30th Annual Australasian Association of Writing Programs Conference: Movement & Stasis, University of Melbourne, 3–5 December 2025.

Hosted by the creative writing program at the University of Melbourne, the 30^th Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) 2025 conference will be held in-person on the Parkville campus, situated on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people.

This year’s conference is on the theme of Movement & Stasis.

The theme of movement might conjure notions of physical, social, political, communal or artistic movement, but can also suggest arrivals, departures, walking on country, transformation, mobility and change. Placing movement alongside stasis, conference presentations over three days will consider the two themes in relation: ambiguities, contradictions, tensions, as well as productive entanglements enabled by both/and thinking. The theme of stasis might draw to mind a period of inactivity or equilibrium, a stoppage, a cessation, a form of civil strife.  Stasis might mean slowing down; it might mean stability.

Conference Program

We’re excited to share our three-day conference program, which includes 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 the program and register to attend via the Movement & Stasis: 30th Annual AAWP Conference website.

Explore 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.

Pre-conference events include

• Creative writing workshops by Tony Birch, Nicola Redhouse and Andy Jackson, taking place in-real-life on the Parkville campus from 2 to 5pm on Tuesday 2 December ($55, registration link and details here).
• A free, fully online professional development day for graduate researchers and early-career academics, running from 10am to 4pm on Tuesday 2 December (registration and details here).  

Consult the Movement & Stasis: 30th Annual AAWP Conference website for information about how to register, where to stay, and further details of our conference program.

The call for proposals for the 30^th annual conference is now closed.

Queries to: aawp-conference2025@unimelb.edu.au

Previous annual conferences of the AAWP have been held at:

1996 University of Technology, Sydney

1997 Deakin University and RMIT University, Melbourne

1998 University of South Australia / University of Adelaide

1999 Edith Cowan University, Perth

2000 Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus

2001 University of Canberra

2002 University of Melbourne

2003 University of New South Wales

2004 Flinders University, Adelaide

2005 Curtin University of Technology, Perth

2006 Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane

2007 University of Canberra

2008 University of Technology, Sydney

2009 Waikato Institute of Technology, Hamilton, New Zealand

2010 RMIT, Melbourne

2011 Southern Cross University, Byron Bay

2012 Deakin University, Geelong

2013 University of Canberra, Canberra

2014 Massey University, Wellington NZ

2015 Swinburne University, Melbourne

2016 University of Canberra, Canberra

2017 Flinders University, Adelaide

2018 Curtin University, Edith Cowan University, Murdoch University and the University of Western Australia, Perth

2019 University of Technology, Sydney

2020 Griffith University, Gold Coast

2021 University of the Sunshine Coast, Sunshine Coast (online symposium in lieu of conference)

2022 Central Queensland University and University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Sippy Downs

2023  University of Canberra’s Centre for Creative and Cultural Research

2024 University of New England, Armidale, NSW