Roderick Varuna Fellowship for Regional and Remote Writers

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. http://www.maureenalsop.com

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 and Ourselves: 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 Varuna website.