Varuna announces inaugural Writer’s Space fellows
This article originally appeared on Books + Publishing
Varuna, the National Writers’ House has announced the 12 recipients of the inaugural Writer’s Space fellowships for writers with disability or who are D/deaf.
This program offers six in-person residencies concurrently with six online residencies during the two-week fellowship period from 6–20 September 2021.
The recipients of the residential fellowships are:
Jessica Friedmann for the novel ‘Priest Pond’
El Gibbs for ‘Making our NDIS: Stories from disabled people’
Kath Kenny for ‘As a Woman: When Betty rocked the pram’
Woo-Keun Lim for ‘Seoulmates’
Fiona Murphy for the literary crime thriller ‘The Heart Feeds Itself First’
Gaele Sobott for the poetry collection ‘Earthly’.
The recipients of the online fellowships are:
Emma Ashmere for ‘The Double View’
Cynthia Banham for ‘Bergamot Grove’
Michelle Fermanis-Windward for the poetry collection ‘The Symbiotic Thread’
Jules Jones for ‘The Dead Wife’
Erin Sayers for the science fiction novel ‘Harbour’
Kerri Shying for the poetry collection ‘Blursday’.
The assessors also highly commended Danielle Maas.
Each writer will receive a professional development package of $1100 towards manuscript consultations, mentoring, or workshop participation. The residency will also include two group Q&A sessions, one with writer Tara Moss, the other with writer, speaker and disability activist Carly Findlay, as well as a one-hour session (one-on-one) with Varuna writing consultant Carol Major.
For more information about the Writer’s Space fellowships, see the Varuna website.
