Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund Awards Two of Australia’s Richest Author Fellowships
September 14, 2022
The Copyright Agency Cultural Fund Author Fellowship and Fellowship for Non-Fiction Writing are two of Australia’s richest grants for writers. Today, the Cultural Fund awarded the two life-changing fellowships, valued at $80,000 each, to award-winning author Mirandi Riwoe and non-fiction writer Saskia Beudel.
Copyright Agency CEO Josephine Johnston says, “The Cultural Fund’s fellowships total $160,000 and support Australian writers at the top of their field. The funding provides them with critical financial assistance to write new and ground-breaking works that tackle important topics.
“The Cultural Fund is committed to supporting Australian writers and championing Australian stories and new perspectives on Australian life. The calibre of this year’s applicants once again reflects the extraordinary depth of writing talent we have in this country.”
This year’s fellowship recipients are:
- Author Fellowship: Mirandi Riwoe to write A Short History of Longans, a story of several generations of an Irish-Chinese family in Australia. It follows the arrival in Sydney of Maria Connolly, a Mayo Orphan (1850), and John Ah Chee, who travels from China/Indonesia to Queensland to join his uncle (1860), and continues through to contemporary times. A Short History of Longans will examine questions of loyalty and belonging and how ideas or feelings of nationalism can change over several generations but also within one lifetime.
- Hear Mirandi talk about her project.
- Fellowship for Non-Fiction Writing: Writer, critic and historian Saskia Beudel will work on Peaking: High Intensity Training at the End of the World, which explores aging and physical performance through undertaking an epic one-day cycling event in the Australian Alps – the Peaks Challenge. Peaking explores what it takes to ‘peak’ (or not) in middle age, with the body as a site of both loss and possibility. Other themes weave through this training memoir: landscapes, cycling and mental health (especially trauma), cognitive benefits of cycling, cycling and disability, cycling and race.
- Hear Saskia talk about her project.
The Author Fellowship was assessed by authors Bruce Pascoe and Elfie Shiosaki and co-presenter of the ABC’s The Bookshelf, Kate Evans. The Fellowship for Non-Fiction Writing was assessed by writers Krissy Kneen, Sam Twyford-Moore and Sisonke Msimang.
Author Fellowship recipient Mirandi Riwoe is a multi-award-winning author. Her novel Stone Sky Gold Mountain won the 2020 Queensland Literary Award – Fiction Book Award and the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
The panel recognises there is great industry interest in Riwoe’s writing and they were impressed with the culturally diverse narrative and characterisations that will explore the values of nationalism, identity, racial isolation and the complexities of belonging for migrant Australians.
Riwoe says, “I have been buoyed by the confidence the peers have shown in my upcoming book and I’m even more excited about continuing this project. The Fellowship will ensure I have the necessary time and means to immerse myself in the writing and research of my novel. I could not be more grateful.”
The Fellowship for Non-Fiction Writing recipient Saskia Beudel has written one novel, Borrowed Eyes, and two non-fiction works, A Country in Mind and Curating Sydney: Imagining the City’s Future (with Jill Bennett), which have been shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the Dobbie Award and the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature.
In awarding the Fellowship for Non-Fiction Writing to Saskia Beudel, the panel was particularly impressed with her boldly experimental and cross-genre approach that will extend her practice by focusing on preparation for and undertaking of an extreme physical event to explore what this offers and reveals in the aging process – its losses, vulnerabilities and potential.
Beudel says, “It’s such an honour to receive this fellowship, knowing that my new book struck a chord with the peers. I feel I’m taking a risk with this work, it’s quite personal, so it was reassuring and exciting to find out that it speaks not only to my own preoccupations and interests but to others as well. I can’t thank the Copyright Agency enough.”
The Copyright Agency Cultural Fund Author and Non-Fiction Fellowships are renowned for enjoying significant success. Melissa Lucashenko’s Too Much Lip, which was written during her fellowship in 2017, went on to the win the prestigious 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Last year’s Author Fellowship recipient Robert Drewe released his work Nimblefoot to excellent reviews last month, and the Non-Fiction Fellowship recipient Anna Krien’s The Long Goodbye: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is an eagerly anticipated release due in 2023.
Robert Drewe says the Author Fellowship enabled him to finish Nimblefoot despite being affected by the NSW floods.
“The grant has had an indelible effect on my career, ensuring I could, for once, unhurriedly complete a project that was dear to me, and in this case under otherwise emotionally and physically impossible circumstances,” he says.
The Copyright Agency Cultural Fund Fellowships provide unprecedented financial support to authors. This is in addition to more than $100 million in copyright fees the Copyright Agency pays to publishers, writers, visual artists and surveyors every year, which makes a significant contribution to sustaining Australian storytelling.
For more information on the recipients of this year’s fellowships, visit our website.
Media enquiries:
Jane Morey
morey media
m: 0416 097 678
e: jane@moreymedia.com.au
About the Copyright Agency and Cultural Fund
The Copyright Agency is an Australian not-for-profit organisation that has been standing up for creators for more than 40 years. We enable the reuse of copyright-protected words and images in return for fair payment to creators.
The Cultural Fund is the philanthropic arm of the Copyright Agency, contributing meaningfully to a wide range of Australian cultural, educational and artistic programs and creators. Through its support it fosters greater understanding and engagement of national culture both locally and internationally.
Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund is a long-time supporter of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, providing $5,000 to each of the finalists and granting more than half a million dollars to this premier Australian literary prize since 2004.