writer & thinker
First event of the year and it’s at my local! I’m talking to Maxine about her book How Decent Folk Behave and there’ll also be snacks and craft activities for littlies.
In conversation with Maxine Beneba Clarke
Saturday 21 January 2023
2 pm to 3 pm
Footscray Library
56 Paisley St, Footscray VIC 3011
Free – register here
I’m headed to Adelaide this weekend to do a couple of panels as part of OzAsia Festival’s literary program, In Other Words.
I’ll be speaking about reporting on China and Chinese Australians with ABC journalist Bang Xiao and moderator Benjamin Law, and then discussing writing and intersectional identities with Sarah Malik and E Flynn, moderated by Jason Om. Both sessions are free entry with no need to book, so just turn up!
I’m really looking forward to catching up with Asian Australian writers and artists from around the country, too – see some theatre, gobble some yum cha, groan about politics, perfect. You can peruse the whole program here.
Reporting on China, Reporting on Chinese Australians
Saturday 5 November 2022
11:30 pm to 12:30 pm
The Star: Kitchen and Bar
Adelaide Festival Centre (map and directions)
Free entry
Writing at the Intersection
Saturday 5 November 2022
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm
The Star: Kitchen and Bar
Adelaide Festival Centre (map and directions)
Free entry
I’m speaking at this conference next week hosted by ANU, and I’m really impressed with the program and how accessible it is: registration is free and every session is livestreamed.
Organised by Evelyn Araluen, Julieanne Lamond and Monique Rooney, the program features Melissa Lucashenko, Jackie Huggins, Jeanine Leane, Elizabeth Flynn, Natalie Harkin, and many more. Full program and registration here.
Australian Literature in the Shadow of the Colonial Patriarchy
Monday 24 October & Tuesday 25 October
ANU Canberra and online via Zoom
Free registration
‘Nearly every writer here seems wary of the risks of putting something on the record and into the crosshairs of the governable. The space between the lines is heavy with purposeful omissions as well as inherited silences.’
I reviewed the latest Liminal anthology, Against Disappearance (ed. Leah Jing McIntosh and Adolfo Aranjuez), for The Saturday Paper.
Another event I’m part of at EWF this year is a lunchtime panel demystifying the writing and publishing industry, particularly for writers from working-class and low-income backgrounds. It’s with Julia Rose Bąk and Dan Hogan, and it’s online via YouTube so you can join from anywhere.
Lunchtime Literature: Accessing the industry
Friday 24 June 2022
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm
Online (via YouTube)
Free | Join/watch here
Check out the rest of the program here, there’s a lot on and most of it’s free!
Emerging writers, Maddee and I are doing a session at the 2022 National Editors and Writers Conference (NEWS Conference) later this month. There’s also a keynote from writer and editor Adalya Nash Hussein, and workshops on interviewing skills, podcasting, criticism, and much more.
And if you’re trans/nonbinary/gender-diverse, you can also catch me and Maddee dishing our career advice in The Drop-In this month.
We’re just getting started
Thursday 19 May 2022
6:40 pm to 7:40 pm AEST
Streaming online via YouTube and Express Media
Tickets $25 (3-day conference + Express Media membership) | Register here
See the full program
Are you just starting out in writing and editing? We’ve all been there! Join Jinghua Qian and Maddee Clark as they discuss their experiences of starting out in the industry and give tips on things they wish they’d known.
Hot off the press! n-SCRIBE 15 is an anthology of 40 works by Darebin writers and artists (including cover artist Tama Sharman) that you can pick up in Darebin libraries, cafes and bookstores for free.
I don’t see a divide between literary and genre. Writing spec fic and horror connects me to a sense of who I am, my roots and psyche where the world of the real and the world of the unreal isn’t so binary.
Lian Low
Lian Low is a writer and a former editor-in-chief of Peril. I interviewed her for Liminal, mining her insights on the queer, the monstrous, and the last thirty years of Asian Australian arts and culture.
Dr Maddee Clark and I are editing n-SCRIBE 15, the City of Darebin’s annual lit mag, and we’re taking submissions from any writers and artists who live, work or study in Darebin. Send in your best fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir and artwork before 6 October 2021. Published contributors will receive $100. All the info here.
For The Guardian, I wrote about the migrant workers behind the ‘made in Australia’ label and how their winning campaign for equal rights might be instructive for other gig economy workers today.
I talked to Emma Do and Kim Lam, the writer and illustrator of Working From Home, a graphic narrative about Vietnamese outworkers in the garment industry, and Nguyet Nguyen and Beth McPherson, veteran manufacturing workers and organisers in the textile, clothing and footwear union.
Jinghua Qian 