualities of YA writing go some way to explaining why so many readers of YA books are well beyond their teen years, and audiences for events with YA writers consequently span a vast range of ages.” And I totally get that can be a tricky needle to thread: Program for schools and you isolate adult readers; program for adult readers and you lock out teenage readers – the actual intended audience of such texts. This comes alongside a supply of program slots which is far outstripped by the number of people who’d be willing to fill them.

However, we often forget that audience members aren’t just themselves readers, but are often advocates of reading, as they are parents, booksellers, librarians, and teachers. Nathan drew this to my attention when he said, “for the past couple of years I have worked with the programmers of the adult program to curate sessions for parents, featuring CYA [Children and Young Adult] authors, focusing on how we can get kids reading.”

I love this approach. Even older teens are still being guided in their reading practice by the people who facilitate their access to books. With the above points in mind, there are some significant benefits to the kind of cross-programming Brisbane does which seems to bring the best of both worlds to the fore.

At my behest, Emily elaborated on these benefits: “The authors themselves get more out of their festival experience by participating in more than their session in the YA program. Speaking on multiple panels means they get to speak on different themes and topics […] Participating in more sessions also means more opportunity to connect with their readers […as] attendees have more opportunity to hear their favourite author speak, and to hear them speak in a range of contexts.”

Beyond the obvious benefit of more exposure meaning more likelihood of an artist being discovered by new audiences, Emily outlined this is also really beneficial for the festival itself: “we need to take into consideration how we can make back the cost of putting on these events, especially for interstate authors for which we’re covering travel expenses.”

The question which remains for me, though, is where YA actually does sit within writers festivals. Maybe I have a chip on my shoulder, or self-consciousness that arises from the double whammy of being the author of YA/NA fantasy titles. Maybe I’m hyper focused on the place of YA by virtue of writing this column for LoveOzYA, and thus I don’t understand why YA titles aren’t known, read, and loved by everybody.

Nathan made an interesting observation: “I feel like many of the writers festivals used to be a lot more literary than they are now—from my observations, commercial fiction is being programmed more and more, and I hope there will be a knock-on effect for the way people see YA fiction (ie as something to be taken seriously).” He added, “I would also point out that many festivals don’t have any CYA programs, or indeed, any CYA authors on their line-ups.”

Certainly, he’s right. In my perusal of writers festival programs over the past years, I’ve seen an increasing number of genre fiction authors on panels, and on panels specifically dedicated to exploring those genres. However, Veronica acknowledged an enduring “snobbishness or a marginalisation of YA writing in literary circles, and intentionally or not, writers’ festivals often play into this.”

At the end of the day, YA occupies this interesting space where it straddles readerships and genres. It’s going to mean that programming it comes with a unique set of challenges. While one could argue there’s always room for improvement, after speaking with Emily, Nathan, and Veronica, I’m deeply comforted and invigorated by their passion for and appreciation for YA. I’m left feeling like this ongoing conversation about what writers festivals in general should look like is a robust and thoughtful one, and the role of YA in future writers festivals is being meaningfully and respectfully considered. Really, that’s all you can ask.

The Sydney Writers Festival program is now live and available for viewing (and purchase), and the Melbourne Writers Festival program is now live and available for viewing (and purchase). 

As always, my heartfelt thanks to my contributors, who took the time out of their very busy days to answer my very hectic questions!!