Of course there have been exceptions – Elizabeth Riddell in the Bulletin in 1982 was one. But these highlight the difficulty many Australians seem to have in writing naturally about a writers’ festival, a difficulty which is not shared by the participants themselves, especially those from abroad. These either attack it or praise it, generally the latter. They find nothing strange about a group of writers getting together to talk, drink, sound off, and read their work. They find it only natural that writers should have a high public profile, that they should sit on platforms and publicly discuss their work and the work of their peers, that they should have opinions as writers on social and political issues, that they should relax by drinking wine in the afternoon, that they should go off in groups to restaurants for dinner and even sing afterwards.

And unless this starts to sound like a replay of the Cultural Cringe, I should stress that the Australian writers taking part in Writers’ Week seem to find it perfectly natural too. And so they should. Adelaide’s Writers’ Week has been going for twenty-six years, and Perth, Canberra, and Sydney have all recently started writers’ festivals of their own. Such things are here to stay; and in international terms, Adelaide’s is not only one of the longest running, it is also a front-runner in terms of prestige.

The main purpose of any such festival, in my view, is to do some good for the writers. Fortunately, one can generally achieve this by doing some good for the readers (the audience) at the same time. On this particular occasion their interests go hand in hand. I have never been able to get exact figures, but there is no doubt that large numbers of books by writers taking part are sold during the Week. More are to be sold later, particularly as some of the participants give readings interstate, and some kind of continuing readership is built up. People often ask why really popular novelists aren’t invited to take part. One answer would be that such writers’ interests are very nicely looked after already by their publishers’ publicity departments. Writers’ Week can concentrate on those (more thoughtful? more serious? less comforting?) writers who will not be runaway best-sellers.

The writers benefit in other ways too. Talking is possibly more important and valuable for writers, whose work is lonely and yet so intimately involves words, than for any other occupational group. Therefore that wine and chat under the trees and in the restaurants serves a purpose. Novelists tell anecdotes, poets pun, dramatists do the police in different voices etc., all for once exercising in public the verbal dexterity that makes them writers in private. The casual observer can be forgiven for not realising that despite the carnival atmosphere friendships are being formed or renewed, ideas exchanged, contacts made, hints about publishers, agents and editors dropped, and countless other facets of the writer’s business discussed. For the organisers of Writers’ Week, this informal exchange is every bit as important as the talk sessions and the readings. That is why Adelaide has kept to an outdoor venue, which restricts people’s movements less than an indoor one. It is interesting to see that this has been copied by the Edinburgh Festival, despite the difference in climate!

Of course, countless things can go wrong with a festival the size of Writers’ Week, and probably all of them have at some time. Speakers can hate their topics or their fellow panellists, the sound system can break down, drunken or deranged members of the audience can try to take over the show, writers unused to the sight of a microphone can monopolise it long past their allotted time. Book launches have been disrupted by irate rock groups, and writers have fallen off the platform or gone to sleep on it. The list of potential disasters is endless. But the biggest problem for the organisers, apart from the apparently endless task of raising the funds and putting the whole show together, is making sure that the writers show up.

This will always be a problem because writers, unlike the other artists at the Adelaide Festival, are not professional public entertainers. Nor can they be bound by contract. Even if Adelaide could offer them a huge fee – which it can’t – there would still be publishers’ deadlines to meet, or that burst of creative energy which must not be interrupted lest it turn into a fizzer. Some writers just hate festivals and will never come anyway, others think it sounds great when invited a year ahead but go cold on it as the date approaches. And what right have we to complain? A writer’s primary job is to write. That is why the organisers keep the list of participants quiet until they feel confident, which is never much before things are due to start.

This year, publishers have been encouraged to take more part in Writers’ Week. Publishers are important too. What’s more, writers like to be present when their books are launched, and a lot of books are going to be launched. The fact that so many publishers are to be represented in Adelaide in March this year, and that so many writers from Australia and from abroad are definitely going to be there, suggests that whatever Writers’ Week provides for them is worth coming for. The audience, which has been steadily growing over the last three or four festivals, will no doubt find it enjoyable too.