Since 1998 Newcastle’s National Young Writers’ Festival (NYWF) has been nurturing and inspiring the writing lives of Australia’s budding novelists, journalists, poets, performance artists and independent publishers to name a few.

NYWF is the place to be for anyone who’s ever scribbled or typed something with a beginning, middle and end. (Or any one of those.) Anyone who’s sitting on a manuscript, needs willing ears and eyes for their words, has a brilliant idea to develop, or wants to experience the buzz of an event teeming with feral literary energy.

It’s made for writers with no money – all our workshops and discussion panels are free and we specially emphasise the most accessible forms of written expression like zines and blogs, online and electronic publishing, writing for street press and independent publishing. And for those who have already started, there’s the huge zine fair on the Sunday of the Festival where you can buy, sell and trade zines, books, badges, artwork and anything else you can think of.

All panels and workshops are free. Some of the highlights of this year's festivals will be:
Bookcrossing: NYWF is staging New South Wales' first mass bookcrossing event with publishers from all over the country donating books for festival goers to leave in a random public place for someone to find, read, and pass on.
Lunchbox Theatre: Newcastle's Tantrum Theatre is teaming up with NYWF to present a series of five minute plays in cafés along Newcastle's coffee strip, Darby Street.
Forbidden Love: what do I have to do to get my book published?
Bookworld heavyweights discuss current trends in publishing: Do sales and marketing departments have too much say? Are publishers taking risks with new, young authors? How do you make your manuscript stand out from the pile?
Pitch Perfect - Starting Out as a Freelance Writer: How to get started as a freelancer: from discovering ideas for articles and writing perfect pitch letters to finding the right markets for stories and making industry contacts.
Under 21s from around the country converge for four days of DIY writing workshops with leading zinemakers, writers, poets and designers and then present their work for sale and swapping at NYWF's DIY Zine Fair on Sunday 2nd October. Registration is free. Places limited.

The National Young Writers’ Festival is part of This Is Not Art (TINA) which every year draws thousands of writers, musicians and other artists from around the country to Newcastle to cross-pollinate, deliberate, stimulate, fascinate and captivate.

This year TINA will be held in Newcastle’s City Hall and surrounding venues over the Labour Day weekend from Thursday 29 September to Monday 3 October.

TINA and NYWF are supported by Newcastle City Council, the NSW Ministry for the Arts and the Australia Council for the Arts.

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