The guest list for the Sydney Writers’ Festival reads like a roll call for the Spanish Inquisition. Sure, there are plenty of names there, but I guarantee no one has come there to have a good time. 

Far from the festival’s claims of being, ‘Australia’s most beloved celebration of writing and ideas’ it falls somewhere between ‘unknown’ and ‘ridiculous’. 

Locals rarely engage with the Australian literary scene since it swan dived off into hardcore racism right around the time the government started throwing millions of dollars at it with no interest in the quality of its investment. 

It is an open secret that arts funding is political, bestowed upon...