Ken Spillman is an award-winning author whose work spans the genres of history, novels for young adults and children, short fiction, poetry, scriptwriting and criticism. He is the author of 19 books and has compiled five collections of writing. Spillman's work is represented in many anthologies, and the US reference Contemporary Authors has compiled a detailed entry on his career. During his residency at Sanskriti Kendra, Spillman completed No Boundaries, a lively 'young adult' novel set partly in New Delhi. He also researched the compilation of a cross-cultural anthology for schools.

Supported by the Australia-India Council and the Department of Culture  Arts - Government of Western Australia.

Christine Williams has published four biographical works in Australia, England and India. Her subjects have included the Australian novelist, Christina Stead, and the Indian philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti. Following a NSW History Fellowship prize, Williams's work on major environmentalists in Australia, Green Power, won a National Trust of Australia award for Cultural Heritage in 2007. Her residency with the University of Madras gave Williams the opportunity to further her research for an upcoming biography of the Indian cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, in the context of the strong bond between Australia and India in their mutual love of cricket.

Supported by the Australia-India Council and the Australia Council.

Kirsty Murray is a prolific author of award-winning fiction for younger readers, often focusing on Australian history and identity. Murray is researching the true story of an Australian children’s theatrical troupe that toured India in 1910. When the children reached Madras (Chennai), they went on strike, abandoned their manager and appealed to the local community for support. On residency at the University of Madras, Murray developed a new historical fiction based on the experiences of an Australian child performer in India.

Supported by the Australia-India Council and Arts Victoria.

Stephen House has had 14 plays and three short films professionally produced. His work has toured nationally and internationally and won awards from the Australian Writers’ Guild and Adelaide Fringe. He has held international literature residencies, and tours his self-performed monologues and offers master-classes on play writing and theatre practice. During his residency at Sanskriti Kendra, near New Delhi, House researched and developed his first novel, a significant part of which is set in India, and explores the hidden corners of life and the unique characters who inhabit them. He also worked on a new collection of poems.

Supported by the Australia Council and Arts SA.

Graeme Miles’ poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies, and his first collection, Phosphorescence, was released in 2006.  During Miles' residency at the University of Madras, Chennai, he completed work on his second collection of poetry Ano Kato.  The collection deals with the broader themes of orientation and disorientation, space, place, religion and myth, some of which are explored through the filter of Sanskrit spatial concepts and classical Tamil poetry.

Supported by the Australia Council and Arts WA.

Luke Beesley is a poet, short fiction writer, arts critic and public artist, whose poetry has been published in Australia's major publications and permanently etched into Brisbane's Eleanor Schonell Bridge.  Inspired by India's culture, Beesley had a highly productive residency at Delhi's Sanskriti Kendra, producing a large quantity of lyric poems, short prose poems and drafts for short stories. He gave readings in Delhi and Kolkata, researched and travelled widely to Jaipur, the holy cities of Varanasi and Dharamsala, as well as hill stations and palaces.

Supported by the Australia-India Council and Arts Queensland.

Barbara Brooks' publications include Leaving Queensland, a book of short prose, and a biography, Eleanor Dark: a Writer's Life. Her work has appeared in many Australian and international anthologies, and at the time of her residency she was completing a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Technology, Sydney. A fascination with the historical evolution of verandah architecture and its migration to Australia took Brooks to India where she spent her residency researching her forthcoming book Verandahs; a book which crosses fact and fiction with poetry, memoir and essay.  Brooks travelled extensively and interviewed architects, writers and artists to gain insight into Indian culture, architecture, history and people.

Supported by the Australia Council.

John Zubrzycki is a journalist whose 25 year association with India has included stints as a Hindi student, diplomat, consultant and foreign correspondent.  Zubrzycki's last assignment on the sub-continent was in Pakistan and Afghanistan covering the aftermath of the September 11 attacks for The Australian newspaper. During his residency in India Zubrzycki researched the story of Mukarram Jah, the last Nizam of Hyderabad, and how the heir to India's largest princely state found himself running a sheep station in the Australian outback.  Zubrzycki divided his time between Hyderabad and New Delhi exploring the many facets of this unique link between India and Australia.

Supported by the Australia-India Council and the Australia Council.

Linda Neil has had a multi-faceted career as a writer and musician.  Her plays have been performed Australia-wide, as well as broadcast on ABC Radio National, and she has written scripts for stage, radio and screen.  Due to illness and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunamis, original plans for her residency had to be abandoned.  Instead, encounters with a yogi who’d spent seven years in the forest, playing the violin for room sweepers and diplomats and collaborating on a CD of music all contributed to the narratives eventuating from her time in India.  At the completion of the residency Neil had received offers to be Artist-in-Residence at Alexandria House and at the Otago Polytechnic College of Art and been invited to perform at Goldsmith’s College in London.

Supported by Arts Queensland and the Australia Council.

Saskia Beudel’s first novel Borrowed Eyes, was shortlisted for the 2003 Christina Stead Prize, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and the Kibble Dobbie award for a first manuscript.  She has also published short fiction and visual art catalogue essays, and has taught at tertiary institutes in Melbourne and Sydney.  Hosted by Sanskriti Kendra in New Delhi, Beudel conducted background research for a novel set partially in India, and produced over 60 000 words of draft material.

Supported by the Australia-India Council and the Australia Council.

A fourth generation Fijian of Indian origin, Sudesh Mishra holds a Ph.D from Flinders University and has taught at universities in Australia, Fiji and Scotland.  He is the author of four books of poems, including Tandava and Diaspora and the Difficult Art of Dying, one critical monograph, Preparing Faces: Modernism and Indian Poetry in English, two full-length plays, Ferringhi and The International Dateline, and several short stories. Mishra participated in several conferences and literary events whilst in India as well as immersing himself in the landscape and people of India.

Supported by the Australia Council and the Australia India Council

Robyn Friend writes fiction, oral histories, reviews, essays, and occasionally poetry. Her second novel, The Butterfly Stalker was published in 2002. During her residency Friend researched her next novel The Lovers’ Handbook in which the pivotal action is a terrorist attack in rural Punjab. Friend conducted literary research as well as investigations into the cultures of rural northern Indian communities. 

Supported by Arts Tasmania and the Australia Council.

Inez Baranay is the author of six published books: four novels, including The Edge of Bali and Sheila Power; a prose collection, The Saddest Pleasure, and a non-fiction account of a year in Papua New Guinea Rascal Rain. She has also published many short stories, articles and reviews in a range of publications since the early 1980s. Rupa Press in India will publish Baranay’s new novel, neem dreams, set in southern India, later this year. This publication is a direct result of the residency program. During her four months residency Baranay researched a new work planned as linked novellas about contemporary India. 

Supported by the Australia Council.

Meaghan Delahunt is a prominent novelist and writer who was hosted by Sarai New Media Collective in New Delhi. During her residency she researched and worked on her second novel The Prayer Wheel, which is about the many lives and deaths of a Buddhist monk as he strives and fails to gain enlightenment. An essay written during the residency was published by Sunday’s Spectrum magazine in Scotland. Delahunt maintains ongoing links with Sarai Media Initiative, Rupa Publishing, the mediation centres in Dharamsala and Delhi, writers in Delhi and Bhopal and the Tibet Support Group. 

Supported by the Australia India Council and the Australia Council.

Bem Le Hunte was born in India to an Indian mother and English father, and currently lives in Australia. An anthropologist turned advertising copywriter, Le Hunte worked in the music industry and for Indian Television before turning her hand to fiction. During her residency Le Hunte launched the Indian edition of her first novel Seduction of Silence at the Australian Embassy and the book reached number one on the bestseller lists while she was there. She also researched the Jewish community in Calcutta where she was born, along with the lives of other refugees who have come to India at different times, as the basis for her second novel Where the Pepper Grows. 

Supported by the Australia India Council and NSW Ministry for the Arts.

Tim Denoon is a NSW poet whose work has appeared in a range of Australian journals including Southerly, Siglo and Overland.  During his residency Denoon worked on a substantial collection of new poetry and conducted research into a novel set between coastal South Australia and Goa. He also found a number of opportunities for collaborative work with other writers and artists including translations, essays, and activism. Denoon gave readings and recorded a number of lectures on Australian literature for the Indira Gandhi Open University and was featured in national newspapers.

Supported by the Australia India Council and the Australia Council.

Maree Delofski is an award-winning documentary screenwriter from New South Wales. Her feature documentary A Calcutta Christmas won a Gold Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival and many of her films have screened nationally on SBS television. Delofski used her Literature residency in India to research and write a script focusing on Hollywood film star Merle Oberon. She conducted extensive research, beginning in Calcutta and traveling to Bombay to interview Bollywood film stars. In Delhi she was based at the Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia Millia Islamia University where she gave workshops, seminars and screenings.  The resulting film, The Trouble with Merle was premiered at the 2002 Sydney Film Festival and was screened on ABC television.

Supported by the Australia India Council and NSW Ministry for the Arts.

Josh Wilson is a writer of fiction, humour and travel. He has completed an MA on travel writing and India at The University of Melbourne, and has returned to Fremantle to run In Emergency Press. During the term of his residency Wilson completed work on Passions, a novel about love, travel and coincidence, furthered his study of Hindi and researched a range of essays on Indian cosmology. Wilson also gave numerous lectures at various universities around the country and appeared on national television discussing Australian culture. He is currently working on an essay about life and death in Varanasi and has assisted with a report to further develop Australian Studies in India.

Supported by Arts WA and the Australia Council.

Satendra Nandan was born in Fiji and completed his doctorate at ANU. He was a member of the Fiji Parliament from 1982 then moved to Canberra following the coups in the late 1980’s. Nandan’s publications include three volumes of poetry, one acclaimed novel, The Wounded Sea, and 3 co-edited collections of essays. The residency provided him with the opportunity to work on a range of India-related projects: a novel set in New Delhi, Canberra and Suva, a collection of semi-autobiographical pieces titled Indian Fragments, a book on the life and values of Mahatma Gandhi, and the Delhi section of his autobiography, Requiem for a Rainbow: An Indo-Fijian Journey. He also worked on a translation of Patrick White’s Tree of Man into Hindi with academics at JNU. 

Supported by Arts ACT and the Australia Council.

Lee Cataldi is an award-winning poet, academic and linguist. Her collection of poetry, Race Against Time won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for poetry. She has also published Walpiri Dreamings & Histories: Yimikirli which she co-edited and translated.  During her residency Cataldi travelled and spoke extensively across India and utilizing her knowledge of translation, Aboriginal languages, poetry and literature. 

Supported by the Australia Council and Arts South Australia.

Anne Whitehead has had a long career in film and television as a scriptwriter and producer and is now a prize-winning non-fiction writer. Her book Paradise Mislaid: In Search of the Australian Tribe of Paraguay about a group of Australian colonialists seeking utopia in Paraguay won the NSW Premier’s Award for Non-fiction in 1998. During her residency Whitehead researched material for her next book on the intriguing true story of the marriage of the Indian Rajah of Pudukkotta and Molly Fink from Melbourne.

Supported by the Australia Council and Arts New South Wales.

Gail Jones is a much admired short story writer. Her first collection, The House of Breathing, won the WA Premier’s Award in 1993 and her second book, Fetish Lives, was joint winner with Robert Drewe’s The Drowner in 1998. Jones spent four months based at the University of Delhi, where she worked on a novel set in India.

Supported by the Australia Council.

Jayne Fenton-Keane is a poet, new media artist and composer who takes poetry to different spaces with her poetry-sound fusions, installations and performances. The author of three poetry books, Torn, Ophelia's Codpiece and The Transparent Lung, Keane is an award winner in several genres, is completing a doctorate on embodiment and spatial poetics, and the founding Director of National Poetry Week. During her residency Keane explored pilgrimage as a creative method for inviting new knowledge into her writing.  Activities included a residency at Rimbun Dahan in Malaysia, a residency at the Singapore Poetry Festival and appearances with the CGH Earth Chain in India.

Supported by the Australia Council and Arts QLD.