Sydney based author, artist and critic Fiona Kelly McGregor, will complete The Trap, the final novel in her diptych based on the life of petty criminal Iris Webber, which follows the novel Iris shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, ALS Gold Medal and NSW Premier’s Award. McGregor has published eight books, including, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards-shortlisted Buried Not Dead, The Age 2010 Book of The Year Indelible Ink, critically acclaimed travel memoir Strange Museums and the award-winning short story collection Suck My Toes. McGregor’s essays, articles and reviews have featured in The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Art Monthly, Artlink and more.
2024 FELLOW FOR NON-FICTION WRITING
Omar Sakr, an award-winning poet, and writer based in Western Sydney, will work on his project Say The Words, an essay collection that fuses personal experiences with critical analysis of social and cultural constructs. Sakr has published one novel, Son of Sinand three poetry collections, notably The Lost Arabs, which won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award which was also shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award, the John Bray Poetry Award, the NSW Premier’s Multicultural Literary Award, and the Colin Roderick Award; it was released in the US and worldwide through Andrews McMeel Universal. Non-Essential Work (UQP, 2023) was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize and the ALS Gold Medal. Sakr’s poems have been translated into Spanish and Arabic and published in journals around the world. His creative and critical non-fiction has featured numerous times in The Guardian, SBS, Griffith Review, Meanjin, and in many anthologies.
2024 FRANK MOORHOUSE FELLOW FOR YOUNG WRITERS
Bryant Apolonio, an award-winning Sydney based writer, and critic will develop and write his first full length work of fiction, The Fortunate, a story set between Sydney and the Philippines that draws upon inherited legacies, obsession, the power of storytelling and the scars left by war, colonisation and authoritarianism, and will also receive an introduction and mentoring session with Frank Moorhouse’s publishers, Jane Palfreyman and Meredith Curnow. Apolonio has been awarded the Australia Council for the Arts, Projects for Individuals (2022); Slow Currents Writing Workshop (2022); Deborah Cass Prize (2019), the Liminal Fiction Prize (2019) and the Overland Fair Australia Prize (2017).
