2018 Varuna Fellowships
Congratulations to the writers who have been awarded a Varuna Residency Fellowship for 2018.
This year we received 258 applications for Varuna Residency Fellowships. Submissions included applications from both published and yet to be published writers, and came from writers from all states and from diverse cultural backgrounds. Five peer assessors read each applicant's submission and proposal and the 30 fellowships were decided upon through criteria that included calibre of work, uniqueness of voice and clear communication of the proposed work plan. Our assessors have provided additional feedback on the process in their report.
Thank you to all of the applicants who submitted their work for consideration this year.
On behalf of all at Varuna and the peer assessment panel we wish you well with your future writing.
The writers awarded a 2018 Varuna Residential Fellowship are:
FLAGSHIP FELLOWSHIPS
Awarded for applications of outstanding quality these fellowships The Eleanor Dark, Dr Eric Dark, Mick Dark and Dorothy Hewett Flagship Fellowships are each for three weeks.
The Eleanor Dark Flagship Fellowship is awarded to Lisa Fuller for her young adult novel Mirrored Pieces. This award was established in memory of Eleanor Dark and is awarded for a fiction application of outstanding quality.
The Dr Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship is awarded to Gabrielle Carey for her creative non-fiction Masculine Sensuality: the Ivan Southall Phenomenon. This award was established in memory of writer and social activist Eric Dark, and is awarded for a non-fiction application of outstanding quality in social, historical or political writing.
The Mick Dark Flagship Fellowship is awarded to Donna Mazza for her short story collection Natural Deviations. This award was established to honor the legacy of Varuna benefactor and committed conservationist Mick Dark, and is awarded to a writer who is working on a manuscript of outstanding quality in the area of environmental writing.
The Dorothy Hewett Flagship Fellowship is awarded to Charlotte Clutterbuck for her poetry collection Suspect Terrains. This award was established in memory of poet Dorothy Hewett, and awarded for a poetry collection of outstanding quality.
VARUNA RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSHIPS
Residential Fellowships are awarded to writers currently developing a new work of high potential and offer the writer a two-week residency at Varuna to continue the development of their manuscript.
Jenny Ackland for the novel The Seven, a contemporary Australian novel about a woman whose life falls apart of the course of one week
David Allan-Petale for the literary fiction novel Locust Summer which explores the severing of life from land
Cassandra Austin for Baby Sings, a novel about a young mother struggling to protect her second baby from the mysterious fate that befell her first.
Andrea Baldwin for The Illusion of Islands an environmental novel that explores the interlinked responsibilities of ordinary people to family, community, other people, other species, and future generations
Rosalyn Bent for The Pound Pear, a novel exploring the first loves and making of a queer family
Nandi Chinna for the poetry manuscript An Older Country, exploring themes of place, land, activism, ageing and death
Bernard Cohen for When I saw the animal, a collection of real and surreal short stories of closely examined moments in human-to-human and human-to-animal relationships
Stuart Cooke for Lyre, a collection of multi-species poems
Nick Gadd for Death of a Typographer, a novel about fonts. Nick Gadd is the recipient of the Second Book Fellowship.
Rebecca Harkins-Cross for Terror Australis, probing the history of fear in Australian film
Rose Hartley for The Elegies, a novel exploring the rise and fall of an Australian country musician
Kathryn Hind for the novel Hitch, about a young woman on the run hitchhiking through Australia with her dog and grieving the loss of her mother
Linda Jaivin for The Education of Proofreader Ding, a novel about an accidental art hero, the women in his life, and how truth and lies tangle to become reality.
Toni Jordan for the novel Cloudland about the decades-old mystery of the death of a beloved novelist
Leah Kaminsky for The Hollow Bones a novel based on a true story which smoulders with the crucial lessons we might learn from our not-too-distant history
Katie Lavers for The Watersinger, a fantasy novel about the imminent collision of two future versions of Sydney
Miranda Luby for The Colour of Air, a novel about a boy who must confront unresolved family issues or face being trapped on an island forever without the girl he loves
Emily O'Grady for Every Moving Thing, a literary novel tracing the aftermath of serial crime on a nuclear family in rural Queensland in the late 1990s.
Paddy O'Reilly for The White Line, a novel When her husband disappears, a hardworking cleaner must enter a dangerous world to find him
Zoya Patel for No-Country Woman a collection of personal essays, exploring race, culture and identity for second generation migrants
Hoa Pham for In between spaces, a series of stories around the Mmaribrynong Detention Centre site
Andrew Roff for A Straight Line, a collection of short stories about the control we exert over ourselves and others; and absences of control.
Judith Rossell for Wakestone Hall, an illustrated adventure novel for readers of 9-12 years, set in an alternative version of Victorian England
Anne Spudvilas for When the War is Over, an illustrated childrens book reflecting on the importance of people's connections in wartime and a nature of homecomings.
Helen Thurloe for The Fourteenth Wife a historical fiction novel set in Essex, England, based on evidence that many men married several wives
Catherine Wright for The Consolation of Birds, a poetry triptych from an odyssey through Australia, Scotland & Morocco exploring aspects of exile, grief & belonging