Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership

NEW WEBSITE AND NEW INFORMATION

The Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership's website is being rebuilt and will appear with a new look in March 2009, including information about our 2009 activities.

We invite you to register to become a member and keep up to date.

Women Writers from Indonesia

 

Look on the Words Without Borders website (www.wordswithoutborders.org/?front=JANUARY 2009)for 'Tropical Currents' featuring women writers from Indonesia. In narratives as varied as the islands themselves, women embark on personal and professional journeys, navigating the treacherous depths of families, society, and faith to write their own stories of travel and discovery. Listen as Nenden Lilis A., Abidah El Khalieqy, Lily Yulianti Farid, Reda Gaudiamo, Dorothea Rosa Herliany, Etik Juwita, Oka Rusmini, and Cok Sawitri tell their own tales of the South Pacific.  We thank our guest editors, John H. McGlynn and Dorothea Rosa Herliany, and their staff at the Lontar Foundation, particularly Dewi Andahlia. (All photos except statue by Jonathan McIntosh, 2004)

 

 

RELOCATION TO ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY

The Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership has relocated to the University of Adelaide, South Australia, from Griffith University in Queensland.

The Partnership has been housed within the Creative Writing program in the School of Humanities, where the Chair is prominent writer and critic, Brian Castro. Professor Castro, who was born in Hong Kong, has written extensively about the Australian-Asian experience and the benefits for the West and for writers in Asia of engagement.

 The University of Adelaide's Creative Writing program has nurtured a number of successful writers from the region, including the most recent winner of the Man Asia Literary Prize, Miguel Syjuco, a Filipino writer completing his PhD in Writing under Brian Castro's supervision.

Nobel laureate novelist John Coetzee is also an adjunct professor in the program.

The Writing Partnership, an international collaboration of writers, scholars and others interested in nurturing, promoting and exploring writing from the Asia-Pacific, was started by Australian journalist, writer and co-founder of Hong Kong’s international literary festival, Jane Camens.

“Jane brings with her a high reputation across the Asia-Pacific region for her writing and for her organisational skills,” said Professor Castro, adding that in her capacity as Director of the Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership she has created a useful regional network for creative writing programs and writing teachers.

He noted that the Partnership’s first collaborative conference in India, ‘Asia-Pacific Writing the Future 2008’, featured the directors of the famous North American and British writing programs at Iowa University and the University of East Anglia.

“I welcome the fact that Jane brings all the highest research skills as well as her organisational network to make the University of Adelaide the host institution for this distinguished partnership," he said.

The Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership was started with seed funding from Griffith University where
Ms Camens began a PhD in Creative Writing. She has moved her degree to Adelaide University to work under Professor Castro’s supervision and continue to run the Partnership as its Director.

Others who have honed their craft in Adelaide include:

• Stefan Laszczuk (2007 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award. His manuscript, I Dream of Magda, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2008.)

• Carol Lefevre (2008 Nita B. Kibble Literary Award for her novel, Nights in the Asylum.  Her new novel, If You Were Mine, was published by Vintage in September 2008.)

• Julia Leigh (Second novel, Disquiet, was published by Hamish Hamilton (Penguin) in 2008.)

• Rachel Hennessy (The Quakers - winner of the Adelaide Festival Award in 2006 for best unpublished manuscript. Published by Wakefield Press in 2008. Runner-up for The Australian/Vogel Literary Award.)

• Malcolm Walker (The Stone Crown, was published by Walker Books Australia in 2008. It will be published in the UK in 2009 and the US in 2010.)

• Sean Williams (His new book, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, debuted at #1 on the 7 September New York Times hardcover bestseller list. Other recent Sean Williams books include two children's novels, The Changeling and The Dust Devils (HarperCollins) and Magic Dirt, a definitive "best of Sean Williams" published by Ticonderoga Publications).

The Partnership’s events for 2009 will be announced soon.

 

An umbrella group for writers in the Asia-Pacific

 WELCOME TO THE ASIA-PACIFIC WRITING PARTNERSHIP. 

The Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership brings together individuals and organisations interested in new writing from the world’s most populous and dynamic region, the Asia-Pacific.

This is an inclusive organisation with a membership comprising established and emerging writers, translators, teachers in creative writing programs, scholars associated with literary studies, literary festival directors, publishers, writers’ circles, and many others.

In collaboration with partners, we aim to continue to provide forums, networking opportunities, workshops, and other initiates to foster and promote the literary arts in Asia and the Pacific.

Membership to the Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership is free. Please register if you would like to be kept up to date on activities in the region.

We appreciate support from donors, sponsors and benefactors.

 

 

Writing the Future: festival wrap-up

‘Writing the Future’ was the first festival of its type celebrating new writing from Asia and the Pacific. It was a joint initiative between the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership, an initiative started in Australia.

Jane Camens, left, and Rukmini Bhaya Nair (pic by Menka Shivdasani/ "Every Tuesday") 
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This enriching festival offered a unique blend of creative writing workshops, academic interaction, and public events. This celebration was the Partnership’s inaugural major event in what is anticipated will be an annual major celebration of writing from the region held in different locations each year throughout Asia or the Pacific.

It is hoped that these events will stimulate further local events. We believe this Festival was a timely start of an important new form of cultural cooperation which will provide valuable opportunities for new writers in the region for years to come.

It will eventually provide a forum that challenges outmoded boundaries between academic and creative texts, between traditional pasts and technological futures, between the new and old media and between genres, cultures and institutions.

This unique Festival, which combined a regional focus with a truly international reach, was a step towards raising the profile of the enormously rich literature and thought of the Asia Pacific region.

Registered participants included writers and scholars from Australia, Bangladesh, Fiji, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, UK and USA. The interest was a measure of the felt need for self-expression and interaction across the region.

Our goals were to:

• bring the excitement of reading new literature to a wide audience across the region;

• enable young writers and university students to interact with well-known writers; and

• encourage cultural cross-talk & literary debate across a variety of regional languages

THE PROGRAM

The Festival included the following activities:

Creative writing workshops for emerging writers from the region, taught by writers of international repute - a festival feature that is familiar in the West but has never before been part of South Asian literary events. Emerging writers in the West have over the past decades gained tremendous benefit and advantage from workshops with peers and established writers, but there are few equivalent opportunities in Asia. This festival aimed to be a step towards changing this situation.

Translation workshops, undertaken in collaboration with the Indian Academy of Letters and the Jamia Millia University. These workshops were held in four languages, Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Tamil.

A major academic conference on new writing from Asia and the Pacific The conference examined contemporary writing from the region, the value of writing programs, the contrasts and synergies between traditional oral forms of literature and new forms of writing influenced by multi-media, the state of national literary studies, and notions of writing in relation to regional, hybrid and/or diasposric identities globalization, cosmopolitanism, post-colonialism, and other associated issues. The conference crossed several disciplines, from literature to culture and social studies and psychology.

Public events featuring established writers and performers of international repute. These included readings by emerging and established writers; panel discussions with publishers, literary agents, and writers; book launches; and cultural performance by Indian poets, theatre-people and singers.

 

Participants

In addition to around 40 emerging writers from India and around the world who attended workshops, among the distinguished symposium speakers and workshop leaders were:

Harry Aveling, Extra Ordinary Professor of Translation Studies, University of Indonesia.

Jane Camens, writer and Executive Director, Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership.

Vijayasree Chaganti, translator and editor, Osmania Univeristy.

Jon Cook, Dean, Arts and Humanities, Director of the Centre for Creative and Performing Arts, University of East Anglia.

Keki Daruwall, poet and fiction writer.

Shashi Deshpande, novelist.

John Drew, Convenor, Cambridge Poetry Workshop.

Kaiser Haq, poet, Dhaka University.

Rukshida Jalil, writer, translator, media co-ordinator, Jamia Milia Islamia.

Robin Hemley, Director of Nonfiction Writing Program, University of Iowa.

Nicholas Jose, Australian writer currently based at the University of Western Sydney.

Lakshmi Kannan, poet and translator.

Malashri Lal, University of Delhi

Ritu Menon, publisher.

Satendra Nandan, novelist, University of Fiji.

Lakshmi Pamuntjak, an Indonesia poet and writer, on literature and fundamentalism.

Nishant Shah, director of the Centre for Internet & society, Bangalore.

Dinah Roma-Sianturi, poet and Director of De La Salle University's Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Centre, who teaches literature and writing at De La Salle University in Manila.

Frank Stewart, Editor, Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing.

Mark Tully, journalist and writer.

Ashok Vajpiyi, poet and Chair of the Lali Kala Academy.

Pavan V. Varma, Director General, Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

Gillian Wright, author and translator.

Xu Xi, a Chinese-Indonesian novelist, Vermont College.

Publications

Some papers from the conference, as well as related articles, fiction and poetry, can be read in the September-October 2008 Indian Review of Books, edited by Rukmini Bhaya Nair,  Biblio. (link in left column.)

Audio download

Post festival interview with Rukmini Bhaya Nair on Australian ABC Radio National’s Bookshow.

Sponsors

We extend deep and sincere thanks to the sponsors, without whom ‘Writing the Future’ would not have been possible:

Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi

Indian Council for Cultural Relations

Sanskriti Foundation

Indian Institute for Advanced Studies, Shimla

Sahitya Akademi or National Academy of Letters

Delhi University

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Jamia Millia Islamia University

A participant's comment

"It gave me the opportunity to get some very interesting insights into the publishing industry (thanks largely to Ritu Menon, Nicholas Jose, Harry Aveling, Frank Stewart, and Nabaneeta Dev Sen), (as well as) listen to some very moving poetry (K. Satchidanandan and Rabindra Ray), exchange views with professionals from the academic and publishing worlds, and recite two poems of my own. Thank you so much once again.”

Sonya Singh, poetry workshop participant,

David TK Wong fellows gather

Former winners of the David TK Wong Fellowship winners met in London recently, and forwarded this photo. The award is 10 years old, so  it was a good time to celebrate.

Standing, from left to right, are: Liisa Laing, Simone Lazaroo, Balli Jaswal, Mulaika Hijjas, Linh Dinh, Jose Dalisay and Bing Sitoy; and seated are Wendy Law-Yone with David Wong and the fellowship's administrator Val Striker.

Fabulous events on packed schedule

Writing the Future: Celebrating New Writing from the Asia Pacific Region

An exciting, packed schedule features top names from the world of literature and literary education, many of whom will be jetting in for this major academic conference in New Delhi and Shimla in October, 2008.

The schedule is extremely broad, covering topics ranging from drama and poetry to novels, short stories and oral tradition.

There will also be plenary sessions, an APWP board meeting, workshops and book launches.

The latest schedule can be downloaded in full by clicking below.

Download Schedule-91108.doc

More announcements about evening events involving eminent writers will be announced shortly--keep an eye on this space!

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(photo courtesy of Mskadu from flickr.com on a cc licence)