Writer’s Residency and Anthology

All the finalists fit to print.

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whoa.

Our judges were blown away with the quality and sheer volume of entries to our 2021 program. We read heart-stopping poetry, challenging prose, brilliant essays and most importantly, felt like we were back out in nature during a period when many of us across the East Coast haven’t been able to get there for some time.

Choosing our finalists has not been easy. Over 300 entries were anonymised and cross-marked by multiple judges, with the favourites debated multiple times over. Safe to say if we had the means, we could have easily filled three books.

congrats.

Our anthology will feature the work of nearly two dozen writers, personally chosen by our judges. Every successful finalist will be paid for their work and syndicated on our website.

This publication have a permanent place in each of our cabins, and each writer will also be profiled, with their work featured across Unyoked’s website and newsletter, read top to bottom by thousands of bored and pining souls across the nation each week.

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roll call.

Big nature hugs to our finalists, to be published in our first anthology due out November this year.


Kirli Saunders, NSW
Emma Gibson, VIC
Zoe Krabbe, NSW
Miranda Luby, VIC
Kathy Sharpe, VIC
Joshua Capelin, QLD
Emma Gibson, VIC
Kavita Bedford, NSW
Bronwen Scott, QLD
Vi Le, NSW
Ruby Gill, VIC
Maya Hodge, VIC
Richard Staines, NSW
Jacqueline Lau, QLD
Kirk Willcox, NSW
Alexandra Shaw, NSW
Claire Miranda Roberts, VIC
Robert Juan Kennard, NSW

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Unyoked Writer’s Residents, 2021

Check back in next week to find out who’s scored 6 months of creative nature time.

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Maya Hodge

Maya Hodge is a poet, curator, and artist based on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation (Melbourne). Her poetry has been published by Cordite Poetry Review, the Emerging Writers Festival, and Overland Literary Magazine. Maya is a co-winner of the PEN Mildura Indigenous Writers Award (2018).

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Robert Juan Kennard

Robert Juan Kennard is a queer Filipino-Australian writer who lives and works on unceded Gadigal land. He is a member of the Sweatshop Literacy Movement and writes in English, Tagalog, Ilocano and Spanish. You can find some of his work at Cordite Poetry Review, SBS Voices, and forthcoming in the inaugural Ultimo Prize anthology.



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Ruby Mary Gill

Ruby Mary Gill is a writer, poet and musician raised in the forests of South Africa and now grounded in Naarm/Melbourne. Her words have greeted the world in several forms, from the Triple J charts and ghost-written think pieces in The Sunday paper, to Port Fairy Folk Festival’s ‘Emerging Artist of the Year’ award in 2020. In all things, she does her best to pay attention. 



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Anne-Marie Te Whiu

Anne-Marie Te Whiu is a cultural producer, editor and weaver.  She edited Tony Birch's poetry collection Whisper Songs and co-edited Solid Air, Australia and New Zealand Spoken Word (both published through UQP).  Between 2015-207 she was co-director of the Queensland Poetry Festival. She currently works as a Senior Project Manager at Red Room Poetry. She is a proud descendant of the Te Rarawa tribe in Northland, Aotearoa.


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Why we did this.

We know that time alone in nature stimulates the funky grey matter that allows for creativity to burst free. We’re not alone on that one, science has consistently proven that being exposed to trees, valleys and vast open spaces can stimulate different ways of thinking. We created our Writer’s Residency to give both new and established writers the opportunity to get out there and experience this for themselves and have the time to focus on a body of work, as well as inspire all our entrant to think critically about the impact the wild has on our lives. We’ll be checking back in with our residents over the course of the next 6 months to see what they’ve uncovered.

To find out more about the Writer’s Residency program, head here.


Photo Credits:

1. Sam Riles

2. Tessa Tran

3. Tessa Tran

4. Steve Liew

5. Steve Liew