For Writers

Applications close 28 January 2025

In this nine-month online workshop series Kris Kneen will lead a small group of writers to work together with the aim of each writer finishing a draft of their memoir. Commit to your memoir and make 2025 your year to get it done!

Applications close 11 February 2025

Expand and nurture your practice as a poet in this 4-month program. We’ll create an encouraging and inspiring community, and support the development of original work, from single poems to sequences, and explore how to build a collection for publication.

Applications close Tuesday 4 February 2025

In partnership with Red Room Poetry, this fellowship for six poets includes a residency at Varuna, one-on-one mentorship, and a poetic commission as part of the national Poetry Month in August 2025.

Bring the Varuna magic to you with this nine-part online, self-paced course on point of view with Jane Messer. Explore this important element of writing craft, analysing sample readings from well-known authors and being prompted with a series of exercises.

Applications will open soon

Writers focused on climate change and the environment are invited to apply for a week-long residency, with the opportunity to network and connect with others working across literature, academia, journalism, grassroots organising and activism.

Applications will open soon

First Nations writers are invited to apply for one of twelve week-long fellowships at Varuna in 2025, sharing the residency with other First Nations writers, and benefiting from one-on-one mentorship and the sharing of skills and knowledge.

Applications will open January 2025

The Ann Moyal Non-Fiction Fellowship encourages excellence in non-fiction writing and aims to support writers developing an original work drawn from the broad fields of the humanities and social sciences.

Applications open February 2025

This six-session intensive masterclass – held across three months for writers at all stages of their careers – offers the opportunity to get started on a new writing project or breathe life into a project you have abandoned or are struggling with.

Bring the Varuna magic to you with this eight-part online, self-paced course on writing for wellbeing. This revitalising program enables you to explore writing as a practice for your own wellbeing, including techniques for getting started (or re-started!).

Applications are now closed

The WestWords Varuna Fellowship offers four emerging writers from diverse backgrounds from Western Sydney the opportunity of a week-long residency, supported throughout the week by mentors.

Applications open April 2025

For over 20 years, Conor Kostick has been teaching his popular 10-week Finish Your Novel course at the Irish Writers Centre and Varuna are delighted to offer it in Australia and New Zealand.

Applications open April 2025

This 8-week online program drills down deeply into how to craft dialogue on the page, ensuring that each of your character’s voices is unique, shaping their distinct speech patterns, and working on questions about who speaks, and when.

Applications are now closed

Varuna alumni are eligible to apply for a four-week residency at Cove Park, Scotland, with the opportunity to present at Wigtown Book Festival.

Applications now closed

Varuna is delighted to offer this four-week international residency to Varuna alumni, held in collaboration with the Michael King Writers Centre in New Zealand and the Verb Readers and Writers Festival in Wellington.

Applications open May 2025

This 6-week course with Jack Heath is designed to help you refine the elements of crime and thriller writing and finish your novel, with discussions of key writing techniques and feedback on your work.

Applications open May 2025

In this 8-week online workshop series Kris Kneen will lead a small group of writers with the aim of learning to write about sensuality and sexuality with ease.

Applications open March 2025

Varuna’s most prestigious award, running since 1991. Up to 45 fellowships will be awarded to emerging and established writers across Australia, offering between two and four weeks in residence, with mentorship.

Applications open March 2025

Established in memory of Blue Mountains writer Eleanor Dark, this three-week writing fellowship will be awarded to a fiction application of outstanding quality.

Applications open March 2025

Established in memory of Blue Mountains writer and social activist Eric Dark, this three-week writing fellowship will be awarded for a non-fiction application of outstanding quality in social, historical or political writing.

Applications are now closed

Established in memory of Mick Dark, who bequeathed Varuna House to the writers of Australia, this three-week writing fellowship will be awarded to outstanding Environmental Writing.

Applications open March 2025

This three-week fellowship will be awarded to a First Nations writer who applies for a Varuna Residential Fellowship and whose work is of outstanding quality.

Applications open March 2025

This three-week fellowship will be awarded for a Varuna Residential Fellowships poetry application of outstanding quality.

Applications open March 2025

Offered in partnership with the Australian Society of Authors, and generously supported by the Ray Koppe bequest, this is one of the Varuna flagship fellowships and is offered to a writer under the age of 35 who is as yet unpublished.

Applications open March 2026

Offered in partnership with the Henry Handel Richardson Society, this short story writing fellowship promotes the life and legacy of Henry Handel Richardson, and is offered to an outstanding short story submission as part of the Varuna Residential Fellowships.

Applications open March 2025

This two-week fellowship will be awarded for a Varuna Residential Fellowships application of outstanding quality, by a writer with disability.

Applications open March 2025

Generously supported by the Fowler Trust, this program supports four two-week fellowships for genre fiction writers, including women’s fiction, crime, fantasy, historical fiction, speculative fiction and YA.

Applications open March 2025

Each year, a two-week fellowship and $350 travel subsidy is awarded to a writer who is a parent or carer who faces barriers to finding time and space to write due to financial pressures. This Fellowship is generously supported by Sophie Torney, a member of our alumni association.