The Minns Labor Government is delivering on a key commitment to support and grow the Creative Industries in NSW, with $3.2 million to deliver a writing and literature strategy.
Stories Matter: A Writing and Literature Strategy for NSW is our state's first ever dedicated literature and writing strategy. Stories define our identity, reading and writing underpins educational success, promotes social cohesion, builds empathy and cultivates critical thinking.
The sector in NSW also generates around $1.3 billion annually in publishing and retail activity, supports up to 22,000 jobs, and delivers global recognition through rights sales, screen adaptations and tourism. Yet writers on average only earn $18,200 a year from their creative practice.
This strategy outlines a targeted framework to expand access to reading and writing, grow audiences, and build a sustainable, inclusive and globally connected literature and writing sector.
Developed in consultation with writers, publishers, educators, festivals, libraries and cultural organisations, Stories Matter is built upon five strategic pillars:
- Reinforce our foundations: develop state and federal partnerships and co-investment to increase the effectiveness of existing programs and organisations.
- Invest in authors: to make writing a sustainable career and enrich the sector as a whole.
- Promote reading: use the library network, schools and festivals to connect readers with authors, and address declining reading rates, especially amongst younger people.
- Strengthen the ecosystem: through strategic partnerships with schools, universities, libraries, cultural institutions and local government to expand opportunities for writers and increase the reach and impact of writing and literature across the state.
- Address structural challenges: Introduce freedom to collect legislation;advocateacross jurisdictions to support the sector.
The strategy commits to the following new key initiatives to grow the sector:
- $100,000 to strengthen Western Sydneyliterature organisations, starting with Westwords, to deliver a Western Sydney school focused program and emerging writers academy.
- $500,000 Literary Fellowships Fund for authors, playwrights and illustrators.
- $225,000 for 3 x co-funded Writing Australia collaborations:
- LitUp Pilot for regional schools and communities to host events with authors and illustrators.
- International Market Development programs to promote opportunities for international sales.
- Program to support writers to tour internationally or translate and publish their books for new markets
- $200,000 for First Nations writers and publishing professionals' development fund.
- Collaborate with public libraries to launch a membership campaign and invest $630,000 for research and a pilot program to improve women, girls and gender diverse people's access to libraries and their surrounding precincts.
Minister for Arts, John Graham said:
"Here in NSW, we have an incredible legacy of writers and the biggest publishing industry in the country, but there are still challenges.
"Writers' incomes remain low, publishers and reading rates are under pressure from digital media and artificial intelligence poses a profound threat to the publishing industry.
"This requires direct action, because there is too much to lose, and so much to gain, from a strong literary sector in NSW.
"We want our stories to be told, we want to be part of the global literary conversation, and we rely on the social cohesion that comes from the nuance and empathy that books build."
Stories Matter strategy co-chairs, Brooke Webb and Olivia Lanchester said:
"Our stories aren't created in a vacuum. Although writers are the primary producers at the heart of the literature sector, they are nurtured and supported by a complex ecosystem of publishers, booksellers, libraries, schools, tertiary institutions, literary festivals, literary organisations and community networks such as book clubs and reading groups.
"It is imperative we invest in the foundations of literary life: in writers and writing, in organisations that support creative development, and in the places and programs that connect people with books and ideas.
"This three-year strategy proposes a clear path forward. It outlines targeted actions to create meaningful career pathways for writers, support publishers and booksellers and grow diverse reading communities across the state."
James Bradley, Author and working group member said:
"The NSW government's new literature strategy will make a material difference to the lives of the state's writers by investing in creators, strengthening the literary ecosystem, and fostering a range of new partnerships with universities, cultural institutions and other organisations.
"But it also helps ensure the benefits of reading and writing are available to everybody by investing in programs to improve literacy and promote reading in schools, supporting First Nations writers and publishing professionals, and allowing readers of all ages to connect with writers through events in libraries and elsewhere."
Charlotte Wood, Author said:
"Literature is routinely ignored or omitted from general discussion of 'the arts', even from within arts organisations themselves. Literature has long been the most poorly funded art form in this country, despite all the studies showing how crucial reading is for our brains and social cohesion, and despite the fact that the book industry contributes more than $2 billion to the Australian economy - on the back of writers' efforts. It is the most democratically available art form there is - anyone with a library card can access works of literature in the original form, wherever they are and no matter how much money they have.
"I'm hopeful the strategy will recognise that Australian literature is not merely decorative, a nice thing somehow separate from the rest of life. Because its literature is absolutely central to the intellectual life and psychology of any nation. Australian books and writers are a dynamic contributor to the cultural, economic and political thinking that shapes our society. And unless governments begin to take reading and literary contribution seriously, that flourishing intellectual life is doomed to evaporate."
