This slideshow was first screened at the 30th Annual AAWP Conference: Movement & Stasis—held at University of Melbourne, 3–5 December 2025—during the Plenary 1: AAWP 30th Anniversary Panel.

Thank you to the AAWP community who shared images and videos with the Executive Committee of Management for inclusion in this celebratory slideshow.

We look forward to another 30 years of writing, sharing and deep listening.

The conference included two extraordinary keynotes, a plenary session to celebrate the AAWP’s 30th birthday, and more than 150 discrete presentations from scholars, researchers and creative writing practitioners from around Australia and the world.

Explore some of the highlights

• A keynote presentation from Wakka Wakka and Gooreng Gooreng woman, Professor Sandra Phillips (“Letter to my Granddaughter, seven generations from the apocalypse.”) Sandra has a long career in publishing and cultural leadership and is Chief Investigator on two ARC Linkage-funded research projects, Community Publishing in Regional Australia (2023—2025) and Reading Climate – Indigenous literature, school English, and Sustainability (2025—2028). 
• A keynote presentation from Janelle Adsit, Associate Professor of Creative Writing, California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, USA (“Incantation in the. Emergency: Movement, Word, and the Possible.”) Janelle’s research interests include the role of the arts in health, wellbeing, and advocacy.  Her most recent publication is Writing and Health Care: Creative and Critical Approaches (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025). 
• A plenary session to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the AAWP. Facilitated by the current Vice President, Lee McGowan, this panel conversation with current and past AAWP Presidents/Chairs looks back at three decades of leadership in our discipline, revisits our organisation’s achievements and orients us to the challenges of the present as a leading professional association.  
• The AAWP AGM, prize-giving and readings from the 2025 prize winners.
• Creative writing workshops by Tony Birch, Nicola Redhouse and Andy Jackson, taking place in-real-life on the Parkville campus.
• A free, fully online professional development day for graduate researchers and early-career academics,