2025 Arts NT Fellowship announced
Presented in partnership with the Northern Territory Government through Arts NT, we are thrilled to announce the recipients of the Arts NT Fellowships that will take place early next year.
This opportunity was available to established and emerging writers living in the Northern Territory, and comprises of three residency fellowships at Varuna and six virtual fellowships.
Residency fellowships include:
A two-week residency at Varuna, with full board and accommodation including a prepared evening meal
Uninterrupted time to write in your own private studio, and the companionship of your fellow writers.
$1,500 towards expenses, including travel, manuscript consultations, or accommodation in Sydney on the way through to the Blue Mountains. Each writer is able to use this expenses budget to fit their individual needs.
The virtual residency program include:
Two one-hour online sessions (one-on-one) with Varuna writing consultant, playwright and poet Mary Anne Butler.
Two online Q&A sessions with experienced writers.
Daily facilitated professional networking opportunities throughout the week, including the opportunity to share work, talk about process, and receive feedback.
Out of a number of very competitive entries this year, our three assessors have selected the following writers as recipients of the 2025 Arts NT Fellowships and noted Sally Bothroyd’s submission as ‘highly commended’.
Congratulations to these nine wonderful writers!
RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSHIPS
Sophie Collins for her manuscript “White Coat Witch”
Writer, musician, doctor, poet, amateur birdwatcher Sophie lives on Arrernte Country and loves telling stories. She is the author of a forthcoming chapbook, hard water, and has been published in Lavender Review and impriNT. Her writing is inspired by things beautiful and complex, such as human bodies and desert rivers.
Anne Schmidt, for her manuscript “Inland Sea”
Born and bred in Alice Springs | Mparntwe, Anne Schmidt grew up with a profound love of red sand, blue skies, wide open spaces and a deeply ingrained sense of curiosity. After spending many years away learning and yearning about the places and wonders of the world, a twist of fate saw her sent back to Alice for work, beyond her control. She eventually caved to the magnetic pull of the place and chose to make her adult life there, marrying another local and raising their family of three remarkable girl children. Anne currently lives in the privilege of helping families process death having worked as a funeral director and celebrant for more than a decade. After generous encouragement from some local authors Anne was first published earlier this year in the anthology of poems from Death Vol. 12 of the Lifespan series and is currently writing her first novel.
Kyla St Jaye, for her mauscript “The Opposite of Abandonment”
Kyla St Jaye is an emerging writer working from Jawoyn, Dagoman, Wardaman Country, Northern Territory. She studied Creative Writing on Ngunnawal Country, University of Canberra. Then she went to jail. For several years, Kyla facilitated the program–she wrote in prison–in the women’s refuges on Yuin Country. Her piece Holding Patterns placed in ‘The Joyce Parkes Writing Award’ 2022 and was published in Heroines Anthology. Kyla drafted ‘The Opposite of Abandonment’ in Chloe Higgins’ (The Girls) ‘Write from the Body’ program. It was this manuscript that was awarded the Arts NT Varuna Residential Fellowship 2025 and is also the recipient of the Kill Your Darlings ‘2025 KYD mentorship’ with Maggie MacKellar (Graft, How to Get There, When It Rains).
VIRTUAL FELLOWSHIPS
Renee McBryde, for her manuscript “Hysteria”
Renee lives in Alice Springs with her husband, four children, and their beloved dog, August. By day, she is a school counsellor By night, when her children finally fall asleep, she is a passionate writer, making sense of life through words on a page. She writes in a range of styles—short pieces on mothering and life, articles, blogs—and has notably published two memoirs: The House of Lies (Hachette, 2017) and Unravelling Us (Bad Apple Press, 2022). She is now venturing into fiction, driven by a desire to create new and unique stories that reflect life in the heart of the desert.
A’Mhara McKey, for her manuscript “A Shadow in the Water”
A’Mhara McKey is a writer, librarian, and lover of travel. She's rubbed shoulders with a man-eating crocodile, survived a Category 4 cyclone, and wandered the high country of Scotland. Her first novel, The Shores Between, was shortlisted for the ASA/HQ Fiction Prize in 2024, The Banjo Prize in 2023, and secured her an ArtsNT Varuna Fellowship in 2020. She’s won two Northern Territory Literary Awards for her short fiction, is an Australian Writers' Centre alumnus, and a founding member of the ALL WRiTE CLUB (@allwriteclub). A'Mhara lives in Darwin, Australia, with her partner and three sons, and is represented by Abigail Nathan at Alex Adsett Literary.
Shele Parker Black, for her manuscript “A Comet’s Two Tails”
Shele Parker Black is a writer, educator and community arts producer living on Larrakia country. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Northern Territory Literary Awards and her work has been published in the Australian Poetry Anthology and Cordite. A staged reading of Parker Black’s first play, Sorry Darling, So Sorry, won the Darwin Festival Award at Darwin Fringe in 2019. She is the founder of Writers' Block, an annual emerging writers' retreat that takes place in Wagait Beach, Northern Territory (currently on hiatus). In 2020 and 2022, she performed at the Northern Territory Writers’ Festival. In 2024, Parker Black launched PELICAN, which produces literary events for regional places, its first project being Poetry for the Public. She is currently writing her first memoir, A Comet’s Two Tails.
Sarah Reuben, for her manuscript “I Trust Your Answer Is Correct”
Sarah Reuben is an award winning writer, performer and theatre-maker. Sarah co-wrote: The Hypotheticals (Darwin Festival, ArtBack NT Tour, The Last Great Hunt Perth), Lower The Bar (Darwin Entertainment Centre, ArtBack NT tour), I’ll Tell you in Person (Darwin Festival, Perth Festival), This Jew Sits (Melbourne Fringe), Death Party (Melbourne Fringe), Short Change (Melbourne Fringe, Fringe World) and Best (Melbourne Fringe, Fringe World). Her performance credits include; New Babylon (Knock ‘Em Down Theatre), The Laramie Project (Black Swan State Theatre Company), Pollyanna (Weeping Spoon Productions), How I Learned to Drive (Mockingbird Theatre Company) and The Hurting Game (Brainstorm Productions). Sarah is a co-creator of the nationally touring show Shania Choir, creator of the webseries Deadly Tales and was awarded NT Literary Award’s for best play in 2020 for The Hypotheticals, which she co-wrote with Jeffrey Jay Fowler and 2024 for She Sits.
Myshka Spalding, for her work “Poems for Lost Girls”
In 2023 Myshka studied Performing Arts at the Australian College of the Arts where she had the opportunity to write her own monologues. An old love for writing was rekindled and after graduating with a diploma she began pursuing a Bachelor of Creative Writing at RMIT in 2024. During her schooling she collected three Chief Minister’s Awards and collaborated on several student films. These days she's busy producing poetry and working on her first novel.
Ciella Williams, for her manuscript “Life is Swift”
Ciella is a writer, theatre-maker and mother of two living on Larrakia Country. Her writing is embedded in and reflective of the NT and centres on the voices and stories of women and girls. Her full-length work Hush premiered in 2022, won the 2024 Fiction Prize at the Chief Minister's Book Awards, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Glenda Adams Award for New Writing at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and the NT Literary Awards in the Drama category. Earlier works have been performed at Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), Brown’s Mart Theatre, Darwin Fringe Festival and Short + Sweet Sydney. Ciella is undertaking a residency this year at Corrugated Iron Youth Arts to create a new play for young people.
