2024 Arts NT Varuna Fellowships recipients
Congratulations to the nine recipients of the 2024 Arts NT & Varuna Fellowships - three of which will take place in-house at Varuna with six virtual residencies delivered in February 2024.
The successful recipients of the in-house residency are:
Marie Elena Ellis with I Am The Desert, a poetry collection written in Arrernte, translated in English, exploring childhood memories from the richness of Country and culture within, which has lead to the walking and learning in both worlds as a blak Arrernte woman.
Kieran Finnane with the beauty and the damage, a work of narrative non-fiction about the way cultures meet and overlap in the Northern Territory, the joy that is found as people find ways of living and working together, and the anxiety and tension as divisions and misunderstandings are expressed and felt.
Glen Hunting with Loose Affiliations, a poetry collection about the author’s experiences of moving from Perth to Alice Springs during a time of personal upheaval, and how the move lead to him re-evaluating his longstanding sense of disconnection and otherness against the inherited privileges of his demographic, and against the disenfranchisement and cultural richness of the traditional owners/custodians of Central Australia.
The successful recipients of the virtual/online residency are:
Sally Bothroyd for Ghosts of the Circus and other minor hauntings, a collection of short stories, each with a supernatural or macabre twist.
Lee Frank for A Billabong Swim to the Subway, a collection of songs, short stories, and spoken word spanning multiple genres, four decades and barely reconcilable cultures, with themes of travel and metamorphosis across urban and remote Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Japan.
Raelke Grimmer for Burning Two AM Conversations, a poetry collection on the conversations we have with ourselves at two in the morning, those we have with loved ones at the witching hour, the drunk deep-and-meaningfuls shared with friends, and those we plan to have but never quite manage.
Ktima Heathcote for Red Dust in my Veins, a memoir that unravels the conflict between the author’s attraction to danger and desire for security, reflecting on the power of landscape, from her birth in the asbestos mining town of Wittenoom to living in the remote Territory town of Tennant Creek.
Karen Manton for Ghost Tide, a novel exploring the conscious and the unconscious, dream and reality.
Chris Quinn for Letter to a Misplaced Friend, literary fiction about a middle-aged man still haunted by his first love, who is forced to confront the memories he has been running from when he learns of her death.
Funding from Arts NT provides the three in-house writers with support for travel, accommodation and manuscript consultations, and all writers will receive mentoring and one-on-one consultations to develop and progress their new works. A total of 26 applications were received, showcasing a vibrant community of writers telling compelling stories in various genres, such as literary fiction, literary non-fiction, screenplay, memoir and poetry.
Congratulations to all.
Photos: Top row - Raelke Grimmer, Glen Hunting, Karen Manton, Kieran Finnane. Bottom row - Lee Frank, Ktima Heathcote, Chris Quinn, Sally Bothroyd