Bonny Cassidy's poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies. As well as an editor and lecturer, she is chief researcher for The Red Room Company, and Chair of Sydney PEN Young Writers. Following her completion of a PhD on Australian poets Jennifer Rankin and Jennifer Maiden, she developed an experimental prose series while visiting institutions in Nagoya, Kyoto and Tokyo. Cassidy documented her own writing process and the Zen aesthetics that influenced Rankin's poetics, and explored how place and environment, poetry and painting, Asia and Australia, and writing and experience, overlap for a contemporary Australian poet.

Supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation.

Kierin Meehan writes for children and young adults, and teaches Japanese language and culture in primary and secondary schools. She has published three novels, two of which were awarded Patricia Wrightson prizes in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards (2004 and 2006). Her fourth novel, Ten Rules for Detectives, was published in 2008. While at Aichi Shukutoku University, Meehan completed research for and begun writing a young-adult mystery/suspense novel. She also investigated the possibility of creating a games package designed for teaching Japanese language and culture in primary classrooms in Australia.

Supported by The Queensland Government, through Arts Queensland and the Australia Council.

Sarah Holland-Batt is currently pursuing a Master of Philosophy in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland. Her poems have been published widely in Australia’s major literary journals and newspapers, she has been a regular guest at literary festivals, and she has also worked as editor-in-chief of the literary journal Vanguard and national poetry editor of Vibewire. Holland-Batt’s residency at Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagoya, provided the opportunity to work towards the completion of a lyrical poetry manuscript, with poems that explore themes of memory, loss, desire, and the limits of language. Holland-Batt was guest speaker at several University seminars and classes at both Aichi Shukutoku University and Chukyo University.

Supported by the Australia Council and Arts Queensland.

Michael Farrell has published three books of poetry, 'ode ode', 'BREAK ME OUCH,' and 'a raiders guide'. The second of these contains his own drawings and is influenced by a minimalist style of cartoon. While at Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagoya, Farrell explored the relationship between manga and poetry. Farrell developed over 30 new poems, many including drawings and comic-style frames. He gave three readings, in Nagoya, Kyoto and Tokyo and met several Japanese poets. His work often uses pop music as a model or starting point and he is interested in karaoke.

Supported by the Australia Council.

After her 2003 play Call Me Komachi was a hit at Melbourne's fortyfivedownstairs, receiving wide acclaim, an extended sell-out season, and a Green Room Award Nomination for Most Innovative Drama, Christie Nieman ran away to Sydney to take up an Australian National Playwrights Centre writer-in-residence position. Nieman spent four months at Nanzan University researching kaidan, Japan's traditional ‘scary stories’ where she was able to access to their library and other nearby university libraries and archives. This research resulted in the further development of a playscript concerned with the themes of supernatural storytelling.  The residency also allowed Nieman to soak up Japanese culture feeding in to her involvement in intercultural theatre company Lemon Tart.

Supported by the Australia Council.

Marele Day is an award-winning writer who has contributed to numerous anthologies, edited How to Write Crime and written a bestselling novel, Lambs of God.  Day has also published a collection of crime-comedy stories, Mavis Levack, PI, and Mrs Cook: The Real and Imagined Life of the Captain's Wife.  During her residency Day researched a novel that features the ama, female deep-sea divers of Japan. The residency allowed Day to explore the remote coast and off shore islands of Mie prefecture, to meet the ama and observe their way of life.

Supported by the Australia Council.

Meredith McKinney is a professional literary translator fluent in Japanese.  In 2002 she received a Doctor of Philosophy of Asian Studies from the Australian National University.  She has worked on four books of published translations and is currently a lecturer and tutor in Japanese and Asian Literature at the Australian National University. Whilst on her residency in Japan she undertook two projects. The first project was a book on the poetry and prose of Australian poet Judith Wright. She worked with Professor Sakai Nobuo of Tezukayama University in Osaka to translate the book into Japanese. The second project was the completion of a translation of the tenth century Japanese literary classic The Pillow Book that was published by Penguin Classics in 2006.

Supported by the Australia Council.

Matthew Condon is the author of ten novels and story collections, including A Night at the Pink Poodle, winner of the Steele Rudd Award for Short Fiction.  Condon has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sunday Age and other leading newspapers, magazines and journals.  In Japan, Condon conducted in-depth research for a novel based on the life of the controversial Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett.  Burchett was the first western journalist to go into Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped and file a first-hand report on the devastation.  Condon’s novel will hinge on Burchett’s journey into Hiroshima, his quest for the truth and his at times ‘skewed political fanaticism’.

Supported by the Australia Council and Arts Queensland.

Noreen Jones lives in the south west of Western Australia and writes social history. Fremantle Arts Centre Press published Jones’ book, Number 2 Home-A Story of Japanese Pioneers to Australia, in 2002. The residency enabled Jones to research Japanese historical, local, geographical and literary sources for North to Matsumae: Australian Whalers to Japan (University of Western Australia Press, 2008), about the first known contacts between Australians and Japanese when two whaling ships from Australia went to Hokkaido in 1831 and 1850.

Supported by Arts WA.

John Mateer won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry 2001. His publications include Loanwords, Barefoot Speech, Anachronism and Burning Swans all published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Mateer’s residency in Japan resulted in a folio of poems, The Ancient Capital of Images that was published in English and Japanese. Contacts made with Japanese writers and academics have resulted in an invitation for Mateer to return to Tokyo and Kyoto in 2003 to present bilingual readings from his collection of poems.  A reciprocal residency has resulted in his translator visiting Australia to research Australian poetry. 

Supported by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council.

Maxine McArthur’s first book, Time Future, was the winner of the 1999 George Turner Prize for best-unpublished science fiction/fantasy novel, and was published by Random House. The sequel, Time Past, was published in Australia and the US in 2002. During her Residency McArthur completed one novel and researched her new novel, the story of a painter who lives in an imaginary society which incorporates elements of Japanese and Chinese art and culture. She also accomplished a great deal of research on local history, folk tales and legends, by visiting libraries, folk museums and art galleries in Yamaguchi.

Supported by Arts ACT and the Australia Council.

Caroline Shaw’s literary creation, Lenny Aaron, is a private detective and a woman obsessed with Japan. In Shaw’s new book tentatively titled The Pillow Book of Lenny Aaron Lenny will travel to Japan to investigate the disappearance of an Australian English conversation teacher. Along the way she will, of course, solve a murder investigation. Shaw’s residency in Japan provided her with the opportunity to re-familiarise herself with day-to-day life in a Japanese city and to discover the things that cannot be found in the Japanese/English dictionaries or in the guide books: local customs, vernacular Japanese, attitudes.

Supported by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council.

 

Paola Bilbrough published her first collection of poetry Bell Tongue, in 1999.  Her poetry, fiction and reviews have appeared in literary journals such as Heat, Cordite, Imago, Westerly, The London Magazine Stand, Landfall and Sport.  During her residency in Japan, Bilbrough was hosted by Keio University in Tokyo where she designed and delivered weekly lectures for 'Australian Text & Culture', a course looking at Australian culture through the mediums of literature, newspaper items and film. She also worked on her first novel, The Currency of Beauty, set in Prague, Warsaw and Kobe just prior to WWII, revising the whole manuscript and writing 25, 000 new words.

Supported by Arts Victoria, the Australian Embassy, Tokyo and the Australia Council.

Rebecca Edwards is a Queensland poet with two published collections of work, Eating the Experience and Scar Country. Edwards’ award-winning work has also appeared in various journals and anthologies including the Oxford Anthology of Australian Verse and Two Hundred Years of Australian Poetry. During the residency Edwards was hosted by prestigious Keio University,Tokyo, where she taught a course on Australian culture. She used her residency to develop ideas and research for a range of poems set in both Japan and Australia and wrote short stories and essays. She also held an exhibition of her art work at a commercial gallery in Tokyo and gave a number of public talks. Edward's next book is titled Holiday Coast Medusa.

Supported by Arts Queensland and the Japan Cultural Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Keith Thompson is an award-winning TV screenwriter for popular programs such as Halifax F.P, Wildside, and G.P., and episodes of Seven Deadly Sins. He has also been a producer and script editor for numerous films and TV programs and taught screenwriting. In Japan Thompson researched an original feature film screenplay about the surprisingly close relationships that developed between Australian soldiers and the local Japanese in Hiroshima during the occupation.

Supported by Arts NSW and the Australia Council.

Gillian Rubinstein is one of Australia’s best-known writers for young people. She is the author of nearly 30 books, including the best-selling Space Demons trilogy, and the award-winning Beyond the Labyrinth and Foxspell. Rubinstein has also written eight plays, the most recent, Wake Baby, touring internationally. During her residency Rubinstein worked on a new fantasy novel, Across the Nightingale Floor, based on Japanese history and culture. She also developed a children’s play with Urinko Children’s Theatre and is planning a Japanese Australian co-production. A serialised story by Rubenstein ran in the Asahi Weekly from July to December 2000.

Supported by Arts SA and the Japan Cultural Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Anthony Lawrence is an award-winning poet whose publications include The Viewfinder Cold Wires of Rain, The Darkwood Aquarium and most recently Skinned by Light: New & Selected Poems.  During his residency Lawrence worked on his new novel, completing 50,000 words and gaving a number of talks and lectures to the local community and in Tokyo. 

Supported by Arts Tasmania and the Japan Cultural Program, Department of Foreign and Trade.

At the time of her residency at Tamagawa University Tokyo, Paddy O’Reilly was working on her first novel set in Japan. Paddy has translated Japanese plays and worked with theatre groups in Japan. She has published many stories in Australian journals and anthologies and her stories of Japan have been published in Meanjin.

Supported by Arts Victoria and the Japan Cultural Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.