The Writer's Space Online Fellowship for Writers with Disability
Writers with disability or who are D/deaf are invited to apply for a three-week online fellowship, offering mentorship, writing exercises and the opportunity to peer feedback.
Applications close 20 May 2025
Dates: 1 - 21 September 2025, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, 6pm – 7pm AEST, plus additional one-on-one sessions as scheduled.
Places: Six writers will be selected.
Who should apply: Writers with disability and/or are D/deaf, at any career stage living anywhere in Australia.
Fees: There are no fees for this fellowship.
The Writer’s Space Online Fellowship will include:
Facilitated professional networking opportunities, including the opportunity to share work, talk about process, and receive feedback from your peers.
A one-hour online session (one-on-one) with Varuna writing consultant Mary Anne Butler.
A one-hour online session (one-on-one) with writer Fiona Wright.
A 90-minute ‘Creating an Access Rider’ workshop with Michelle Teear and Madeleine Stewart from Accessible Arts.
A small group online Q&A session with a UQP Publisher Aviva Tuffield.
An online Q&A with award-winning poet and a creative writing teacher, Andy Jackson.
An online Q&A with award-winning author, Veronica Gorrie.
Access to an online platform for sharing work, with writing prompts and exercises.
Access to a Varuna ‘on-demand course’ to go deeper with your writing process.
A book pack, including Charlotte Wood’s The Luminous Solution, Fiona Wright’s The World Was Whole, Veronica Gorrie’s Black and Blue, and Andy Jackson’s Human Looking.
Online fellowship participants need to allow at least one or two hours a week at specific times for programmed sessions, with the expectation that participants will also allow between four and twelve hours per week for dedicated writing time during the four-week residency.
Please let us know if you would like to receive any information in an alternative format.
TESTIMONIALS
“I can’t say enough positive things about the features of the online residency. Everyone was so encouraging of each other, all of the lessons were helpful and really well structured - especially the writing exercises. There was plenty of time to get my reading session together, and I never felt rushed. I went into the residency with a beginner’s mind, and learned so much.”
“This was a fabulous opportunity to participate in an experience similar to an actual residency. I loved the breadth of activities from workshopping to feedback from Carol Major.”
“I really enjoyed The Writer’s Space Online Residency course and I feel very lucky to be part of such a talented cohort. One of my favourite parts of the course was being able to get to know the other writers, the opportunity to work with Carol Major in the sessions at the beginning and end of the course.”
HOW TO APPLY
You will need to complete our application form and send us a 4,000 to 10,000 word writing sample from the beginning of your manuscript. For plays and screenplays, you may submit 10 pages, or more if the total doesn’t exceed 10,000 words. For poetry, you may submit up to 10 poems. For graphic novels, children’s literature and hybrid forms that include illustration or artwork, you may submit a combination of text and image of 10 pages, or more if the total doesn’t exceed 10,000 words.
Assessors will be looking at the artistic merit of the work sample that you submit, your commitment to the writing craft, and how this Fellowship will benefit your professional development. Consideration will also be given to the impact a lack of access has had on your career development.
Please refer to Varuna’s general submission guidelines for any questions on formatting your work.
ABOUT MARY ANNE BUTLER
Multi-award-winning playwright Mary Anne Butler has spent two decades mastering the art of dialogue. Her plays have won the Victorian Prize for Literature, Victorian Premier’s Award for Drama, Shane and Cathryn Brennan Prize for Playwriting, an AWGIE and two NT Chief Minister’s Book of the Year Awards. Her teaching experience combines a Masters in Arts Education, a Masters in Creative Writing, a Diploma of Acting from VCA and a Dip Ed in English/Drama. She’s currently undertaking a PhD in Literature, writing a novel which investigates how we write hope into the realist fiction of the Anthropocene.
ABOUT FIONA WRIGHT
Fiona Wright is a writer, editor and critic from Sydney. Her most recent book of essays, The World Was Whole, was published in October 2018. Fiona worked as an editor at Giramondo Publishing for five years. She holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from Western Sydney University, and is the host of Six Degrees From the City, a podcast about writers and Western Sydney. She tutors casually in creative writing, as well as journalism and literature at Western Sydney University, and has taught creative non-fiction at UTS and Sydney University.
ABOUT ANDY JACKSON
Andy Jackson is a poet and a creative writing teacher at the University of Melbourne. His latest poetry collection is Human Looking, which won the ALS Gold Medal and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry, and he is a co-editor of Raging Grace: Australian Writers Speak Out on Disability.
ABOUT VERONICA GORRIE
Veronica Gorrie is a Gunai/Kurnai woman who’s first book, Black and Blue, won the 2022 Victorian Premier's Prize for Literature and the 2022 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing. Veronica is also the editor of a new essay collection, When Cops are Criminals.
ELIGIBILITY
Applicants need to be an Australian citizen or have a permanent residency visa and be over 18 years old. Exemption may be given to permanent residency criteria, but only in the circumstances of recently arrived migrants/refugees.
If you have received a Writer’s Space residential fellowship in 2023 or 2024, you are not eligible to apply.
