Edition 25 

9 January 2019

Message from the Board

 Dear FNAWNees

Salutations for the New Year. We trust that you have had a most relaxing and joyful Christmas Seasonal holiday over the recent weeks and are now writing up a storm across the multiple genres as we head into 2019. I know that I am.

As 2019 is well and truly underway we reflect upon the year that was, 2018, and the enormous literary contributions our Members have made toward the bibliography of Australian literature. First we would like to congratulate all our award-winners and echo the congratulatory successes of First Nation publications throughout 2018. As you will see from the below links the opportunities, awards, publications and celebrations of our First Nation writers are truly fruitful and within all of our reaches. Go for it!

FNAWN are immensely proud to announce that we have successfully secured a Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund Round - this will be targeted in the area of a poetry and short-story workshops and of course, we are very pleased to announce that we will also be offering our very own inaugural FNAWN poetry and short-story Award to be announced in the coming months.

Be sure to check out our FNAWN webpage, we have uploaded photographs from our National Workshop 2018, we are committed to highlighting our legends of the First Nations writers’ canon in our Honour Roll and we are installing a new scope titled What’s on the Shelf, which is a virtual retainer of our recently published and historical books illuminating our First Nations writers. If you have any photographs or books you would like to see on our FNAWN webpage please send them through to firstnationswriters@gmail.com

Our first Executive Board Meeting will be held in Canberra 2^nd – 3^rd February, we look forward to updating our Members on more exciting news and strategic planning for the first-half of 2019 from then.

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in the retrospect” – Anaïs Nin

On behalf of the FNAWN Executive Board
Warmest Regards, Yvette
Chairperson FNAWN
 

Good news 

FNAWN is well-represented on the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2019 short-list, with winners to be announced on 31 January 2019.
 
Works by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander short-listed writers in open categories include :-
Fiction - Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko
Drama – Barbara and the Camp Dogs by Ursula Yovich and Alana Valentine
Writing for Young Adults - Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina
 
And in Indigenous Writing :–
Common People by Tony Birch
Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko
Taboo by Kim Scott
Blakwork by Alison Whittaker

In ACT, congratulations go to Paul Collis for being awarded the ACT Book of the Year for Dancing Home.
 
And Meaghan Holt is the 2019 recipient of the yearly mentorship for an unpublished Aboriginal poet, offered by award-winning poet and FNAWN member Ali Cobby Eckermann.

Samuel Wagan Watson has been awarded the prestigious 2018 Patrick White Literary Award, making him the second First Nations recipient. Tony Birch was awarded this prize in 2017. Samuel, a Munanjali/Birri Gubba man, is a poet, essayist and performer from Queensland.
 

Publications 

Blak Brow (issue 40 of The Lifted Brow) was published late November 2018, and features the works of a number of FNAWN members.



 An essay review of Melissa Lucashenko's book Too Much Lip has been published in Sydney Review of Books. 

Prizes, fellowships and opportunities