Writers immersion, cultural exchange

By STEVEN WINDUO
I AM participating in a writers and writing program called Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange (WrICE) instituted in 2013, within the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia. The founders are Associate Professors David Carlin and Francesca Rendle-Short, (co-founders of the nonfictionLab in the School of Media and Communication, RMIT University).
Generous support is provided by the Copyright Agency a partner organization in this program.
WrICE is a program of reciprocal cultural exchange and cultural immersion aiming to foster connections between Australian and Asia-Pacific writers and writing. The WrICE program brings together a new group of five Australian and five Asia-Pacific writers each year for a face- to-face collaborative residency in Asia followed by a reciprocal event in Melbourne, Australia.
It provides a solid framework for intercultural and intergenerational dialogue — the exchange and furthering of knowledge, creativity, skills and cultural perspectives — that is underpinned by principles of mutual respect and a desire for genuine reciprocity.
Over the past three years (2014-2016) WrICE has worked with many outstanding writers from the across the Asian region. In 2014 it established its first collaborative residency and a series of public events in Penang, Malaysia, and Singapore. In 2015 the WrICE collaborative residency took place in Hoi An, and Hanoi, Vietnam in February 2015 and was followed by activity later in the year in Melbourne.
In 2016 12 writers undertook a residency in Guangzhou and Yangshou in China, followed by reciprocal activity to take place in Melbourne in August, in association with the Melbourne Writers Festival.
Five Australian and five Asia-Pacific writers are now in Philippines for a collaborative residency in Vigan followed by a series of public events and workshops in Manila. This will then be followed up by activity later in the year in Melbourne, in association with the Melbourne Writers Festival.
The established Australian writer participating in the program is Christos Tsiolkas, author of five novels: among them Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head-On; The Jesus Man; and Dead Europe, which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award.
He won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award, longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for his novel The Slap, which was also announced as the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year.
Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning Indigenous Australian writer. Her first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. Heat and Light was also shortlisted for The Stella Prize, the Queensland Literary Award for State Significance and the Readings Prize.
Ellen was named as a Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelist in 2015. Ellen is the editor of the digital collection Writing Black: New Indigenous Writing from Australia.
Film essayist, John Hughes, is a writer-director and producer of essay films for broadcast and festivals. Hughes’ film work includes feature drama, documentary, online documentary, video art and gallery installation. He was Commissioning Editor with SBS Independent 1998–2001. He has a PhD from RMIT University and is currently Adjunct Professor, School of Media and Communication, RMIT; Honorary Fellow, Faculty of the VCA and MCM, University of Melbourne; and The Films of John Hughes: A History of Independent Screen Production in Australia (Cumming, 2014) has recently been published by ATOM. Website: www.earlyworks.com.au
Else Fitzgerald is a Melbourne-based writer and is an emerging writer fellow. Her work has appeared in various publications including Visible Ink, Australian Book Review, The Victorian Writer, Offset and Award Winning Australian Writing. Else is Program Coordinator for the Emerging Writers’ Festival and is currently completing a BA in Creative Writing at RMIT.
The emerging writer is Jen Porter, the Australian who has written reviews for ArtsHub and has had work broadcast on Radio National. Her adult novel manuscript, ‘In Your Image’, has been shortlisted and longlisted for a number of national and international literary prizes.
Third Australian Emerging Writer is Susie Thatcher, a writer, classical musician and student of Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT. Her novel-in-progress, ‘Gardens of Stone’, was shortlisted for the 2016 Richell Prize for an Emerging Writer. She is General Manager of short story magazine The Canary Press.
Daryll Delgado (The Philippines) won the 32nd National Book Award for Short Fiction for her first book of short stories, After the Body Displaces Water (USTPH, 2012), and was a finalist in the 2013 Madrigal-Gonzales First Book Award.
She has also received a Philippines Free Press award for her fiction in 2010. She is a lecturer at the University of the Philippines, the Ateneo de Manila University and Miriam College.
Norman Erikson Pasaribu (Indonesia) was born in Jakarta. He worked for Indonesia’s tax office for almost six years before resigning in 2016 to pursue writing. His first short story collection Hanya Kamu yang Tahu Berapa Lama Lagi Aku Harus Menunggu [Only You Know How Much Longer I Should Wait] was shortlisted for the 2014 Khatulistiwa Literary Award for Prose. In 2015 he was one of the emerging writers at Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.
Nhã Thuyên (Vietnam) writes, translates and edits books, and sometimes organizes literary events with friends. She has authored several books of poetry, short fiction and some tiny books for children. Her most recent poetry book Words Breathe, Creatures of Elsewhere (tù thò, nhung nguoi la) was published in Vietnamese by Nhã Nam publisher and in English translation by Kaitlin Rees through Vagabond.
Martin Villanueva (The Philippines) teaches at the Ateneo de Manila University, where he finished his undergraduate studies; he has an MFA from De La Salle University. He has received prizes from the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and has been published most recently in Plural and Softblow.
A week into our WrICE program and we are absorbing every moment of it.
Time to squeeze the lemonade out of the lemon!