Ann Mossop is stepping down as artistic director of Sydney Writers’ Festival after four years in the role, the organisation announced on 4 June 2026.
Mossop joined the festival in 2022, but her relationship with it stretches back nearly three decades.
She was part of the team that helped establish Sydney Writers’ Festival as an independent organisation in 1998, and has returned to it in various roles ever since – as a board member, programmer, and, most recently, the person deciding which writers, thinkers, and public figures take the stage each year.
Ann Mossop
Record runs and new readers
Under Mossop’s stewardship, the festival achieved two consecutive years of record-breaking attendance and ticket sales. It also drew growing numbers of younger attendees – a metric that tends to elude literary festivals, which can sometimes feel like they are preaching to the already converted.
Chief executive Brooke Webb said the impact was both quantifiable and something harder to measure.
“Ann’s curatorial vision, editorial rigour and commitment to ambitious public conversation have made a profound contribution to the festival and its audiences,” said Webb.
“Across four festivals, she expanded the scope and ambition of our programming while navigating increasingly complex public conversations with intelligence, balance and nuance.”
Webb described Mossop as having shaped not just what appeared on stage, but how audiences engaged with literature and each other.
Brooke Webb
A long goodbye
Board chair Robert Watkins said the festival’s broader reach and strengthened reputation were a direct result of Mossop’s leadership.
“Her curatorial leadership has helped shape four outstanding festivals that have broadened our reach, strengthened our reputation and welcomed new generations of readers into the festival community,” said Watkins.
Mossop herself struck a note that felt less like a departure speech and more like someone handing over the keys to a house they built.
“It has been a great source of joy and satisfaction to serve as Artistic Director of Sydney Writers’ Festival, a festival that I have always believed in and loved as an audience member, Board member and programmer,” she said.
She thanked writers, publishers, volunteers, audiences, and – pointedly – the festival team, before adding the kind of line that lands differently when you’ve been somewhere for 28 years: “I love this festival and have supported it for decades. That won’t change.”
Mossop will remain in the role until a successor is appointed and will continue overseeing the 2026 year-round program, including the festival’s partnership with the State Library of New South Wales.
A tenure not without controversy
Mossop’s final year in the role was not without turbulence.
In February 2026, she and Webb jointly announced that author and academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah would appear in two parts of the 2026 festival program – a decision that drew both praise and criticism.
The announcement came after Dr Abdel-Fattah was uninvited from Adelaide Writers’ Week, part of the Adelaide Festival, following pressure from the South Australian government. The decision led to a large number of planned speakers boycotting the event, the resignation of the Adelaide Festival’s entire board, and the event’s eventual cancellation.
Sydney Writers’ Festival stood firm. In a joint statement, Webb and Mossop described Dr Abdel-Fattah as a “significant Sydney writer” and said the festival holds “freedom of expression as a core value.”
“A festival like ours, which holds freedom of expression as a core value, is not in the business of cancelling or censoring writers,” the statement said.
The decision was not without consequence – KPMG pulled its logo from the festival following the invitation. mediaweek
Mossop has said she looks forward to experiencing the 2027 festival as an audience member.
Main Image: Ann Mossop