Ahmed awarded 2022 Kat Muscat Fellowship

Munira Tabassum Ahmed is the recipient of the 2022 Kat Muscat Fellowship, which offers professional development up to the value of $5000 for an editorial project or work of writing by a young person aged 16–30 of an underrepresented gender.

Ahmed is a 16-year-old writer whose work has appeared in publications include Best of Australian Poems 2021, Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal, the Lifted Brow and Cordite. She was a 2020–21 youth curator and moderator for the Sydney Writers’ Festival, co-host of a 2021 Culture Makers Lab workshop with the Immigration Museum, Melbourne, and currently edits online publication Hyades Magazine.

‘It is a tremendous honour to be named the 2022 Kat Muscat Fellow, and I thank the Kat Muscat Custodial Committee, the Muscat family, and Express Media endlessly,’ said Ahmed. ‘The support of the fellowship will be indispensable to my growth as a young writer and allow me to seek out resources for professional development.’

Ahmed will use the fellowship to work on a hybrid manuscript exploring ‘how the mythos of martyrdom intersects with motherhood and girlhood, and the means by which language and voice can be tools to challenge subjugation’.

‘In an incredibly strong year of fellowship applications, we were instantly enthralled by Munira’s project, a hybrid manuscript exploring language, power, myth and community through the worldview of Bangladeshi women,’ said Kat Muscat Custodial Committee chair Veronica Sullivan. ‘It is rare to encounter a young writer with a voice and craft so dazzlingly original and so fully developed, and we can’t wait for readers to be moved, challenged and compelled by her work.’

Now in its seventh year, the Kat Muscat Fellowship is named in honour of the late Voiceworks editor. The recipient is selected by the Custodial Committee of The Kat Muscat Legacy Projects, which includes members of Express Media’s board and staff, the Muscat family and appointed community members.

The 2021 fellowship was awarded to Dženana Vucic. For more information, see the Express Media website.

Category: Awards Local news