2018 Arts NT Varuna Residential Fellowships
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2018 Arts NT Varuna Residential Fellowships.
This year Varuna received 26 manuscripts from writers living in the Northern Territory with 12 coming from the Central Desert area and 14 from the Top End. Three peer assessors – two from the Northern Territory and one from the Blue Mountains - provided an independent assessment on each of the submitted manuscripts.
Amy Sambrooke, Varuna's Creative Director oversaw the selection process.
Consultants selected the manuscripts to award the four Fellowships through criteria that included high quality of writing, uniqueness of voice, potential for further development and the ability of the writer to engage in a meaningful way with future readers.
Fields of writing represented in the applications included general and literary fiction, literary non-fiction, junior and young adult fiction, memoir, poetry and song writing.
The Eleanor Dark Foundation thanks the NT Government for supporting this creative initiative.
Congratulations again to our four recipients:
Sue Fielding for Boy in midair, a braided narrative longpoem that explores the impact of a brother's suicide.
Sandra Kendell for Beauty, a children's picture book about the importance of trees and community, set in Darwin.
Leonie Norrington for Song of the Curlew, an historical fiction novel set in pre-colonial Arnhem land based on a true story about a girl who was kidnapped by Macassan trader
Dani Powell for Return to Dust, a literary fiction novel about grief, set in the desert.