Addi Road Writers' Festival 2025
Saturday 17 May
11am to 6pm
Theme: "free expression"
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Early bird tickets $35 (limited release)
Full price $40
Students and unemployed $20
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Event takes place inside our Gumbramorra Hall (GH) and the Greek Theatre (GT).
Tickets will provide open access to ALL events on the day pending hall and theatre capacity for each conversation or 'hot spot' performance.
Food and coffee with an open green area for relaxing; family and pet friendly outside on the green between our venues.
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All profits go to Addi Road's food relief programs and community work
Our developing program for Addi Road Writers' Festival 2025 – with panel details, participants and bio notes – is available below. Scroll down for updates as they occur.
Overall event runs 11am to 6pm as stated.
Stay with us in the meanwhile – and let your friends know about ARWF2025 by sharing the news.
We're a community organisation engaged with humanitarian and human rights work across a spectrum of activities from food relief to arts and culture events like this. Thanks for your patience and any support you can give ARWF2025.
Thanks to Berkelouw Books Leichhardt for returning as our bookseller.
Thanks to 2SER-FM for being a supporter of ARWF2025.
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ADDI ROAD WRITERS' FESTIVAL 2025
Saturday 17 May, 11am till 6pm
panels and people | venues and times at a glance:
GUMBRAMORRA HALL (GH):
11.00 – Doors Open, Acknowledgement of Country by Auntie Kathryn Dodd Farrawell, Speeches from Addi Road CEO Rosanna Barbero and AWRF Artistic Director Mark Mordue
12.00pm panel – Ocean Blues | Surfing on Words: James Bradley, Adam Gibson and Sally Breen (ends 1pm)
1.00pm LUNCH BREAK in GH for 45 minutes
1.45pm hot spot – The Birds (music) (ends 2pm)
2.15pm panel – Political World | Divided Existence: Sara M Saleh, Gretchen Shirm, Patrick Holland, and Rhyan Clapham (aka DOBBY) with Mark Mordue (ends 3.15pm)
3.30pm hot spot – Reg Mombassa and Peter O’Doherty from Dog Trumpet (music) (ends 3.50pm)
4.15pm panel – Not A Trace | Artists Overlapping Ways: Wendy Sharpe, Peter Milton Walsh and ali whitelock with Jaimie Leonarder (aka Jay Katz) (ends 5.15pm)
12.00 - 5.00 pm "hot-on-the-spot all day" – Gavin Blake (scribing and screen projections inspired by each panel conversation)
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GREEK THEATRE (GT):
12.15pm panel – Kaleidoscope | Putting Life Together: Dominic Gordon, Dean Manning, Sheila Ngoc Pham and Gary Deirmendjian with Jackie Dent (ends 1.15pm)
1.15 pm LUNCH BREAK in GK for 45 minutes
2.00pm hot spot – Cocoa the Conscious (spoken word) (ends 2.15pm)
2.25pm panel – Coming of Age | A Language of Reconnection: Tegan Bennett Daylight, David Stavanger and Jim Moginie with Felicity Castagna (ends 3.25)
4.00pm panel – Sleep, Perchance to Dream | Literature, History and the Unconscious: Mireille Juchau, Sime Knezevic, and Peter Boyle with Felicity Plunkett (ends 5pm)
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ADDI ROAD WRITERS' FESTIVAL 2025
Saturday 17 May, 11am till 6pm
panels and people | venues and times in detail:
12pm PANEL (GH): Ocean Blues | Surfing on Words
Can literature and art save the world? James Bradley, Adam Gibson and Sally Breen sit down to discuss a deep connection to the ocean in their lives and work. We live on a blue planet. It offers us sustenance, wonder, joy. James Bradley and Adam Gibson join moderator and fellow panellist Sally Breen to contemplate the oceans of this planet and what they mean to us, mapping out relationships that are personal, historical, literary and ecological. In their differing engagements, Bradley, Gibson and Breen remind us what we are in danger of losing – and how much we still have
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12.15pm PANEL (GT): Kaleidoscope | Putting Life Together
Artists map cities, lives, themselves and others in their work. This can add up to journey of understanding, if not always acceptance. The lucky ones translate their practice and existential concerns into something that coheres and becomes a story. Atomisation may, likewise, reveal a narrative that needs to be faced. Gary Deirmendjian, Sheila Ngoc Pham, Dean Manning and Dominic Gordon speak with Jackie Dent about making sense of their world and any notion of identity or community that may come through.
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LUNCH break from 1.00pm in GH
LUNCH break from1.15pm in GT
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1.45pm MUSIC (GH): The Birds
If folk rock n roll/country is your jam, then look no further! Country inspired bangers; they are The Birds’ signature. Campfire heart warmers; they got them too! A sister duo based in Sydney’s Inner West they have a host of classic originals and superb covers from the likes of Townes Van Zandt. Witty, original and heartfelt.
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2.00pm SPOKEN WORD (GT): Cocoa the Conscious
Cocoa the Conscious is a Sydney-based Poet, Rapper and Hip-Hop Artist, born in Australia with Ghanaian and Lebanese roots. Through his music and poetry, Cocoa channels his creative expression to explore personal experiences, social justice issues and the expansion of consciousness.
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2.15pm PANEL (GH): Political World | Divided Existence
Gretchen Shirm, Patrick Holland, Sara M Saleh and Rhyan Clapham (aka DOBBY) speak with moderator Mark Mordue about adapting their creative ideals and personal politics into books, writing and songs. Are politics and art such different ways of relating to the world they fail to connect with one another? Or is that tension precisely where the most valued engagements exist? Is the nature of politics eternal and inherent in everything we do, more critical than ever at this juncture in history?
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2.25pm PANEL (GT): Coming of Age | A Language of Reconnection
Youth suffering from anxiety and online toxicity. Parents fighting to hold things together and keep the lines of communication open. Staying connected feel like an impossible battle. Felicity Castagna speaks with Tegan Bennett Daylight, David Stavanger and Jim Moginie about writing and the meaning of family, stories of love, personal history and finding both ourselves and our shared future across the generations.
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3.30pm MUSIC (GH): Peter O’Doherty and Reg Mombassa from Dog Trumpet
Dog Trumpet are one of Australia’s most unique bands. Reg Mombassa and his brother Peter O’Doherty began their musical careers playing and writing in the ARIA Hall of Fame band Mental As Anything. hey are part of a long tradition of left-field song writers and storytellers relative to the canon of work by such acts as the Kinks, Nick Lowe, Squeeze and John Prine. Dog Trumpet have released 8 albums so far. Produced by Peter and written by both of them. The title of the first one Two Heads One Brain sums them up, the brothers having an intuitive melodic connection that infuses their music with a classic timelessness.
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4.00pm PANEL (GT) Sleep, Perchance to Dream | Literature, History and the Unconscious
Dreams that arise in a community, expressing the collective traumas of what is later called ‘history’. Dreams that mark personal loss. Dreams that require another kind of language to communicate what the world can reveal to us about who and what we are. How do poets, novelists and essayists read the signs and articulate them, to themselves and for us? Mireille Juchau, Šime Knežević and Peter Boyle with Felicity Plunkett.
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4.15pm PANEL (GH): Not A Trace | Artists’ Overlapping Ways
Wendy Sharpe, Peter Milton Walsh and ali whitelock join moderator Jaimie Leonarder to discuss the creative process across painting, music and poetry. How do they approach creating? What do they have in common? How do different artforms influence one another – and differ in their problem-solving and ways of bringing an idea to life?
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SCRIBE: Gavin Blake
Gavin Blake is a Visual Scribe who draws as people talk, so you can see what they are saying in summary. For 25 years, he has been at the forefront of transforming conversations into captivating visual narratives. At last year’s Addi Road Writers’ Festival we watched as he worked at what was, quite literally, light speed, drawing and documenting panel conversations as they were happening, projecting his work as it evolved on to the side wall of the venue: a magic lantern show turbo-charged with rolling conversational content, on-the-spot reporting through the fine, fun and performative art of his immediate representations. We welcome him back to draw the best from us! All day inside Gumbramorra Hall (GH).
QR code for #ARWF2025 at Humanitix runs below for more information and bookings!
Also check out other Arts events in Marrickville, Literary Art events in Marrickville, Festivals in Marrickville.
