A new research project aims to bring the Northern Territory's capital into the literary spotlight.

The project, Re-Mapping the Lost Literary Capital: Darwin/Larrakia Nation, will uncover the many novels, plays, short stories, poems, and genre fiction titles which portray Darwin from Federation to the present day.

The project, a collaboration between Charles Darwin University, University of Queensland and Flinders University, is funded through the Australian Research Council.

Project investigators University of Queensland's Associate Professor Stephen Carleton and CDU's Associate Professor Adelle Sefton-Rowston hope to highlight active authors, inspire new ones, and revive interest in Darwin's literary history in the community and nationwide.

While at the beginning of their research, early indicators show early literature produced by locals and about Darwin discussed race, culture, colonialism, while later literature reflected Darwin's multiculturalism and were authored by First Nations people and locals of different cultural backgrounds.

After the team has collected and analysed the literature, they will work with the UQ-hosted AustLit and Flinders University-hosted AusStage databases to offer a series of public lectures and exhibitions at the NT library, as well as guided literary tours of Darwin. The team also plans to produce a textbook introducing the literature of Darwin and Larrakia Nation for future educators, students and researchers.

Associate Professor Sefton-Rowston told National Indigenous Times the project had been "a long time in the making".

"We worked with Stephen Carleton and Chris Hay… and we've had discussions about looking to Darwin as a literary capital and how we could really shift the focus to the direction of the wonderful poets, authors, playwrights, new scriptwriters that we have up here… representing the beautiful place of Darwin Larrakia country," she said.

"We first thought that we could do that in a combined conference… then we thought, actually, 'what would it mean to get significant funding for a project like this, where we could contribute to the archives such as AustLit and AusStage, that house all of the literary history that we have?'

"What a difference it could make to not only to mine those archives and present them to the people who love arts and culture, to see Darwin in this way, but also contribute to the archives as well. So, we're really interested to see what we can dig up and present to the world in the sense of Darwin being a literary capital."

Professor Sefton-Rowston told National Indigenous Times there will be a "really strong focus" on First Nations writers and poets.

"We're interested in all sorts of storytelling as well. Australia's literary history has seen a real revelation of First Nations authors being published since the 1960s, but we know that First Nations people have been telling stories for millennia. What we want to see is how we can bring those stories in… specifically from Darwin, and bring light to walking stories as well, and acknowledging that sovereignty was never ceded through the walking of stories that are so significant to the people here; it's part of who they are. We'll be working with Larrakia Nation down the track, and we'll also be recruiting for a First Nations PhD."

Professor Sefton-Rowston said the PhD position would come with a scholarship to support the recipient throughout their research.

"That would be the opportunity for a First Nations writer, storyteller, to study at Charles Darwin University, get the doctorate qualifications through a creative writing project, an exegesis that would then contribute to the canon of literature, which is being reshaped all the time - and as it should be so. This project is an intervention, in that sense, where we can restore the cannon in a way that is representative of, you know, some fantastic stories and storytellers up here," she said.

Professor Sefton-Rowston said she hoped people who engage with Re-Mapping the Lost Literary Capital would come away with a new appreciation of "Darwin as a literary capital and seeing Darwin as a place where you can come for literary tourism".

Associate Professor Carleton said as someone who was raised and went to school in Darwin, "there was never a novel in the curriculum, never a play, never a short story set in Darwin".

"We were always reading about other places," he said.

"Darwin is a forgotten cultural capital. This is about remembering and creating opportunity and contributing to the city's cultural life."

"We want this project to really appeal to everyone across the country, to be able to look to the films and the stories and the plays from here and get a sense of what it could be like to live in Darwin," said Associate Professor Sefton-Rowston.