Hoa Pham

Vietnam

Hoa Pham is the author of four books. Her latest novel Vixen won the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Writer of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Aurealis Best Australian Fantasy Novel in 2000. Her other young adult titles are Quicksilver, No One Like Me and 49 Ghosts, for which she has also written a script adaptation. Taking a break from her Phd in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne for her Asialink residency in Hanoi, she plans to write a modern day sequel to Vixen. It explores changes in contemporary Vietnam as a result of foreign influences and the new, hybrid, Vietnamese modern culture. Hosted by The Gioi publishing house, Pham also hopes to connect with Vietnamese publishers, translators and other writers.

Supported by the Australia Council and Arts Victoria.

Christie Nieman

Japan

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. Her script Frog Rocket was written and professionally produced in her time there and now back in Melbourne she is developing her first novel, as well as her shadow puppet playscript Swish produced at Polyglot Puppet Theatre. Nieman plans to use her residency in Japan to research Kaidan, Japan's traditional scary stories, and also the figure of Lafcadio Hearn, a western man, a real global citizen living in Japan in 1875, and one of the first writer/transcriber of a book of Kaidan.

Supported by the Australia Council.

Luke Beesley

India

Luke Beesley writes poetry, short fiction and arts critique and has been published widely in Australia's major newspapers and literary journals. His first book of poetry and short prose Lemon Shark will be published in early 2006. At Delhi's Sanskriti Kendra, Luke will work on his next collection of lyric poems with the working title Intimacy, and a collection of short fiction titled The House of Open Books. The poems will explore the sensuality of language, loss, place and reading. The prose will place the residents of a mysterious, large house in the way of characters and plots from the many books on its shelves. Both collections will pivot off his experience of Sanskriti Kendra, and of India's climate, people, architecture and landscape.

Supported by the Australia-India Council and Arts Queensland.

Jan Cornall

Indonesia

Jan Cornall is a scriptwriter and performance artist based in Sydney, Australia. She has written over 10 produced plays and the feature film, Talk. Cornall's play, Hanging Onto The Tail Of a Goat written for Tibetan/Australian musician Tenzing Tsewang, about his journey out of Tibet as a young nomad boy, was performed at the Sydney Opera House Studio in 2002 and 2003. Since 2004, Cornall has been travelling to Indonesia, teaching, writing and meeting with Indonesian writers. She is co-editor of a new collection of poems by noted Indonesian poet Sitok Srengenge, and Aphrodite, a novel by Laire Siwi Mentari. During her residency hosted by Teater Utan Kayu (TUK) in Jakarta, Cornall plans to work on a number of projects: a novella set in Ubud, Bali, a volume of bilingual poems and songs, some short stories and a performance poetry collaboration with Sitok Srengenge, while also giving workshops at TUK and associated arts communities.

Supported by the Australia-Indonesia Institute and the NSW Ministry for the Arts.

Rosanne Hawke

Pakistan

Rosanne Hawke is the author of 14 books for young people. She was an aid worker in Pakistan for seven years and many of her works reflect the culture of that land. One of these, Soraya, the Storyteller was shortlisted in the 2005 CBCA awards and gained a commendation in the Victorian Premier's Literary awards. As Asialink's first resident to Pakistan, Hawke aims to research and draft a novel for young adults about a girl who travels with the nomads to find her roots. To do so, she will travel in the mountains to meet the Gujar people and collect folk stories. Hawke will also exchange ideas and run writing workshops with her host, Murree Christian School. Hawke is certain this will be an enriching time providing her with new perspectives on life in Pakistan which will be reflected in her work and foster a deeper understanding of Pakistani culture in young Australian readers.

Supported by Arts SA.

Barbara Brooks

India

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 she is currently working on a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Technology, Sydney. While on residency at Sanskriti Kendra in India, Brooks intends to work on Verandahs, a book which crosses fact and fiction, poetry, memoir and essay. Verandahs migrated to Australia via India, via bangolos and bungalows, as well as tents and Islamic courtyards, and the narrator sits on a verandah, a place of transition in her life and reflects on the story of her English grandfather who was in the Indian Army. The story of verandahs has a parallel in the grandfather's story, providing a link between Australia and India, and an opportunity to explore an Australian family's relationship with place and space.

Supported by the Australia Council.

Graeme Miles

India

Graeme Miles was born in Perth in 1976 and has been there most of the time since, apart from travels in Australia and Europe. After studying English he turned to Latin and Greek, and has recently submitted a PhD on a Greek author of the second to third centuries AD. His poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies, and his first collection, Phosphorescence, is forthcoming in 2006. During Miles' residency at the University of Madras, Chennai, he will continue to work on his second collection of poetry. This collection will blend contemporary concerns with historical and mythological material, and the residency will provide the opportunity to broaden the cultural and historical bases on which the poems draw.

Supported by the Australia Council and Arts WA.

Patricia Sykes

Malaysia

Poet and librettist Patricia Sykes intends to spend her Asialink residency in Malaysia continuing work on her libretto for a full-length opera, The Navigator, a collaborative work with composer Liza Lim. The Navigator is a traveller-wanderer figure who moves restlessly through time and cultures seeking cultural context and belonging. Sykes' first collaboration with Liza, Mother Tongue, premiered in Paris in November 2005 and will premiere in Australia in 2006. She is the author of two poetry collections Wire Dancing, which is based on her experiences as a performer with the Women's Circus, and Modewarre - home ground. She has also edited four books of poetry and co-edited Women's Circus: Leaping Off The Edge. Sykes' work focuses strongly on the interactions between people and their contexts and she will explore how the host culture nurtures itself, its people and the environment.

Supported by the Australia Council.