Louise Adler

Louise Adler is an Australian publisher and arts administrator. She is best known for being chief executive and publisher of Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) from 2003 to 2019, and as director of Adelaide Writers' Week from 2023 until her resignation in January 2026. Over a career spanning academia, journalism, radio and book publishing, she became one of the most prominent, and at times most divisive, figures in Australian literary life. Her career has been marked by recurring public controversy, including disputes over her commercial reshaping of MUP and, at Adelaide Writers' Week, repeated rows over the programming of writers in the debate over Israel and Palestine. As of 2026 she is 72 years old.