2021 Varuna Fellowships announced
Congratulations to the writers who have been awarded a Varuna Residential Fellowship for 2021.
This year we received 300 applications for Varuna Residential Fellowships. Submissions were received from writers at all stages of their writing lives. Peer assessors read each applicant's submission and proposal, and the 34 fellowships winners were selected on the basis of criteria that included both the artistic merit of the work and the potential for its development.
Thank you to all of the writers who submitted their work for consideration this year.
2021 FLAGSHIP FELLOWSHIPS
The Eleanor Dark Flagship Fellowship is awarded to Allison Browning, for her literary fiction work, Cockatoo, which is a love story of two complex men making peace with their pasts as they face the end of their life together.
The Dr Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship is awarded to Jayne Tuttle, for her non-fiction narrative, Purgatorio, which explores what can happen in the in-between.
The Mick Dark Flagship Fellowship is awarded to Rachael Mead for her literary fiction work, The Art of Breaking Ice. A novel that interweaves the creative biography of Nel Law, the first Australian woman and visual artist to set foot on Antarctica in 1961, with the story of wildlife ecologist, Cassandra Carson at the turn of the 21st century.
The Varuna Poetry Flagship Fellowship is awarded to Julieta Caldas, for her work, Women Are Well Acquainted with Thirst. Spanning waterlogged England and fire-torn Australia, this cycle of prose poems explores the fragility of wild and built landscapes in an era where the internet allows us to witness climate breakdown in real time.
The Henry Handel Richardson Flagship Fellowship is awarded to Laurie Steed for his short story collection Nova – Stories. In nineteen narratives, Nova moves gently amongst the lost, lonely and afraid as they slowly, and sometimes awkwardly, find faith and resilience.
The Ray Koppe/ASA Young Writer’s Fellowship is awarded to Tim McGuire, for his historical fiction, Game Farm. Game Farm is a creative re-imagining of one of Australia’s first emu farms, set in 1996. It’s a literary suspense novel, exploring how external pressures on the farm amplify the personal struggles of the characters who inhabit it, and vice versa.
2021 Varuna Residential Fellowships:
Amy Lovat for Halfway to Nowhere
Andrew Kwong for Wrong Arrival
Anne Casey-Hardy for When Bees Become Diamonds
Annie Barrett for Sent Up the River
Beau Windon for Wild Against The World
Beth Amos for Blindside
Brooke Robinson for Hotel K
Charlotte Askew for Pay Your Dues
Donna Cameron for Until the Sky Turns Purple
Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones for The Waning
Emily Brugman for The Islands
Frances Olive for Cora in the Underworld
Hoa Pham for Being
Jack Vening for Who Will I Be When I Leave This Place
James McKenzie Watson for Denizen
Juliet Paine for The Premonition Bureau
Kerrin O'Sullivan for Arrivals and Departures
Lou Garcia-Dolnik for No Language
Mary Anne Butler for Epoch of the Heart
Maryrose Cuskelly for The Campers
Natalie Satakovski for Follow
Nathanial Jackson for Lavender; or, A Cure for Nausea
Polly Watkins for Moss Whitaker lives in his head
Suzanne Leal for A Runner in Hitler's Town
Tim Loveday for the birds are singing while we sleep
Ursula King for Peeling Marble: On becoming a medical body
Warren Ward for Lovers of Philosophy
Yves Rees for All About Yves: Notes from a Transition