2025 Trans and Gender Diverse Fellowship
We are thrilled to announce the recipients of the inaugural Trans and Gender Diverse Fellowship, a national program aimed at supporting trans and gender diverse writers with mentorship, peer networks and a residency to develop their projects. The fellowship was made possible by a donation from Grace Projects, as well as members of our community who donated to the program via GiveOut Day 2024.
We received an incredible 102 applications, out of which only six fellowships could be awarded. As a team, we were thrilled by the number of applicants to this program, and hope that this is a sign of increasing opportunities for and publications by trans and gender diverse writers.
Our assessors – both published trans authors themselves – were delighted by the quality of writing and diversity of form, focus and writing style. Congratulations to our six recipients - Arani Ahmed, Moirra Cohen, Seán Dowling, Claire Farrugia, Stacey Stokes and Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne. We look forward to welcoming you all to the house later this year for a week’s residency in August.
Congratulations also to the 14 applicants deemed “highly commended” by our assessors - Ro Bright, Teddy Dunn, Mary Duong, Kris Kneen, Lise Leitner, Fleassy Malay, Elliot McMahon, Lia Dewey Morgan, Mina Murray, Jack Nicholls, Marina O, Emma Osborne, Rae Perks and Erin Riley.
We hope this incredible response leads to more applications by trans and gender diverse writers to all of Varuna’s programs.
Arani Ahmed for their manuscript Needlework
Arani Ahmed lives, works and studies on Gadigal Country, and was raised in Western Sydney on Dharug. Their writing blends personal narrative, material practices, and nonlinear structures to examine how QTPOC storytelling can serve as both resistance and reclamation. That’s to say, Arani writes about gender, family and (the absence of) memory. They have been published in Between Two Worlds, SBS’s Emerging Writers 2022 Anthology. A former human rights lawyer, they have recently returned to their first love of writing.
Moirra Cohen for his manuscript Little Suns
moirra. (he/him; xe/xer) is a Yorta Yorta, Boon Wurrung, and Jewish transsexual queer writer and artist living on Wurundjeri Country. Xer work explores Blak Queerness and Queer Blakness, disability and madness, and relationality to Country, our Ancestors, and community within the colony and other oppressive systems. When he's not writing, you can find him yelling about invertebrates, sailships, or some other mundane thing on his Instagram (@rem.ulous).
Seán Dowling for her manuscript Unexploded Ordinance
Otherwise known as the “Abomination About Town”, Seán Dowling is a transgender Playwright, Broadcaster and Editorialist based in Meanjin (Brisbane). Interweaving the traditions of the “Seanchaí” (pronounced "shan-a-kee"), the ancient Irish clan storyteller, with modern “Obnoxious Online Opinion-Haver”, her work exists at the crossroads of sex, gender, politics, and pop-culture. Playwright-in-Residence at Playlab Theatre, Seán’s first theatrical work was Quarehawk, a reinvention of the Irish fable of the Selkie seal-wives as a queer coming of age tale. After debuting in Playlab’s 2023 production Unconditional (co-written with Cameron Hurry) as both writer and actor, Dowling has again been commissioned to co-write another theatrical work for Playlab. Slated for a 2026 Dowling will be paired with theatrical luminary Merlynn Tong in Paradigm, a play exploring queer-discovery, sex, and non-standard relationships.
Claire Farrugia for their manuscript Baby Saviour
Claire Farrugia is a storyteller with increasingly regular bouts of oversharing. With Maltese and Irish parents, and a life on Gadigal and Wurundjeri land, understanding life in the ‘in-between’ is a driving force for their writing. They have a day job in human rights and social policy and a couple of academic journal publications, book chapters and story-telling projects that keep them going. From a Dr in Sociology to a Dr in melancholy, their work has developed from early chapters on the oral history of camping through to short essays on swimming, gender and wetsuits and suburban wog parking disputes. They are interested in the fusion of emotions, social theory, and everyday domestic spaces. They received a Southcoast Writers Bundanon residency in 2023 and an emerging writers mentorship in 2024.
Stacey Stokes for her manuscript My World
Stacey Stokes is a transgender woman who did eight years in a men’s prison, where she contributed to the anthology, Nothing to Hide, and earned an undergraduate in creative writing from Charles Sturt university shortly after her release. She now works on VACRO’s lived experience panel, and sits on the advisory boards of Beyond Bricks and Bars, and the Chief Psychiatrist's advisory panel. She writes about her experiences in her self-titled substack and the prison newspaper About Time. Her work has also been featured at the National Gallery of Victoria. Stacey is a member of FIGJAM and runs the T4T support group.
Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne for her manuscript The Replicant Sonnets
Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne is a writer/freelance editor living on unceded Wurundjeri land in Naarm. She has been published in Overland, Meanjin and Rabbit Journal among others. In 2023 she was shortlisted for the Kat Muscat fellowship and in 2022 the Val Valis award. She was the winner of the 2021 Harri Jones award, and was one of the recipients of the Next Chapter fellowship. She is a genderqueer transexual femme.