December 18, 2025, saw Writers Victoria’s $600,000 four-year funding through Creative Victoria cut by 100% by the Allan government. The 37-year-old organisation now faces closure without ongoing state support.
Writers Victoria is currently operating on emergency funding from Creative Victoria for the first six months of this year.
Creative Victoria’s funding changes have also impacted organisations such as the State Library of Victoria and the Abbotsford Convent.
Melbourne was named a UNESCO City of Literature in 2008 — the first in Australia — making the presence of organisations such as Writers Victoria a longstanding part of the city’s literary landscape.
Writers Victoria Chair Janice Gobey said, “The arts in Victoria are being eroded. A lack of government funding is slowly stripping away our cultural capital. Do we really want to live in a beige world – one without writing, reading, art, music and stories? Once these organisations shut they never come back.”
The support Writers Victoria provides to the writing community is significant. Included in this support is mentor and Greek Australian author Spiri Tsintziras, who spoke to The Greek Herald about the recent funding cut and the importance of continuing such an organisation.
“They’ve been incredibly supportive through my journey as a writer. Both as an emerging writer but as a professional writer… It’s been an amazing organisation for me and I know for many, many other writers,” Tsintziras said.
She said that when she first engaged with Writers Victoria nearly 20 years ago, she “found it really useful in terms of connecting with other relatively new writers.”
Tsintziras recalled entering a competition organised by Writers Victoria as an emerging writer, describing her surprise and excitement at winning with a story about visiting her grandparents’ home in Greece.
“Writers Victoria was a way of encouraging me as an early and emerging writer… It gave me a lot more confidence and skills in terms of workshops I did there and group meetings,” she said.
Writers Victoria at risk of closing after funding cut. Photo: Writers Victoria.
Tsintziras is currently a mentor with Writers Victoria and runs workshops on writing memoir, avoiding procrastination and business writing.
Writers today are also navigating the rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence. Tsintziras said this presents an additional challenge to the industry.
“With Generative AI threatening creative industries and further eroding writers’ incomes, I think organisations such as Writers Victoria, which foster creativity, diversity and human empathy, need to be protected more now than ever,” she said.
Addressing the funding cuts, Tsintziras added, “I would love for them to have a bit more security… I feel that their focus on new and emerging writers is kind of just right. We need an organisation that supports people who want to write and who want to create.”
A petition started by Gobey is calling on the Allan Government to reverse the decision to cut state funding to Writers Victoria.
The petition states that Victoria will become the only mainland state without dedicated funding for a writers’ organisation, and argues the decision sits uneasily with Melbourne’s UNESCO City of Literature status.
The petition currently has 11,017 signatures.
“I’m just wrapped that they reached the 10,000 signatures and I hope they get more,” Tsintziras said. “I really hope that their funding gets reinstated because it’s not a lot to ask… It just seems a no-brainer that the funding will be reinstated and they can continue to do their great work.”
The Allan government has defended its approach by pointing to new investment in 81 organisations across Victoria — spanning festivals, galleries and the broader arts sector — and reaffirming its commitment to literature, with a statewide literary strategy set to be introduced in 2028.
