Unsure if you can apply to be part of the 2025 Emerging Writers’ Festival? Read on the find out all about the application process.

Emerging Writers’ Festival is primarily a festival for writers – our audience and our artists are all storytellers of various kinds. Our mission is to champion, develop and promote Australia’s new writing talent, providing professional development opportunities to emerging writers and storytellers, and supporting them in engaging new and larger audiences.
Each year we program artists from around the continent, and are committed to selecting a major portion of these from the open artist call-out.

‘So… who can apply for the Emerging Writers’ Festival?’

Emerging writers this! Emerging writers that! We talk a lot about our festival being for the ’emerging writer’, but what does that actually mean? If you’re curious about whether you can apply for EWF25, then you probably can!

We recognise that different writers and creatives are at different points in their creative journeys. Whether you’ve had two books published and are pivoting into a new form or genre, or if you don’t even really think of yourself as a professional writer and just want to perform! For us, emerging can mean lots of things…

  • •‘Emerging’ doesn’t necessarily mean young!
  • •‘Emerging’ can mean that you’re an established writer moving into a different genre or form
  • •‘Emerging’ can mean that you’ve recently published your first book
  • •‘Emerging’ can mean that you’re just at the beginning of your writing journey
  • •‘Emerging’ can mean that you’re not yet published, or that you only have a few publications to your name
  • •Your work can come in many different forms. Essentially what we’re interested in is storytelling, not necessarily just the written word
  • •Audio and visual forms definitely fall under ‘writing’ in our minds – comic artists, filmmakers, game designers, podcasters, photographers and more are all welcome, as long as your work encompasses storytelling in some shape or form
  • •Equally, if you work in one medium or are specifically interested in the written word, we also want to hear from you
  • •Fiction and nonfiction will always have a place in the festival. Come critics, come playwrights, come poets, come all
  • •We encourage multidisciplinary practitioners to apply, and we’re interested in intersections between forms, mediums, disciplines and thematic content

Essentially, if you consider yourself ‘emerging’ and you think that you can get something out of the festival, please consider applying.

We get a lot of applications. Even if you think we know you and what you do, tell us in your own words. You know yourself best, so tell us what your strengths are; think about which topics and themes that you specifically have something valuable to contribute to. We also want to know if you’re keen to try something different, or build your skills in an area you’re not yet super confident in.

We read and re-read these applications, and the information you give us here is how we figure out where you would best fit into the program. We can’t make decisions with information that isn’t there – include everything you think is relevant to help us decide where to put you in the festival.

COMMON MISTAKES:

  • •Not including enough information, or assuming we know you and your practice
  • •Unnecessary information or waffle
  • •Impersonal information – it’s OK to put your own twist on what you tell us. We’re reading a lot of these!
  • •As a general rule we don’t program solo shows or events that have been staged or programmed before from the Open Artist Call-Out

Please don’t say ‘put me anywhere’ or ‘I’d like to be involved in any way possible’. We understand that you’re super keen to be part of the festival, but this doesn’t help us figure out where best to place you! Let us know which topics interest you and what kind of event you would like to be a part of.

TOP TIPS:

  • •Do your homework. Look at previous festivals and programs; think about how your voice and work fits in with what we do
  • •Be succinct, clear and concise – it’s OK to use dot-points!
  • •Think of this as a pitch; tell us why this topic/event and why you. Be specific and detailed
  • •Think outside the box – don’t just pitch us what you always do, or something that you’ve seen done a million times before

Now that you know all about our artist call-out, it’s time to apply! The call-out runs until 10 February 2025, 5PM AEDT, so be sure to get in before the applications close.

Click here to apply for EWF25