After collapse and controversy, Adelaide writers’ week has a new director: ‘I don’t envy anyone in this position’

Rosemarie Milsom, who formed and runs Newcastle writers festival, will take over from Louise Adler after the literary festival imploded over invitation to Randa Abdel-Fattah Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email In January, as the implosion of Adelaide writers’ week made headlines around Australia and the world, Rosemarie Milsom was watching closely. The Adelaide festival board, which oversees AWW, had overridden the literary festival’s director, Louise Adler, and disinvited the Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah over past comments she’d made about Israel and Zionism. This decision resulted not in a quieter, less-controversial festival as the board members may have hoped, but a boycott by 200-odd writers, the resignation of Adler – followed by the whole board – a potential defamation lawsuit against the South Australian premier and the collapse of AWW. It was not yet public knowledge then that, as the director of Newcastle writers’ festival, Milsom had also booked Abdel-Fattah, five months earlier. But Milsom had predicted this exact controversy could happen and had been preparing for months. On Friday AWW announced that Milsom has been appointed the