black&write! Writing Fellowship 2018 winners announced
The 2018 black&write! Fellowships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers have been awarded to Gold Coast writer Lystra Bisschop and Sydney-based writer Nardi Simpson.
Bisschop, a descendant of the Guugu Yimidhirr people and Birri Gubba people, was selected for her YA fiction manuscript ‘The Upwelling’, about a young surfer named Kirra, who catches a wave and time-slips into a land without European influence.
Simpson, a Yuwaalaraay/Gamilaraay woman from New South Wales and founding member of the Stiff Gins musical group, was recognised for her adult literary fiction manuscript ‘The Song of the Crocodile’, which explores three generations of a fictional Aboriginal family in a rural town.
Each fellowship is worth $10,000 and includes editorial development from the State Library of Queensland’s (SLQ) black&write! editorial team, and consideration for publication by Hachette Australia. The editorial team includes junior editor Caitlin Murphy and editor Grace Lucas-Pennington, who has worked on Claire G Coleman’s black&write!-winning Terra Nullius (Hachette) and Paul Collis’ David Unaipon Award-winner, Dancing Home (UQP). Lucas-Pennington was also the recipient of the 2015-16 Black&Write editorial internship.
The judges also announced three highly commended entries from the ‘extremely strong field of applicants’ for the 2018 competition. They were:
- Susie Anderson (NSW) for her poetry collection ‘Revolve’
- Chelinay Gates (WA) for the YA novel ‘Lucky Child’
- Kirily Saunders (NSW) for her poetry collection ‘Mother Earth, Child Lover’.
The black&write! Fellowships are designed to ‘train, mentor and promote outstanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and editors, and encourage a love of reading, writing and ideas in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities’.
Entries for the 2019 fellowship open later this year. More information is available here.
Category: Local news
