Sorrento Writers Festival 2026
Four days of Australia's sharpest writers in a weatherboard village at the tip of the Peninsula - the one festival worth planning a whole weekend around.
Sorrento Writers Festival is the one Peninsula event that genuinely rewards planning the whole weekend around it. Book the Friday session, stay two nights, catch the Sunday morning panel, and you've had a holiday rather than a day out.
The programme leans literary-fiction, ideas and investigative journalism - national names, serious moderators, and the kind of Q&A you can't get in a Melbourne bookshop. The venues are all within a five-minute walk of Ocean Beach Road, which means you can walk from a morning session to a back-beach walk to lunch without ever starting a car.
Where to stay matters. Book a hotel inside Sorrento itself, not Rye or Blairgowrie - the festival is a walking festival and everyone you meet will be on foot.