Varuna the National Writers’ House has announced the recipients of the Varuna Residential Fellowships for 2022.
The writers and their projects are:
The Eleanor Dark flagship fellowship
- Katherine Brabon, for her work of autofiction ‘Body Friend’. It follows the narrator, a writer and woman who lives with an autoimmune disease, as she navigates practical, psychological and philosophical questions of living in an unwell body.
The Eric Dark flagship fellowship
- Lauren Fuge, for her nonfiction narrative work ‘Voyagers: Our journey into the Anthropocene’. Voyagers: Our journey into the Anthropocene. Journeying through remote landscapes across the Earth and beyond, Voyagers seeks to understand how human exploration has driven us into the Anthropocene.
The Varuna poetry flagship fellowship
- Madison Godfrey, for their collection of poems ‘Dress Rehearsals’, a collection of poems written from a non-binary perspective, exploring what it means to wear womanhood into the world when it constitutes both a bullseye and a ball dress.
The Jerra Studio flagship fellowship
- Heather Taylor Johnson, for her hybrid nonfiction work ‘Dear Vincent’
The Ray Koppe/ASA young writer’s fellowship
- Sarah Stivens for her poetry manuscript ‘Therapeutic Discomfort’
Varuna residential fellowships
- Adele Dumont for essay collection ‘Bezoar’
- Renee Treml for children’s graphic novel ‘Breathe’
- Stephen Carleton for playscript ‘Brutal Utopias’
- Liz Evans for ‘Catherine Wheel’
- Benjamin Hickey for suspense novel ‘Common Ruin’
- Rachel Bowen for YA novel ‘Hyena’
- Kylie Ladd for commercial fiction ‘I’ll Leave You With This’
- Gurmeet Kaur for poetry collection ‘Instructions on English’
- Tanya Davies for fantasy/speculative fiction ‘Killing Widows’
- Robyn Cadwallader for historical fiction ‘Not Less Than Anything’
- Hugh McGonagle for novel ‘Peninsula’
- Rebecca Giggs for narrative nonfiction ‘PET: The future of the animals we keep’
- Kelly Gardiner for YA novel ‘Roar’
- Catherine Moffat for crime novel ‘Snapper Point’
- Carol Major for novel ‘The Chinese Woman’
- Chris Womersley for novel ‘The Empire’
- Amanda Curtin for historical fiction ‘The Longhair Fella’
- Katia Ariel for memoir ‘The Swift Dark Tide’
- Michelle Michau-Crawford for novel ‘What’s Home Supposed to Mean, Anyway?’
- Sian Campbell for novel ‘When This is All Over’
- Bruce Nash for novel ‘Woman Without a Password’
- Sonia Orchard for creative nonfiction ‘Womankind’
- Jannali Jones for YA novel ‘Yenda’.
Varuna received more than 400 applications for residency fellowships from published and unpublished writers.
For more information about the fellowships, see Varuna’s website.
About Varuna: (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Varuna, The National Writers’ House is Australia’s national residential writers’ house in the former home of writers Eleanor Dark and Dr Eric Dark. In 1989 their son Mick Dark gifted their home to the Australian public through The Eleanor Dark Foundation. Due to this extraordinary act of philanthropy, Varuna has become Australia’s most eminent residential program for writers.[1][2]
Since 1989 Varuna the National Writers’ House has inspired the creation of new Australian writing and provided support for a thriving writing community and growing Alumni. Along with its Residential Program, Varuna also has a lively literary program, including the Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival, Varuna Open Day and various workshops and consultations.
Located in Katoomba two hours from Sydney, in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales Australia, Varuna is a short walk from the centre of town, and a short walk from the edge of the escarpment looking down into the magnificent Jamison Valley.[3][4]
In 2020, Varuna expanded its capacity to accommodate writers by building an accessible studio. This new building opens up opportunities for writers who have previously been unable to stay in residence at Varuna.
Featured image : Drone view of Varuna taken by Black Forest Cherry Photography.