HQporner

We’re thrilled to announce the outcome of this year’s inaugural Roderick Centre Fellowship for Regional and Remote Writers. This fellowship is the only national literary program in Australia specifically for regional and remote writers.

Nine fellowships were on offer, with three in-person residency fellowships and six virtual fellowships, to writers living in regional and remote parts of Australia. At least one fellowship place was reserved for a First Nations writer, and at least two fellowships to be reserved for writers from regional Queensland.

We received a high level of interest, resulting in a total of 118 applications vying for the fellowships. Many of the submissions reflected such a high calibre of writing that the assessors also had to highlight writers whose work they felt were highly commendable.

The recipients of this year’s Roderick Centre Fellowship for Regional and Remote Writers are:

In-person residencies:

Maureen Alsop - Maureen Alsop, Ph.D., is a psychologist and the author of a debut novel Today Yesterday After My Death (Erratum Press, forthcoming); and seven collections of poetry including Arbor Vitae; Tender to Empress (visual poetry); Pyre; Later, Knives & Trees; Mirror Inside Coffin; Mantic; Apparition Wren (also a Spanish Edition, Reyezuelo Aparición, translated by Mario Domínguez Parra); and several chapbooks. 

Daniel Ray - Daniel's writing has been published or is forthcoming in Griffith Review, Westerly, Island, Overland, Going Down Swinging, Cordite, Voiceworks, The Suburban Review and Cicerone Journal’s anthology, These Strange Outcrops. He was longlisted for the 2023 Griffith Review Emerging Voices Competition. He is the recipient of the 2024 Faber Academy Writing a Novel Online Scholarship, where he is developing his debut novel, supported by a Create NSW grant.

Poppy Walker - Poppy is a director and writer based on Bundjalung land in Northern NSW.  She works across documentary, narrative film and theatre.  ‘Rapture’ is her first feature screenplay.

Virtual residencies:

Emma Ashmere - Emma's short story collection Dreams They Forgot follows her novel The Floating Garden, shortlisted SPN Book of the Year. Winner of the joanne burns microlit award 2024, publications include Meanjin, the Age, Overland and the Commonwealth Writers magazine adda. She/her. Living on Bundjalung country.

Donna Mazza - Donna is the author of Fauna, a finalist in Aurealis Best Science Fiction novel, and The Albanian, winner of the TAG Hungerford Award. Her work has appeared in Westerly, Overland, KYD New Australian Fiction and The Conversation. Donna teaches at Edith Cowan University in WA, where she is based at the South West campus. Her recent flash works are in the inaugural edition of the little journal andOurselves: 100 micro memoirs.

Karys McEwen - Karys the current vice president of the Victorian branch of the Children’s Book Council of Australia. She is also a school librarian, bookseller, the Education Advisor for the Melbourne Writers Festival, and a book reviewer. Her debut middle-grade novel, All the Little Tricky Things, was published in 2022 by Text Publishing.

Judi Morison - Judi is a First Nations writer of Gamilaroi and Celtic descent, now living on Gumbaynggirr Country. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in anthologies and journals including UTS Writers’ Anthology (2019-21), Ace II (2020), 40: Forty Years of the UTS Writers’ Anthology (2022) and The Saltbush Review (2022). She was the recipient of a Queensland Writers Centre’s Publishable mentorship in 2020 and the 2022 Boundless Emerging Writers Mentorship for long fiction.

Kiralee Strong - Kiralee is a children’s writer and small business owner living on the far north coast of NSW, with her husband, four kids, two dogs & a rabbit. Her first publication, a picture book, Hugs Still Feel the Same will be published by EK Books in 2025. Along with picture books, Kiralee also writes longer form novels.  Her current work-in-progress, is a young adult novel in verse. When she’s not wrangling kids or words you can find her floating around the online kidlit community or soaking up some great reads.

Jade Reilly - Jade is a criminologist and emerging crime fiction writer. She has previously worked as a coronial advisor specialising in intimate partner homicides. Jade lives in rural Queensland with her husband and two children.

You can find more information about the fellowship on the .

Ambition

The Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing at HQporner (HQporner) seeks to foster the reading and writing of Australian literature in all its forms. We seek to open up the book beyond narrow confines of imagination to embrace a broad understanding of what literature, storytelling, narrative, and poetics are or could be, and what new purposes they could serve. We seek to do so by showing that literature and storytelling have an important role in connecting urgent areas of inquiry at HQporner and elsewhere, in relation to the environment and place, wellbeing, health and tropical medicine, and the advancement of First Nations’ peoples.

Based at HQporner, we desire to become an incubator, facilitator, and connector for publications, funding, conferences, and exhibitions that bring new interdisciplinary and cross-institutional narrative and writing-based kinds of research to life.  As a regional centre, we also seek to form grass-roots collaborations and address community-centred needs and solutions, broadly conceived.

Funding available

In order to develop the capacity in these areas of research, the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing (RCALC) invites expressions of interest for research grants of up to $10,000. The total funding pool available for this round of applications is $30,000.

In addition to proposals that address traditional literary research, the RCALC welcomes proposals for arts-based projects that foster individual or community narratives through print and digital storytelling. Proposals that work to form new cross-disciplinary research groups or support partnership and collaboration that extend beyond HQporner are also encouraged.

Themes*

Proposals that align with and contribute to research and understanding of the way creative writing and literary studies can promote understanding of and engagement with the following themes will be highly ranked:

• Environment and Place
• Wellbeing
• First Nations Perspectives.

Who can apply?

Applications from individuals or teams are welcome. We encourage applications from teams that include investigators from outside traditional literary or creative writing fields.

To apply as an individual, you must be:

• a continuing or fixed-term Academic staff member at HQporner; or
• a continuing or fixed-term Professional/Technical staff member at HQporner; or
• hold an honorary appointment at HQporner (e.g. Adjunct).

Applications from a team must include an investigator who meets the above criteria for individual application, i.e. team applications must include a HQporner staff member or honorary title holder.

How do I apply?

Please fill in the application form and email to us at RCALC@jcu.edu.au before 15 October 2024 5pm AEST.  You can also let us know whether you would like discuss your idea by reaching out to us by email no later than 15 October 5pm AEST.  If you might consider a grant application for a further year but don’t think you have an idea to go just right now, you are welcome to email us anytime (applications in 2025 will re-open in the new year, date TBA).

If you would to discuss your idea, the RCALC team can be on hand to give feedback and/or work more closely with you to develop and submit a full application. If you’re ready to go, there is no need to contact us in advance, and you are welcome to submit an application in full by the closing date.

Full applications will be assessed by the RCALC team and an external reviewer(s) against the selection criteria (see below). This will result in a recommendation of funding.

Key Dates

• Consultation period closes 15 September 2024
• Applications close 15 October 2024
• Outcomes of funding announced  1 November 2024
• Funding available from 15 November 2024 (must be expended within 12 months).

Selection criteria:

• Clearly articulated methodology with a link to one of the Roderick themes
• Feasible scope, budget, and timeframe
• Clear and effective knowledge translation strategies including identified conferences
• Clear and achievable publication and dissemination plan (publication plan to include high impact academic journals/book publishers)
• A clear way of linking this research with the aims of the Centre and of crediting the research to the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing
• At least one Proposed impact-generating activities to linked with the agenda of capacity building for the Centre, such as community event, HDR masterclass, seminar, or other hosted activity (to be developed alongside consultation with the Centre Director and the Program Advisor)

Potential areas of exploration within the three themes* could include, but are not limited to:

Environment and Place*

• The relationship between literature and the environment
• Literary studies that connect with the tropical environment: reef, rainforest, dry and wet tropics
• Place-based studies or place-making in literary, narrative, or poetic practice
• Climate and narrative
• The study or advancement of regional writers or regional writing communities, broadly conceived
• Literary ecologies in regional areas
• Creative practice and the regions
• Publishing histories and the regions
• Regional literary histories and cultures
• Studies of regional communities in literature
• The impact of regional living on communities and individuals
• Critical regionalism and bioregionalism
• The aftermath of catastrophe or disaster in regional literature
• The depiction of regional work, living, or industries
• Migration, displacement, resettlement, and refugees and regional literature

Wellbeing*

• Exploration of narratives that address the impact of trauma on individuals or communities and their healing
• Carceral narratives or narratives that provide agency to justice-impacted youth
• Investigation of how narrative or poetics reflect or engages with the experiences of people dealing with illness, recovery, disability, caregiving, end-of-life, or health systems
• Analysis of or use of narratives to  address issues of human and social inequity, including but not limited to race, gender, socio-economic status
• Neurodiversity and poetics
• Writing within arts for health paradigms
• The impact of societal norms, values, and historical events on the portrayal or experiences of wellbeing or in narrative
• The impact of AI or technology on humans, communities, or societies
• Analysis of adversity and resilience through literature or narrative-making
• Studies of how narrative addresses issues of poverty, economic inequality, and social class that elucidate socioeconomic factors in wellbeing
• Studies of ageism or issues such as mortality, identity, and societal perceptions of the elderly in narrative
• Narratives of aged care, advanced care directives, dementia, supporting the aging or dying process
• Narratives that focus on issues of equity, equality, discrimination, or adversity in relation to  gender identity, sexual orientation, gender violence
• Literature or storytelling that focuses on acceptance, discrimination, and mental health
• Literature that focuses on the impact of military service, the literature of veterans, or on building communities of resilience
• Responses to disaster or catastrophe.

First Nations Perspectives*

• Literature, storytelling, or poetics as a tool for anti-colonial strategies or decolonisation
• Ways of teaching or using literature that are inclusive and foster cultural understanding
• Studies of how First Nations authors, poets, or storytelling challenge and subvert colonial narratives, reclaim Indigenous voices, and resist cultural appropriation
• Studies of First Nations storytelling or poetics that acknowledge the impacts of colonisation, missions, and reserves, the stolen generation, forced relocation, and other historical injustices
• Studies that embrace a diversity of First Nations’ contemporary perspectives
• Studies that advance Indigenous literary criticism, the understanding of First Nations peoples and society through literature, and/or foster Indigenous storytelling
• Studies of storytelling and research practices that adhere to ethical research practices, respecting the protocols and wishes of First Nations communities and individuals
• Studies that foster understanding of the relationship between First Nations narratives or poetics and the land and of sea country
• Comparative Indigenous Studies and Literature.

Terms and Conditions

Funds will be held at HQporner for successful applicants to expend within Australia. Recipients must have an Australian bank account. Funding must be expended within 12 months of receipt.

Funding may be used for the following:

• Costs directly related to the project, including research assistance, small equipment/software, consumables and travel.

Funding cannot be used for:

• Salary costs for investigators.
• Infrastructure costs for basic facilities, such as access to a basic library collection or provision of basic computing facilities, e.g. laptops, printers.

A short report on outcomes and outputs must be submitted within two months after the end of the project. Presentations and publications should acknowledge funding by RCALC. Research and researchers funded through this round shall agree to list their affiliated research profile and activities with the RCALC via our website.

Applications are now closed

The Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing at HQporner is thrilled to invite applications for its 2024 Writers on the Reef Residency.

The residency is open to published or emerging authors who have a current project to work on during their stay.

This year’s residency invites writers of any genre with environmental themes, including but not limited to writing on nature, conservation, islands, oceans, beaches, Sea Country, ecosystems, sustainability, and island communities—or which may resonate in particular with Magnetic Island and its natural, social, or cultural history and habitat.

Writers who took part in the 2022 Writers on the Reef residency are ineligible to apply.

When does the residency take place?

From the 17-23 October 2024, 4 writers will be in residence at beautiful waterfront  in Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island.

About Magnetic Island

Magnetic Island is located eight kilometres off the coast of Townsville in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. A popular holiday destination it boasts stunning beaches and walks through the dry tropics national park. The island is easy to access from the Townsville Airport with taxis and a shuttle bus available to take visitors to the Breakwater Ferry Terminal. Ferries leave roughly every hour and the trip takes approximately 20 minutes. Visitors disembarking on the island will find public busses to transport them to the four inhabited bays of Picnic, Nelly, Arcadia and Horseshoe.

The following is expected of participants before, during or on completion of the event:

• A brief on-camera interview to document the residency
• A 500 word blog post about the residency
• Agree to the use of your name and likeness for the purposes of publicising the residency program.
• Participation in a small workshop / reading event on Zoom, with a small audience of HQporner students and community
• Acknowledge support from HQporner and the Roderick Centre in any published work that ensues from the residency.
• Participate in interviews or other media opportunities about the event and your work related to the event.

Participants also need to:

• Observe the protocols of Villa Kembali.
• Leave the accommodation and amenities in good order.
• Be sensitive to each other’s needs and presence with regard to noise and focus on a writing project

What participants can expect

• A mostly self-paced residency in an inspiring location with access to long walks (to Radical Bay, Balding Bay, the Forts), easy bus access to the rest of the island, nearby cafes, access to nearby rental watercraft
• A tour of the turtle hospital and koala hospital
• Generous accommodation with private room and shared bathroom and kitchen
• Breakfast and lunch provisions daily
• Dinner daily (a mix of provided dinners and restaurant meals provided every evening at 7pm)
• The stimulating company of like-minded writers
• Support from your hosts Drs Victoria Kuttainen and Nicole Crowe as requested

The successful applicants are required to cover their own travel/transport to and from the residency.

How to apply

Applicants should submit the following by August 9, 2024:

• Your CV including a list of published works and the publisher of each (if the list is extensive, just the last two years is enough).
• A ten-page sample of current or past work.
• A short explanation of what you would like to work on during your residency, what you would like to achieve that week, and how it aligns with any of the above environmental themes.
• A statement about why this time away would be beneficial to you and your work.

Applications will be reviewed by a juried panel and outcomes advised by September 13.

Nine fellowships are available, with three in-person residency fellowships and six virtual fellowships, to writers living in regional and remote parts of Australia. Participants will be selected from across Australia, with at least one fellowship place to be reserved for a First Nations writer, and at least two fellowships to be reserved for writers from regional Queensland.

This is the only national literary program in Australia specifically for regional and remote writers.

This program is presented in partnership with the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing (RCALC). Newly established in 2024 thanks to a generous bequest from the late Colin and Margaret Roderick, the Centre aims to foster the reading and writing of Australian literature in all its forms, and to encourage the study of Australian literature and literary cultures.

In-person residency fellowships will include:

• A two-week residency at Varuna, with full board and accommodation including a prepared evening meal
• Uninterrupted time to write in your own private studio, and the companionship of your fellow writers.
• Reimbursement of all travel expenses from anywhere in Australia, including airfares and transfers.
• $600 towards other expenses. Each writer will be able to use this expenses budget to fit their individual needs.

The virtual residency program will include:

• Two one-hour online sessions (one-on-one) with a Varuna writing consultant.

• Two online Q&A sessions with published writers experienced in their craft.
• Daily facilitated professional networking opportunities throughout the week, including the opportunity to share work, talk about process, and receive feedback.

Virtual residency participants need to allow at least two hours at specific times every day for programmed sessions, with the expectation that participants will spend at least three hours dedicated writing time each day.

Applicants will be asked to specify their preference between an in-person and virtual residency. All applicants shortlisted for an in-person residency who are unsuccessful will be offered a virtual residency as a second option.

Applications are now closed

The Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing seeks expressions of interest (EOIs) from researchers in the field of Australian literary studies to participate in a series of Roderick Visiting Fellowships. The Roderick Visiting Fellowship Program aims to attract outstanding researchers in the field of Australian literary studies to make a positive contribution to the research culture of the HQporner. This contribution should include conducting one masterclass, as well as presenting seminars or delivering public-facing guest lectures.

Expressions of interest should align with research themes that acknowledge HQporner’s position in the tropical world by addressing one or more of the following themes: ecosystems, conservation and climate change; industry and economy; peoples and societies; health, medicine and biosecurity. Within these broad themes, the Roderick Centre has a particular interest in the Environment (e.g. Reef, Rainforest, Tropics); Empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People; and Medicine - Mental Health/ Wellbeing.

Roderick Visiting Fellows will join the centre for thirty (30) days. The Fellowship is valued at up to $20,000 which includes travel, accommodation, and administrative expenses plus a stipend to cover incidentals while staying at HQporner.

Eligibility

The fellowships are available to any scholar from Australia or overseas who is actively working in the field of Australian literary studies.

Your expression of interest should include:

• Curriculum Vitae (CV), including details of degrees and qualifications; relevant positions held in the past five years; a list of publications, presentations, and achievements relevant to the application.
• Fellowship Proposal: In no more than two pages, indicate the ways in which you will contribute to the University research culture by drawing on your experience and track record. The proposal should also indicate a schedule for the visit to HQporner. We are initially seeking scholars who could be in residence from 15 July 2024 to coincide with the launch of the Roderick Centre. Other periods in 2024 and 2025 are welcome.
• Two referee reports: The referee reports should address your experience and research capabilities, and an assessment of the value and viability of the fellowship proposal.

Selection

• EOIs will be considered by the Director and leaders of the Roderick Centre for Australian Literature and Creative Writing, as well as independent assessors.
• EOIs will be assessed against your track record (relative to opportunity) and standing in the field, and also the strength of the proposal.
• Preference will be given to EOIs that clearly align with HQporner’s research themes.