2025 Whitlam Essay Residency Announcement
Varuna is proud to announce the recipients of the Whitlam Essay Residency for 2025. Presented in partnership with the Whitlam Institute with support from Western Sydney Creative, Western Sydney University (WSU)’s arts and culture decadal strategy, this Fellowship offers a week-long residency at the Whitlam Prime Ministerial home, at 32 Albert Street Cabramatta, with a focus on essay writing.
This residency was open to essayists at various stages of their career, who are either Varuna alumni or WSU students, staff or alumni. The essay form and focus was not restricted. In honouring Whitlam’s legacy, selection was focused on essays that make research more relevant and accessible to the broader public, or that take a creative approach to exploring social or political concerns.
We received a higher level of interest this year, with a total of 47 applications from which to select 6 residents.
The assessors noted Ana Louisa Davis, Sam Elkin, Simmone Howell and Yves Rees as “highly commended” and selected the following as the 2025 recipients of the Whitlam Essay Residency:
Jane Gleeson-White
Jane Gleeson-White is a writer living on unceded Gadigal country of the Eora Nation and the author four books, including the award-winning, bestselling Double Entry (2011) and Six Capitals: Capitalism, climate change and accounting (2014, 2020). She’s currently working on a book of essays on the fallout of war on the bodies of women and children. She has a PhD in creative writing and has studied astrology since 1992.
G.B Krishnan
G.B. Krishnan (aka Magickal Ms. G) is a writer, musician and shape shifter of Sri Lankan Tamil descent, born and based on unceded Gadigal Land in Eora (Sydney, Australia). Her writing practice challenges the script around race, gender, sexuality, ethno-national identity, and family systems. In 2019 she was a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow and a Norma Redpath Studio Fellow for Fiction. Her novella manuscript was short-listed for the Deborah Cass Prize in 2020 and she is international alumni of both Hedgebrook Residency for Women Writers (USA) and the Voices of Our Nations Workshop for Writers of Colour (USA).
Amanda Niehaus
Amanda Niehaus is a Brisbane-based writer and co-founder of the journal Science Write Now, which publishes creative writing inspired by science. Her stories and essays have been published to acclaim in Australia and the US, including 2 Pushcart Prize nominations, top honours in the 2017 VU Overland Short Story Prize and runner-up in the 2024 Bragg Prize for Science Writing. Her first novel The Breeding Season was a finalist in the Queensland Literary Awards and a ‘Best of 2019’ in the Australian Book Review.
Henry Chase Richards
Henry Chase Richards is a writer, editor and amphibian based on Gadigal and Wangal country who runs the literary project Fondue and edits Soft Stir magazine. They are currently chipping away at a Doctorate of Creative Arts in literature and creative writing at Western Sydney University. Henry is also the lead copywriter for The Grifter Brewing Co. and the (unofficial) poet laureate of Australian rugby league.
Huyen Hac Helen Tran
Huyen Hac Helen Tran is a writer living and working on Gadigal Land. Her work can be found in Liminal Magazine, Meanjin, The Suburban Review, The Big Issue, and more. She is currently completing a Masters Degree in Literature and Creative Writing at Western Sydney University. She is also the Digital Communications Officer at Sydney Review of Books.
Julienne van Loon
Julienne van Loon is the author of three novels and a collection of essays. Her debut novel, Road Story, won The Australian/Vogel’s Literary award and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Literary Prize First Book Award. Her most recent book, The Thinking Woman, was highly commended in the Victoria Premier’s Literary Awards. She has a PhD in English from the University of Queensland and is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. Her work has been published in the US, UK and South Korea.
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