Update: 2019

Hello!

It’s been just about a year since my last blog post, so I thought I’d write a little update about how my writing and life in general has been going. And this is also just a bit of a time-capsule for me as it gets closer to the end of the year and the start of a new one.

At the beginning of the year, I decided, as a sort of New Year’s resolution, to intentionally pursue writing as a career. This coincided with my relocation to Boorloo (known as Perth) on the west coast of Australia.

I’ve had a few poems published around the place this year (see my publications page). I was commissioned to write poems for an anthology (can’t tell you what it is yet…) that will be published some time next year. This has really helped me expand my writing wings a little, and polish up my style a bit, on top of being an amazing opportunity. I was also commissioned to write a poem for a collaboration between the 2019 Emerging Writers’ Festival and the Australian Multilingual Writing Project – you can read and listen to my poem here.

I finally graduated with my Bachelor’s in English literature, which was a relief more than anything else. I’m planning to apply for a post-grad creative writing course next year, despite the fact that undergrad wasn’t exactly all sunshine and rainbows. To tide me over until then, I was accepted to be a participant in this year’s iteration of Express Media’s intensive online course, Toolkits: Poetry, which has been awesome and is still ongoing.

The publications have slowed down a little, but I’m keeping busy. I was a featured performer at the weekly Perth Poetry Club, which was a lot of fun. I’ve just recently started a Writer’s Development Program with Westerly magazine, and at the same time, for ten weeks, I’ll be a Hot Desk Fellow with the Centre for Stories’ Inclusion Matter’s Project.

So what exactly am I working on?

I’m still writing (mostly) poems on my favourite themes – diaspora, migration, identity, language, heritage, history. I’m trying to take it in a new direction, though – exploring kinship, community, joy and reclamation. I’m also trying out speculative poetry and eco-poetry, which has been a bit of fun.

I’m enjoying getting out of my comfort zone, and I’ve been really amazed at and grateful for the opportunities that have come my way, and especially for all the people that have helped me get to this place. I’m really excited for what the future holds. I’m dreaming about writer’s festivals, books with my name on them, interviews in journals.

This is just the beginning.