Hodge awarded 2023 Marion fellowship
Lardil and Yangkaal writer Maya Hodge has been awarded the inaugural Marion fellowship for 2023, the ACT writing organisation has announced.
Marion said Hodge’s ‘writing practice is not just a means of creative expression but also an extension of her healing journey, her connection to her family, and her lived experiences as an Aboriginal woman. With her work as a curator, arts and culture writer, and creative, Maya is dedicated to disrupting colonial narratives and uplifting First Nation’s sovereignty and storytelling.’
Hodge’s works of writing and poetry have been published by Australian Poetry, Kill Your Darlings, Craft Victoria, Cordite Poetry Review and Overland. In 2021, she was selected as a runner-up for the SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition and the submissions were published in the anthology Between Two Worlds (Hardie Grant).
In 2022, Hodge was awarded the Open Book: Australian Publishing Internship, a six-month paid internship program aimed at increasing cultural diversity in the Australian publishing workforce. She was awarded a 2023 Varuna residential fellowship for her poetry collection ‘Time Melts and Meets in the Middle’. Hodge has been shortlisted for this year’s Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize.
Last year Hodge wrote an article for Kill Your Darlings, exploring the challenges faced by First Nations voices in Writers Festival spaces. The article sheds light on the importance of representation, balanced line-ups, and respectful engagement with Aboriginal writers and authors. Her work emphasises that writers’ festivals have a responsibility to create inclusive and respectful spaces for all voices to thrive. In addition to her writing projects, she recently curated the Opening Night lineup for the Emerging Writers Festival in Naarm, Melbourne.
Marion said the fellowship is an award that ‘invests in an emerging writer and/or creative practitioner whose work we believe in and wish to support and champion’.
Category: Awards Local news