First Nations Australia Writers Network

Last updated

The First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) is the peak advocacy body for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writers, storytellers and poets in Australia.

Contents

History

The seeds for the organisation were sown at the Guwanyi Indigenous Writers Festival in March 2011, although the idea had been discussed much earlier, at a 1993 writers' workshop in Brisbane by Anita Heiss, Jared Thomas, and Kerry Reed-Gilbert. In 2012, a working party established to work towards the goal, comprising Thomas, Reed-Gilbert, Philip McLaren, Jackie Huggins, Sam Watson Snr, Jim Everett (aka puralia meenamatta, Tasmanian writer, playwright, and poet [1] ), Alexis West (dancer, choreographer, performer, writer, filmmaker [2] ), John Harding (playwright [3] ), Peter Minter (poet and editor [4] ), Marcus Waters (Kamilaroi screenwriter and academic, [5] and Marie Munkara (Darwin-based writer of Rembarrnga and Tiwi descent [6] ). [7]

First Nations Australia Writers Network was established in 2013, [8] with Reed-Gilbert as the first chair. [7] Cathy Craigie was a co-founder and became executive director of the organisation. [9]

Description

FNAWN serves as an advocacy body and resources service for emerging and established Indigenous Australian writers, poets and storytellers, [10] helping to develop skills and provide development opportunities, "to sustain and enhance First Nations Australians writing and storytelling". [11]

It is registered as a charitable organisation based in Canberra, with all of its funding coming from government grants. [8]

As of 2021, Jackie Huggins is patron and poet Yvette Holt is chair. Board members are Jeanine Leane, Samantha Faulkner, John Harding, Ali Cobby Eckermann and Rachel Bin Salleh. [12]

Activities and events

In May 2013, FNAWN organised its first national workshop, a three-day-event in Brisbane attended by 120 Indigenous writers, poets and storytellers, as well as non-Indigenous literary, agents, publishers and individuals. The second workshop, held in Melbourne in 2015, was an opportunity to demonstrate the work of its members and the success of the organisation, both within Australia and internationally. [7] A third workshop was held in Canberra in August 2018. [13]

FNAWN was one of the main organisers of the first trip by Aboriginal writers to the US, to attend a book fair to showcase their work. It has hosted guests from Canada, New Zealand and the US at various events. [7]

In 2014, the FNAWN worked with Australian Poetry on the management of the Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Poetry. [14]

In September 2015, in a collaboration with Poets House in New York, a recording of six FNAWN members reading their work was presented at a special event, and recorded for posterity. Introduced by Craigie, the six readers were: Jeanine Leane, Dub Leffler, Melissa Lucashenko, Bruce Pascoe, Jared Thomas and Ellen van Neerven. [15]

Submissions consisting of poems of up to 40 lines for a volume entitled FN COVID-19 Anthology 2021 closed in December 2020. The project is overseen by FNAWN publisher, Yvette Holt, in association with Australian Poetry, and funded by the Australia Council for the Arts. [16]

Related Research Articles

<i>Overland</i> (magazine) Australian literary magazine

Overland is an Australian literary and cultural magazine, established in 1954 and as of April 2020 published quarterly in print as well as online.

Reconciliation Australia is a non-government, not-for-profit foundation established in January 2001 to promote a continuing national focus for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It was established by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, which was established to create a framework for furthering a government policy of reconciliation in Australia.

The Queensland Premier's Literary Awards were an Australian suite of literary awards inaugurated in 1999 and disestablished in 2012. It was one of the most generous suites of literary awards within Australia, with $225,000 in prize money across 14 categories with prizes up to $25,000 in some categories. The awards upon their establishment incorporated a number of pre-existing awards including the Steele Rudd Award for the best Australian collection of new short fiction and the David Unaipon Award for unpublished Indigenous writing.

Lionel Fogarty, also published as Lionel Lacey, is an Indigenous Australian poet and political activist.

Kevin John Gilbert was an Aboriginal Australian author, activist, artist, poet, playwright and printmaker. A Wiradjuri man, Gilbert was born on the banks of the Lachlan River in New South Wales. Gilbert was the first Aboriginal playwright and printmaker. He was an active human rights defender and was involved in the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972 as well as various protests to advocate for Aboriginal Australian sovereignty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joy Harjo</span> American Poet Laureate

Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms. Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv. She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anita Heiss</span> Indigenous Australian author

Anita Marianne Heiss is an Aboriginal Australian author, poet, cultural activist and social commentator. She is an advocate for Indigenous Australian literature and literacy, through her writing for adults and children and her membership of boards and committees.

Australian Poetry is a national not-for-profit organisation representing Australian poets, based at The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. The organisation was created in 2011 by the amalgamation of Poets Union Inc., based in New South Wales, and the Australian Poetry Centre Inc. of Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackie Huggins</span> Indigenous Australian historian and writer

Jacqueline Gail "Jackie" Huggins is an Aboriginal Australian author, historian, academic and advocate for the rights of Indigenous Australians. She is a Bidjara/Pitjara, Birri Gubba and Juru woman from Queensland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wheeler Centre</span>

The Wheeler Centre, originally Centre of Books, Writing and Ideas, is a literary and publishing centre founded as part of Melbourne's bid to be a Unesco Creative City of Literature, which designation it earned in 2008. It is named after its patrons, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, founders of the Lonely Planet travel guides.

Queensland Poetry Festival is the flagship program of Queensland Poetry one of Australia's premier organisations for all things poetry. It exists to support and promote a poetry culture in Queensland and Australia, embracing the wide possibility of poetic expression in all of its forms. As well as hosting an annual festival, Queensland Poetry also produces a number of signature projects and programs throughout the year.

Philip McLaren is an Aboriginal Australian author and academic known for literary fiction, detective stories and thrillers.

Ellen van Neerven is an Aboriginal Australian writer, educator and editor. They are queer and non-binary. Their first work of fiction, Heat and Light (2013), won several awards, and in 2019 Van Neerven won the Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Award. Their second collection of poetry, Throat (2020), won three awards at the 2021 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, including Book of the Year.

The Birri Gubba people, formerly known as Biria, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous Australian literature</span> Literature produced by Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australian literature is the fiction, plays, poems, essays and other works authored by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

Jared Thomas is an Australian author of children's fiction, playwright and museum curator. Several of his books have been shortlisted for awards, and he has been awarded three writing fellowships.

Kerry Reed-Gilbert was an Australian poet, author, collector, editor, educator, a champion of Indigenous writers and an Aboriginal rights activist. She was a Wiradjuri woman.

Alison Whittaker is a Gomeroi writer and a senior researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. A review in World Literature Today called her "Australia's most important recently emerged poet".

Yvette Henry Holt is an Aboriginal Australian poet, essayist, academic, researcher and editor, she heralds from the Bidjara, Yiman and Wakaman nations of Queensland. She is the youngest child born to prominent Aboriginal Elder, Albert Holt and Marlene Holt, Holt interchanges with her mother's maiden name Henry for featured publications of her works. Holt came to prominence with her first multi-award-winning collection of poetry, Anonymous Premonition, published by the University of Queensland Press in 2008. Since 2009 Holt has lived and worked in Central Australia among the Central and Western Arrernte peoples of Hermansburg and Alice Springs.

<i>Purple Threads</i> Short story collection by Jeanine Leane

Purple Threads is a 2011 short story collection by Jeanine Leane. Based on Leane's childhood, the stories are about Sunny, a Wiradjuri girl, growing up in the Gundagai district during the 1960s and 1970s.

References

  1. ↑ "Jim Everett". TasWriters. 20 February 2017. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  2. ↑ "Alexis West". Vitalstatistix. 5 December 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  3. ↑ "John Harding". AustLit. 22 October 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  4. ↑ "Peter Minter". Red Room Poetry. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  5. ↑ Waters, Marcus. "Paul & Ally: "Guess who is coming to dinner"". TEXT (Special Issue 19: Scriptwriting as Creative Writing Research).
  6. ↑ "News – Working with Words: Marie Munkara". The Wheeler Centre. 6 June 2020. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Reed-Gilbert, Kerry (13 July 2018). "A short history of the First Nations Australia Writers Network". Overland literary journal. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  8. 1 2 "First Nations Australia Writers Network Inc". ACNC Charity Register.
  9. ↑ "2015: First Nations Australia Writers' Network Reading (Full Audio)" (Audio). Poets House. 31 May 2018. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  10. ↑ "Indigenous Writers". Writing NSW. 15 June 2016. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  11. ↑ "About". First Nations Australia Writers Network. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  12. ↑ "Board". First Nations Australia Writers Network. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  13. ↑ "First Nations Australia Writers Network National Workshop". Griffith Review. 9 August 2018. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  14. ↑ "Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Poetry". First Nations Australia Writers Network. 12 May 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  15. ↑ "First Nations Australia Writers' Network Reading". Poets House. 30 August 2018. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  16. ↑ "FN COVID-19 Anthology 2021 Open for Submissions". Australian Poetry . Retrieved 21 February 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.