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.
2022 NON-FICTION FELLOW
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.
2022 READING AUSTRALIA FELLOW FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AND LITERACY
Jantiena Batt, a deputy principal working within the ACT Education Directorate for her Fellowship project, Windows and Mirrors, which will investigate approaches and language used by educators, families and publishers when they engage with literature that includes non-heteronormative structures of families or relationships. Jantiena says her research will “analyse texts and teaching approaches to ensure that our pedagogy does not inadvertently contribute to the reinforcement of heteronormativity as the dominant discourse.”
