Paddy O'Reilly (1997)

Paddy O'Reilly from Victoria is currently working on her first novel, which she researched during her four months based at Tamagawa University, Tokyo, in 1997. Short stories written during this residency have also been published in a number of journals including Meanjin. O'Reilly has translated Japanese plays and worked in theatre in Japan. She is a lecturer in Japanese at Swinburne University.

Paddy O'Reilly's residency was supported by Arts Victoria and the Japan Cultural Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

"This trip added a whole new dimension to my understanding of the country, a whole world of nuances and shifts within Japanese culture; it was unique." Paddy O'Reilly, Report, 1997

Rebecca Edwards (2000)

Rebecca Edwards is a poet from Queensland who is quickly making her mark on the Australian poetry scene. She has published Eating the Experience and Scar Country was released in 2000. Edwards' award-winning work is also in various journals and anthologies including the Oxford Anthology of Australian Verse and Two Hundred Years of Australian Poetry. She has had a long association with Japan, speaks Japanese and 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 collection of poetry set in Japan and also held an exhibition of her art work at a commercial gallery in Tokyo. Edwards' next book will be Holiday Coast Medusa.

Rebecca Edwards' Asialink Residency was supported by Arts Queensland and the Japan Cultural Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Matthew Condon

Matthew Condon is a novelist and journalist who lives in Queensland. He 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. Travelling to Tokyo and Hiroshima, Condon will conduct 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 at times "skewed political fanaticism".

Funded by the Australia Council and Arts Queensland.

Anthony Lawrence (1998)

Anthony Lawrence is an award-winning Tasmanian poet whose publications include The Viewfinder (winner of the NSW Premier's Award for Poetry 1997), Cold Wires of Rain, The Darkwood Aquarium and Skinned by Light: New & Selected Poems. Picador recently published his first novel, In the Half Light, to much critical acclaim. On his residency in Japan Anthony worked on a long sequence of poems inspired by the life and work of the novelist Yukio Mishima and was hosted by Akiyoshidai International Art Village in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Anthony Lawrence's Literature residency was supported by Arts Tasmania and the Japan Cultural Program, Department of Foreign and Trade.

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 8 plays, the most recent, Wake Baby, touring internationally. She has a long-standing interest in Asia and returned to Japan in 1999 on a residency to work on a historical fantasy novel based on Japanese history and culture.

Gillian Rubinstein's Literature Residency was supported by Arts SA and the Japan Cultural Program, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

I would never have been able to do as much on my own, and found that the residency opened doors and created opportunities for me that I will be able to build on in future visits. Just showing my business card with the Asialink logo on it gave me immediate credibility in all sorts of situations. Gillian Rubinstein, Literature Residency Report, 1999

John Mateer was born in South Africa, lived in Perth for many years and is now based in Melbourne. In 2001 he won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry. His publications include Loanwords, Barefoot Speech, Anachronism and Burning Swans all published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Mateer has also taught poetry and creative writing at tertiary institutions and has contributed to many journals and anthologies. During his residency in Japan Mateer will research the history of Shinto which will form the basis for a book-length sequence of poems.

This Asialink residency is supported by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council.

John Mateer will be in Japan from September 2002.

Keith Thompson, from Sydney, is an award-winning TV screen writer 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.

Keith Thompson's literature residency was supported by Arts NSW and the Australia Council.

Paola Bilbrough was born in Waiheke Island, New Zealand and now lives in Melbourne. In 1999 her first collection of poetry, Bell Tongue, was published by Victoria University Press. Her poetry, fiction and reviews have appeared in literary journasl such as Heat, Cordite, Imago, Westerly, The London magazine Stand, Landfall and Sport, and her work has been widely anthologised. Her second collection of poetry Erosion is due to be published in 2002. 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. While in Japan she was able to verify and expand her work through reading newspapers from the 1930s, talking to people, looking at a huge quantity of photographs and visiting historical buildings such as temples and shrines. During the residency she revised the whole manuscript and wrote about 25, 000 new words.

The residency was of great benefit to me on a professional, creative and personal level. I cannot say enough good things about my time in Japan: I feel pleased with what I achieved there and what the grant enabled me to do on numerous levels. It was an extraordinarily useful and productive time and because of the connections I made over the course of the residency, there is a high likelihood that will live in Japan again at some point in the future.

Paola Bilbrough's Asialink residency was supported by Arts Victoria, the Australian Embassy, Tokyo and the Australia Council.

Caroline Shaw (2001)

Caroline Shaw is a crime fiction writer from Victoria. She is currently in the early stages of writing her third crime novel in a series featuring Lenny Aaron - a private detective and a woman obsessed with Japan. Through her Japanese psychologist Lenny has discovered Buddhism, Bonsia and Kendo. In the 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 intends to use her time in Japan to re-familiarise herself with day to day life in a Japanese city. Her aim is to discover the things that cannot be found in the Japanese/English dictionaries or in the guide books: local customs, vernacular Japanese, attitudes. She will be spending her research period soaking up the weirdness that is Japanese TV, talking to ordinary Japanese people, prowling the streets for 'real-life' detail and, hopefully, getting close-up and personal at the Sumo.

Caroline Shaw's Asialink residency is supported by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council.

Maxine McArthur

Maxine McArthur was born in Brisbane in 1962. In 1980 she went to study in Japan, where she lived for sixteen years. She now lives in Canberra with her family and works at the Australian National University. Her first book, Time Future, was the winner of the prestigious 1999 George Turner Prize for best unpublished science fiction/fantasy novel, and was published by Warner that year. The sequel, Time Past, will be published in Australia and the US in 2002. She is currently working on a crime novel set in 1990s Japan. While on a residency in southern Japan at Akiyoshidai International Art Village, McArthur plans to work on a novel about a painter who lives in an imaginary society that incorporates elements of Japanese and Chinese art and culture. This Asialink residency is supported by Arts ACT and the Australia Council.

Maxine McArthur will be at Akiyoshidai International Art Village from November 2002.

Noreen Jones

Noreen Jones lives in the south west of Western Australia and writes social history. Her book, Number 2 Home - A Story of Japanese Pioneers to Australia, was published in 2002 by Fremantle Arts Centre Press. The book is the result of six years research which included meeting and interviewing many of the pioneer Japanese residents about their family stories. During her Asialink residency in 2003, Jones will expand her current project which describes the adventures and observations of the first known Australians to visit Japan. She will visit Hokkaido where the crews of two whaling ships contacted Ainu and Japanese in the early nineteenth century. Jones will also travel to Nagasaki where one of the ship's crew was detained.

Funded by Arts WA.

Meredith Mckinney

Meredith McKinney is a professional literary translator who is fluent in Japanese. In 2002 she received a Doctor of Philosophy of Asian Studies form 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 will undertake two projects. For the first project, McKinney will create a book on the poetry and prose of Australian poet Judith Wright. She will work with Professor Sakai Nobuo of Tezukayama University in Osaka to translate the book into Japanese. The second project is a translation of the tenth century Japanese literary classic The Pillow Book. McKinney has a contract with Penguin Classics to complete this translation by mid 2005.

Funded by the Australia Council.

Marele day

Marele Day is an award-winning writer whose previous work experience ranges from fruit picking to academic teaching. She has travelled extensively, lived in Italy, France and Ireland, and survived near shipwreck in the Java Sea. A contributor to numerous anthologies, Marele is the editor of How to Write Crime (Ned Kelly Award, 1996) and has written a guide, Successful Promotion for Writers. Her novels include the Claudia Valentine mysteries - The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender, The Case of the Chinese Boxes, The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado (Shamus Award, 1992) and The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi. In 1997 her bestselling literary novel, Lambs of God, was published to acclaim in Australia and overseas. She has also published a collection of crime-comedy stories, Mavis Levack, PI, and most recently, Mrs Cook: The Real and Imagined Life of the Captain's Wife. Marele presents courses in both the craft and the business of writing and mentors emerging writers. She first visited Japan in 2002 on a promotional tour, and is returning to work on a novel that features the ama, female deep-sea divers of Japan.

Supported by the Australia Council.

Christie Nieman

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.