The seventh annual Australian Writers Week in China was presented by the Australian Embassy in Beijing, and Australian Consulates-General in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu from 9-23 March 2014.
Guest authors featuring at events in nine cities included celebrated nonfiction author Benjamin Law; award-winning author and illustrator Gabrielle Wang; writer of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, drama and literary criticism, Ali Alizadeh; and Walkley Foundation non-fiction book award winner Pamela Williams.
This initiative was made possible through partnerships with Copyright Agency Limited and Time Publishing & Media ─ and with the support of the Walkley Foundation, The Bookworm Literary Festival, Capital Literary Festival, the Shanghai International Literary Festival, JUE Music + Art 2014, The Opposite House, media partners China Publishing and Media Journal, and Shandong TV, and China’s Australian Studies Centre network.
Benjamin Law has worked as a magazine editor, music journalist, reviewer and writer. His essays and columns have appeared in The Monthly, Qweekend, Sunday Life, Cleo, Crikey, The Walkley Magazine, The Big Issue, New Matilda, Kill Your Darlings and the Australian Associated Press. He has also appeared as a panellist on the ABC television program Q&A.
In 2012, he toured India with Australian writer Kirsty Murray and three Indian writers in the Bookwallah, an initiative which took the five across India by train on a kind of travelling library that took them between literary festivals.
Ben is the brother of the writer Michelle Law, with whom he co-authored Shit Asian Mothers Say (2014). He has a PhD in creative writing from Queensland University of Technology, and has worked as a researcher, co-author and associate producer on The Family Law (tv series) and Deep Water (SBS).
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Gabrielle Wang's great-grandfather travelled to the Victorian goldfields from China in 1853. Wang grew up in Melbourne, where she studied graphic design at RMIT. She later worked as a graphic designer, and studied Chinese at Melbourne University. Keen to learn more about her Chinese heritage, Wang lived in Taiwan for five years, and then lived for a time in China. She studied painting in both countries.
She returned to Australia and taught Chinese at Homesglen TAFE, at the same time enrolling in a TAFE course about writing for children. It was this course that led Wang to produce her first book, The Garden of Empress Cassia. It won the 2002 Aurealis Award (children's division - best long fiction) and was listed on the international USBBY Outstanding International Books List in 2012.
Since then, Wang has published a range of works for younger readers, including the series Poppy (for Our Australian Girl) and Pearlie, and standalone works including A Ghost in My Suitcase (for which she won a second Aurealis Award) and The Beast of Hushing Wood.
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Ali Alizadeh migrated to Australia after living through the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. He is a writer of poetry, criticism and plays; among the major themes of his works are history, dissent, and the dilemmas of religion and spirituality.
Alizadeh holds a PhD in writing from Deakin University, Melbourne. He has spent time teaching writing in China, Turkey, and Dubai. In 2018, he was teaching contemporary creative writing, literary theory, and literary studies at Monash University in Melbourne, a position he had held for some time.
Among his works are poetry collections (including Ashes in the Air), creative non-fiction (including Iran: My Grandfather), novels (including The New Angel and The Last Days of Jeanne d'Arc), and short-story collections (including Transactions). In 2018, he was working on a study of Karl Marx's philosophy of art, due for publication in 2019.
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Pamela Williams is an award-winning investigative reporter and author who commenced her career at the Business Review Weekly. She worked at the Australian Financial Review from 1987 to 2014 in various positions, including news editor and editor-at-large, and is also a former Executive Producer of the ABC's 7.30 Report in NSW.
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Title: Media Release: Australian Embassy, Beijing, 2014 Australian Writers' Week in China
"A fascinating line-up of contemporary Australian authors will be kept busy with a packed program of events across nine Chinese cities for the Australian Embassy Beijing’s seventh annual Australian Writers’ Week in China, 9-23 March.
This year’s Writers’ Week features a celebration of Australian-Asian literary voices, with events at international literary festivals, bookshops, libraries, schools and universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hohhot, Suzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo and Hefei..
Our guest authors include celebrated nonfiction author Benjamin Law, award-winning author and illustrator Gabrielle Wang, writer of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, drama and literary criticism, Ali Alizadeh, and Walkley Foundation non-fiction book award winner Pamela Williams,.
“This year, I’m delighted that Australian Writers’ Week in China features a focus on Australian-Asian writing and celebrates the unique and diverse voices that define our contemporary literature and vibrant multicultural society. We look forward to sharing these perspectives with book lovers across China,” said Australian Ambassador to China, Ms Frances Adamson.
Another important element of Writers’ Week is the Australia-China Publishing Forum, now a well-recognised and popular event on the industry calendars of both countries. In 2014, the Forum will feature a focus on digital publishing, and will see a delegation of Australian publishers travel to Beijing and Anhui Province to engage with top Chinese publishers for briefings, presentations and business matching.
Australian Writers’ Week and the Australia-China Publishing Forum are presented by the Australian Embassy Beijing and Australian Consulates-General in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. These events are made possible through the generous support of our partners Copyright Agency Limited and Time Publishing & Media. The Embassy also acknowledges support from the Walkley Foundation, The Bookworm Literary Festival, Capital Literary Festival, the Shanghai International Literary Festival, JUE Music + Art 2014, The Opposite House, and media partners China Publishing and Media Journal, and Shandong TV. The Embassy is also proud to work closely with China’s Australian Studies Centre network to bring author events to university students across China."
Source: Australian China Embassy.
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