In 2024, the long-running Perth writers' festival announced it would be taking a break in 2025, coming back with a refreshed event in early 2026.
Literature has been a part of the Perth Festival since it was founded by the University of Western Australia in 1953, and in the 1990s the writers' component became a standalone event within the festival program, with its own manager.
By 2018, it had expanded to become Perth Writers Week, before the COVID pandemic pared it back to a single weekend that by 2024 was run jointly by peak body Writing WA and the State Library of WA.
The last Perth Festival Writers Weekend, held in February 2024, was, by some accounts, a tense event.
Organisers had invited singer/songwriter Deborah Conway to appear at the festival in three events, including an opening night performance, songwriting workshop and a panel discussion about her new book.
Five months earlier, the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, and Israel's military response had preceded waves of protest.
In an interview on Radio National Breakfast on December 15, 2023 about division in the arts community over the Israel-Gaza war, host Patricia Karvelas asked Conway about the impact of Israel's military action on innocent people, including children.
Per Henningsgaard, the current chair of Writing WA, suspects it's a daunting prospect for anyone looking to restart Perth's writers festival.
Sisonke Msimang said the event had been navigating sensitive issues for some time, such as the Perth Festival's long running partnerships with the mining sector, including oil and gas giant Chevron, which sponsored the festival's music program.