Past Festivals
Since March 23, 2017, when we became a non-profit (ideell förening), SWF has worked to help writers of all experience levels, across every genre to, “Find their path to published.”
SWF23
SWF23, August 23-25, started with a Swedish tradition: A “tips runda,” where everyone got to know each other by breaking into teams and answering literary-themed questions. (Winners got bragging rights and chocolate.) We welcomed new faces to our faculty: authors Jeff Bens (literary fiction), and Johnny Shaw (crime/thriller), along with expert editor, April Eberhardt, among others. For the sixth year running, 100% of our survey respondents said they’d recommend us to a friend.
SWF22
Back in person, we started things off by celebrating our 5th anniversary and the fantastic winners of First 5 Pages Prize! Held from August 12-14, our faculty kept our attendees engaged and enticed. On the main stage and in our workshops, you could find talent ranging from craft power house, Nebula Award winning, scifi author Aliette de Bodard to the founder of the editing service Reedsy, Ricardo Fayet on the main stage as well as teaching smaller classes.
SWF21
Held from May 28-30, we were online once again in 2021. We were thrilled to pack the agenda from start to finish: with Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith and The Night Watch, among other books, as our keynote speaker. Grant Faulkner from Nanowrimo instructed festival-goers on how to create Flash Fiction. With several smaller competitions throughout the festival, we ended with a crescendo: The Book Doctors and Pitchapalooza. One lucky writer won a mentorship with the docs.
SWF20
We were forced to cancel the in-real-life version of the festival on March 17. But in short time, we created an online version on the originally scheduled dates of May 22-24. The program featured some of our favorite faculty members, including Jess Lourey. The event culiminated with “Pitchapalooza” with the Book Doctors. Although we took a financial loss, charging little for the tickets, we did it for our community.
SWF19
The cultural mayor of Stockholm, Jonas Naddebo, kicked off our second year held on May 3-5. We moved the festival to Finlandshuset to accommodate a growing number of ticket holders. Our keynote speaker was industry guru Jane Friedman, one of the leading voices on the business side of writing. We held “Literary Idol,” on the main stage: where ticket holders pitched their books to a panel of agents.
SWF18
Our inaugural event was held April 13-15 in downtown Stockholm. Our keynote speaker: beloved US author, Elinor Lipman. More than 100 ticket holders learned participated in signature sessions including, “Buttonhole the Expert,” where attendees get to meet in small groups with all the faculty for the year. We also launched our literary prize celebrating the first pages of manuscripts from across genres.