Mascara, Varuna residency winners announced

The winners of the inaugural Mascara Varuna Writers’ and Editors’ Residency have been announced.

The successful writers and their manuscripts are:

• Timmah Ball, for experimental nonfiction collection ‘Blue Print for Another World’
• Alison J Barton, for poetry collection ‘Not Telling’
• Vivienne Cleven, for novel ‘Beautiful Monsters’
• Maria van Neerven, for poetry collection ‘To Give Them a Voice’.

The inaugural residency, open to First Nations and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) writers who are working on a creative manuscript, received 78 entries. Judges Lucy Van and Melissa Lucashenko said that ‘of this high-quality field’, the winning four submissions ‘were exceptional for the grace, precision, and perception of their writing’.

The four successful fellows recieve an all-expenses paid, fully catered residency at Varuna, the National Writers’ House in the Blue Mountains. The residency also includes travel costs for interstate participants as well as a manuscript reading by Mascara editorial staff senior editor Michelle Cahill and mentored emerging editors Anthea Yang and Monique Nair.

For more information on the winners, see the Mascara Literary Review website.

Pictured: (top L–R) Timmah Ball, Alison J Barton; (bottom L–R) Vivienne Cleven, Maria van Neerven.

Category: Awards Local news