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Tickets for Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival now on sale! Book now.
Upcoming Courses, Fellowships and Events
Applications close 10 October 2024.
The Affirm Press Mentorship Award provides a unique opportunity for writers to develop new work through a Varuna residency and editorial feedback.
Memoir, crime, poetry, editing, pitching, contracts and so much more . . . This year's Festival workshop program features exceptional facilitators from all around Australia, each adept at discovering the writer — or illustrator — inside us all.
Do you sometimes struggle to prioritise your writing practice? Perhaps you’ve hit a block and you’re unsure how to progress your work with the tools you have, or maybe you’d simply like to learn some new techniques to take your writing to the next level.
Applications close 17 September 2024
This program is presented in partnership with the Northern Territory Government through Arts NT. Submissions are welcomed from eligible NT-based writers.
Recent News:
Congratulations to the 37 writers who have been awarded a Varuna Residential Fellowship for 2025, as well as those marked highly commended.
The nine recipients of the inaugural Roderick Centre Fellowship for Regional and Remote Writers have been announced.
Tickets are already selling fast for the next Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival, which runs 1 - 3 November 2024 and features more than 80 writers, including Markus Zusak, Noni Hazlehurst, Liane Moriarty, Dr Karl, Gina Chick, Yumi Stynes, Pip Williams, Tony Birch, Shankari Chandran, Chris Hammer, Nardi Simpson, Sara M Saleh, Benjamin Stevenson, Alexis Wright, Michelle de Kretser and more.
Congratulations to our WestWords-Varuna Emerging Writers’ Residency recipients; Ruth Larner, KT Major, Lucia Nguyễn and Danielle Osifo
Congratulations to Carol Major, Frances Olivia and Hoa Pham, the three Australia writers selected for Lamplight Online Residency - Shanghai.
Congratulations to Anna Hickey-Moody, Jennifer Martin and Patricia Pender for being awarded 2024 Ann Moyal Fellowships.
The recipients of the 2024 International Lamplight (Online) Residency - Ireland have been announced.
Congratulations to our 2024 Varuna Scribe Fellowship recipients, Anne So, Sarina Singh, Bianca Millroy and Alex Karaconji.
Congratulations to Scotland’s Cove Park Fellowship 2024 recipient Sean Wai Keung, who will take up residency at Varuna in October-November 2025 and appear at Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival.
A special salon event held in conjunction with the inaugural Whitlam Essay Residency held at 32 Albert Street, Cabramatta, the former family home (1952-1978) of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
Phoebe Grainer (Djungan), Gabrielle Journey Jones, Theresa Violet Sainty (Pakana), Aunty Kerry Bulloojeeno Archibald Moran, Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon, Ella Jeffery and Aloma Davis have been selected for the 2024 Red Room Poetry Fellowship.
Congratulations to the two recipients of our 2024 Pitch Me! fellowship: Anne Myers for her memoir, The Little Ones and Izzy Roberts-Orr for her poetry collection, Medusa is a Modern Woman.
Congratulations to Cove Park Fellowship 2024 recipient Brooke Robinson, who will be heading to Scotland in September to take part in a four-week residency in Scotland.