Inaugural Whitlam Essay Residency recipients
We are thrilled to announce the six recipients of the inaugural Whitlam Essay Residency, presented in partnership with the Whitlam Institute with support from Western Sydney Creative, Western Sydney University’s arts and culture decadal strategy.
In March 2024, these essayists will spend a week in residence at the Whitlam Prime Ministerial home, at 32 Albert Street Cabramatta.
The Whitlam home was an integral part of how Gough and Margaret connected with their community. Constituents were invited in to discuss matters of concern, and political functions and celebrations were a regular feature in the living room and backyard.
During the residency, participants will be invited to share their work at a Backyard Salon, a free event open to the Cabramatta and Western Sydney communities, the Whitlam family and other dignitaries. Details of this event will be shared in early 2024.
The six successful recipients are:
Kim Huynh is a teacher, writer, researcher and broadcaster who helps people to tell their stories. Kim’s latest book analyses Australia's Refugee Politics in the 21st Century (Routledge) and develops ways to enhance national security, refugee rights and social cohesion. Kim’s published a collection of stories about contemporary Vietnam entitled Vietnam as if ... (ANU Press). His biography of his parents Where the Sea Takes Us (HarperCollins) attracted academic and literary acclaim. He co-authored Children and Global Conflict (Cambridge University Press) and co-edited The Culture Wars (Palgrave-McMillan). Kim convenes courses on refugee politics and political philosophy at the ANU. He facilitates exchanges of culture and ideas with the Vietnamese Australia Forum and through the essays that he writes for a range of news and arts outlets. Kim ran as independent candidate in the 2016 ACT election and in the 2022 federal election. He is an ABC Radio Canberra presenter and Deputy Director of the ANU Humanities Research Centre.
Dr Kath Kenny is essayist, arts reviewer and researcher. Her 2022 book Staging a Revolution: When Betty Rocked the Pram, which retells the history of Melbourne’s Pram Factory against the backdrop of the revolutionary movements of the 1970s, was included in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers ‘Best Reads of 2022’ list and longlisted for the 2023 Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award. Her essays and reviews of books, films, theatre and television have been published in leading publications, including The Saturday Paper, the ABC, The Conversation, Meanjin, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the Australian Book Review and The Guardian.
Dr Farjana Mahbuba is a researcher, writer, and women's rights activist. Specialising in Islam and the experiences of South Asian Muslim women, Farjana is deeply committed to investigating the intersections of gender with religion, culture, and migration. She earned her BA and MA in “Ulumul Qur’an wad-dirasat al-islamiyyah” (Qur'an and Islamic Studies), receiving the Vice-Chancellor’s Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in both degrees. She completed her first EIPRS scholarship-funded PhD at Western Sydney University, Australia, focusing on Muslim women's gender perceptions in urban Bangladesh. Currently, Farjana is undertaking a second PhD with a specific emphasis on the influence of religious narratives on spousal financial abuse among migrant Muslim women in Australia.
Deborah Prospero is an emerging writer and occasional artist living on Darug Country. Currently pursuing a masters in creative writing and literature, she is an intersectional feminist of Uruguayan and Chinese-Australian heritage with a keen interest in stories about people and place. With recent work featured in Refinery29, MoreThanMelanin, and the Mamiwatta Collections Journal, Deborah weaves her lived experience into (pop) culture commentary. When not working or writing, you can catch her skating.
Heather Taylor-Johnson lives and writes on Kaurna land near Port Adelaide. Her most recent poetry books are a verse novel titled Rhymes with Hyenas and a collection titled Alternative Hollywood Ending. Her second novel, Jean Harley was Here, was shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Fiction, and she won last year’s Island Nonfiction Prize. She writes about the body and about art, which are often the same thing, and is the editor of Shaping the Fractured Self: Poetry of Chronic Illness and Pain. She is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the J M Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice.
Dr Jessica White is the author of the award-winning novels A Curious Intimacy and Entitlement, and a hybrid memoir about deafness, Hearing Maud, which won the 2020 Michael Crouch Award for a debut work of biography and was shortlisted for four national awards, including the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Jessica has received funding from the Australia Research Council, the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Queensland and Arts South Australia and has undertaken national and international residencies and fellowships. She was a 2020-2021 Juncture Fellow for the Sydney Review of Books and a 2022-2023 Arts Leader for the Australia Council for the Arts. Jessica is currently a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of South Australia. Her ecobiography of 19th century Western Australian botanist Georgiana Molloy will be published in 2025.
Top: Dr Farjana Mahbuba, Dr Kath Kenny, Kim Huynh
Bottom: Heather Taylor Johnson, Deborah Prospero, Dr Jessica White