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fnawnee-newsVolume One 2021 |
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Greetings, and welcome all to our new look e-news format 2021: as we reflect back on the year that was 2020 – we take a moment to remember those who are not with us today, those who battled through one of the most medically challenging crisis in our living memory. In the upcoming First Nations COVID_19 Australian Poetry Journal 2021, FNAWN will be capturing frame by poetic frame how we as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers, poets, and storytellers responded to so such a global pandemic. Within that Journal there will be poems that leap out at you as though you were watching their thoughts in live-streaming. There are poems with added layers of complexities sifting through socio battleships. Some poets have deployed warrior like confrontation in parts of speech. Others have demonstrated playful melodic tunes of isolation. All of which make for a grand splash in 2021. Watch this space! As FNAWN now move into our first of our Four-Year-Funding Cycle (Australia Council for the Arts), we celebrate the coming together of a brand new year full of opportunities and nurturing creative development for our Members which we hope will inspire, deliver, and pollenate the unceded stories of our sovereign voices. 2021 also marks the Fourth FNAWN National Workshop – which is to be hosted in Australia’s Festival City, you guessed it – Adelaide. I cannot express how enthused and already out the gates our Board of Directors are to be preparing for this National Workshop. |
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FNAWN Board of Directors: Speaking of Directors, I shall announce that Dr Jeanine Leane has stepped down from our Board (January), a difficult decision for Jeanine to have made though necessary as 2021 will be Jeanine’s year to fulfill a number of her writing and publishing commitments – we sincerely wish Jeanine all the best and hope to see her back on board in 2022. Taking up the challenge of filling Jeanine’s Sketchers is South Australian FNAWNee who really needs no introduction – but I’ll introduce him all the same: Filmmaker and writer Edoardo Crismani, a descendent of the Wiradjuri people. Edoardo was nominated for an Australian Writers Guild Award in 2017 for the documentary about his grandfather 1931 champion boxer and vaudeville entertainer Joe Murray. Joe Murray was known as the Black Panther in the ring. Edorado’s short stories and poetry have been published in journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas. He is the 2019-2021 Coordinator/Facilitator for South Australia First Nation Writers group. He is currently working on his first novel, a time travel story inspired by his grandfather’s life and times. Edoardo welcome to FNAWN’s Board of Directors, we’ve already held our first Board Meeting for 2021, you graced us with your presence, you have now been well and truly inducted into our Board of Directors. Thank you once again for accepting the interim role as one of our esteemed Directors. |
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New Members: Please make WELCOME our new FNAWNees: Nardi Simpson (NSW), Judi Morison (NSW), Celia Colin (SA), Laniyuk Garcon (SA), Travis Akbar (SA), Lystra Bisschop (QLD), Jannali Jones (NSW) and Maureen Jipiyililya Nampijinpa O’Keefe (NT). Welcome all to the First Nations Australia Writers Network. Our Membership of FNAWN is growing exponentially year by year, surpassing many state and territories in numbers of members. Let’s keep expanding, keep sharing our stories, and bring out the very best of our emerging, mid-career, and established writers in publishing, audio-book, and songlines. |
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First Indigenous Writing Award: Straight off the bat for 2021 was the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and what a presence FNAWNees held in multiple categories stretched across the genres. Our very own Shortlisted Members are to be congratulated for their literary contributions: Karen Wyld for Where the Fruit Falls (UWA Publishing), Nardi Simpson for Song of the Crocodile (Hachette Australia), Kirli Saunders for Kindred (Magabala Books). |
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| And Highly Commended for Late Murrumbidgee Poems (Cordite Books). John Mukky Burke. This is a thrilling contribution to First Nations’ literature |
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National Workshop: As FNAWN will be shining a very bright light upon Adelaide in August (dates and venue to be confirmed and announced in late March). We will also for the first time be streaming many of our plenary and workshop sessions – referring to feedback from our last National Workshop at Gorman House in Canberra (2018). We have heard you, we are listening, and I can assure you that your Board of Directors will be working around the clock to take on board those recommendations including: fire-pit storytelling, an interconnectedness with Traditional Owners and their Elders, queer poetry, Sci-Fi, time-management to write, to name but a few topics. |
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Adelaide Writers’ Week: South Australia are kicking off Writers Week with aplomb. If you’re going to be heading to the Adelaide Writers Week be sure to check out the First Words - First Nations speakers and poets, including FNAWN members, proudly presented by Writers SA. FNAWN Chair will be attending this event, and other sessions, bringing so much more from First Nations writers to you via our social-media pages. And also hoping to podcast with a few our writers, poets, and storytellers as well. |
| There are a few FNAWN members speaking at Adelaide Writers Week. On the Sunday, after First Words, Julie Janson will be talking about her book Benevolence (Magabala Books) Then on Wednesday, Karen Wyld (Where the Fruit Falls) and Nardi Simpson (Song of the Crocodile) will be talking about their new releases with award-winning poet Natalie Harkins. |
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Aunty Kerry Reed-Gilbert Poetry Award: FNAWN will be proudly awarding the Aunty Kerry Reed-Gilbert Poetry Award once again in 2021. This will be the second instalment of this First Nations national poetry award in great honour of one of our founding members and first Chairperson of FNAWN. FNAWN also acknowledge the permission received from the Reed family in the naming of this Award. |
| Exciting News: Alison Whittaker had approached FNAWN in 2020 to see if FNAWN would accept assigned royalties from Fire Front (UQP) with the intent that it would feed back to more deadly ‘wordwork’ among our poets. A big thank-you from FNAWN all monies received will certainly feed back into our thriving community of writers. |
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Call out for work: our friends at Griffith Review are seeking submissions for Griffith Review 73: Hey, Utopia! Deadline for submissions is 25 March 2021. And their new competition for emerging writers, The Long and the Short of It, is also open for submissions until 15 March 2021. Details of both of these opportunities are on their submission page. |
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Members Recent Releases: 2020 was a good year for Aboriginal and/or Torres Straits Islanders writers, poets and illustrators being published. With many more releases scheduled for 2021. Here a few we’ve been reading: Born into This by Adam Thompson (UQP)
Guwayu — For All Times, edited by Jeanine Leane (Magabala)
Bindi by Kirli Saunders, illustrated by Dub Leffler (Magabala)
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If you’d like your book to be included in an upcoming newsletter, please let us know. |
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FNAWN Membership is open to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander storytellers, writers, poets, playwrights and editors.
All membership enquiries should be addressed to Yvette Holt
chairperson@fnawn.com If you have any literary news you’d like to share among our network of FNAWNees, we want to hear from you. We welcome information about book launches, community events and news, awards, fellowship and scholarships from every state and territory.
Please email chairperson@fnawn.com |
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