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Inaugural recipients of $150k The Next Chapter initiative announced

Monday, 1 October 2018   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

The Wheeler Centre (TWC) has announced the 10 inaugural recipients of the 2018 Next Chapter grants for developing writers, each worth $15,000.

The recipients of the grants will each be matched with a mentor who will work with them over 12 months to help connect them with publishers and readers, and will also participate in a three-day writing retreat at Varuna, The Writers House, in Katoomba, New South Wales.

The 2018 Next Chapter recipients are:

  • Evelyn Araluen (poetry, NSW)
  • Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen (memoir, VIC)
  • Jean Bachoura (memoir, VIC)
  • Ennis Cehic (short fiction, VIC)
  • Nayuka Gorrie (nonfiction, NSW)
  • Lian Low (young adult speculative fiction, VIC)
  • Yamiko Marama (memoir, VIC)
  • Ara Sarafian (comic fiction, VIC)
  • Adrian Stanley (young adult fiction, SA)
  • Adam Thompson (short fiction, TAS).

Four applicants were also highly commended for their entries, and will receive $500 and membership to their local writers’ centre. They are:

  • Mehdi Habibi (short fiction, NSW)
  • Fiona Murphy (memoir, VIC)
  • Bobuq Sayed (fiction, VIC)
  • Adut Wol Akec (poetry, VIC).

Chosen from over 1100 entries nationwide, the recipients were selected by a judging panel comprising writer Benjamin Law, author Maxine Beneba Clarke, writer and poet Ellen van Neerven, author Christos Tsiolkas, Wheeler Centre director Michael Williams, and Wheeler Centre head of publishing Sophie Black.

Of this year’s entries, the judges said: ‘We have been impressed and knocked out by the astonishing, challenging and riveting writing we have read … The experience has confirmed for us all that the more voices that appear in Australian writing and the more experiences and truths that are recounted, the more thrilling will be the future of our literature.’

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, The Next Chapter was established by the Wheeler Centre in conjunction with the Aesop Foundation to support ‘a new generation of writers, from all sorts of backgrounds’.

For more information, see the website.

 

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