Hana and her copy of Gulf Coast!

I’m belated as usual, but I’m very happy to share that I had two poems published in the Spring 2023 issue of Agni (one of which is published online here), and one long poem, a retelling of Yé Xiàn, the origin story for Cinderella, in the Winter/Spring 2024 issue of Gulf Coast. Both of these journals are dream publications for me, so I’m really happy these poems found their homes there.

Myself and fellow inclusion interns Teri Vela, Priscilla Wathington, and Rowan Sharp.

I also completed not one, but three residencies at Warren Wilson since the first one in the US summer of 2022, and am currently working on my thesis manuscript. It’s been a life-changing experience so far, and includes some amazing DEIB work as an Inclusion Intern (pictured above). While I’m sad to step down for health reasons, I’m looking forward to producing some exciting new work as well as some critical craft lectures for my final semester.

I’m incredibly grateful to be a recipient of a grant from the Ian Potter Cultural Trust for my MFA studies at Warren Wilson! If you’re curious about what I’m working on, here’s a short interview they did with me as a new grantee.

I’m a little late posting about this due to catching covid in the aftermath, but I’m very happy to say that The Red Dust 红尘 with Marian St Theatre for Young People premiered swimmingly at Ku-Ring-Gai Town Hall in July! Our Friday and Saturday night shows were sold out, and the piece was beautifully received by the community. I was sadly not there in person, as I was attending Tin House Summer Workshop in Portland, but I was able to video call in on one performance and cheer on the cast and crew as they performed live. You can read more about the show and look at some amazing production shots at this link here.

Many thanks go out to Marian St Theatre for Young People (MSTYP), who produced and supported this show for the past two years, and to the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC) at Western Sydney University for their unwavering support. Obviously big thanks to the Chinese Australian Seniors Service (CASS) and MSTYP for their enthusiastic teens and elders! And to all the crew and creatives who gave their hearts and souls to the show.

The Red Dust 红尘 should be coming back to a theatre near you (if you’re in Sydney) some time in the near future, so stay tuned!

Another very belated update on doings of late!

As mentioned in my previous post, I was lucky enough to attend the Palm Beach Poetry Festival online as a Kundiman scholar with Matthew Olzmann and the Tin House Winter Workshop with Leila Chatti. Both experiences were incredible despite the restrictions of the online format — I’m very lucky to still be in touch with classmates and teachers from both cohorts and their amazing talents.

I was also incredibly lucky to be accepted into Warren Wilson College’s low-residency MFA poetry program for their summer intake. Warren Wilson is one of the oldest and most distinguished low-residency programs in the US, and I’m very excited to begin my studies there. I’ve already started preparing for what I’m hoping will be a rigorous two years.

And while I’m in the US I’ll also be attending Tin House Summer Workshop — for the first time in person! I’m really looking forward to studying with Paisley Rekdal, and meeting some wonderful friends for the first time in real life.

Before I head off though, I’ll be performing some poetry at a concert of new music organised by my dear friend Paul Castles! Conceived during lockdown, the concert will feature words, music, and art in response to transition, locality, and the lost intimacies between strangers. The poetry I’ll be performing will include extracts from a song cycle Paul and I have been working on for a few years, Nat/Jessie/Jimmy, as well as some new poems. I’ll also be narrating the lyrics of some of Paul’s work with other collaborators. A casual one-hour event, it should be a lovely night of new music. If you’re in Sydney at the end of May, you can get your tickets here.

Also back on again thanks to things re-opening is The Red Dust, which was postponed a couple of times due to lockdown. This time we’re presenting a smaller, more intimate development version of the show, with direction by Nate Gilkes, music by Nate Gilkes and Dr Nicholas Ng, choreography by Jia-wei Zhu, subtitles by Jing Han at the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC), elders from Chinese Australian Services Society (CASS), and a company of brilliant young people from Marian St Theatre for Young People. The show follows a young Chinese-Australian teen as she searches for her mother in a post-apocalyptic, red dust-covered Blue Mountains, and features poetry, music, dance, and physical theatre. Rehearsals are starting soon and I’m very excited! If you’re in Sydney mid-July, do come along and get your tickets here!

More soon!

A bit of a belated update on a few things I’ve been up to recently!

Earlier this year I was extremely grateful to be able to attend several US conferences via the online format. The first conference I was lucky enough to attend was Tin House Summer Workshop, where along with seven other fabulous poets I was mentored by the amazing Eduardo C. Corral. While I was not able to sample Portland’s legendary food scene, I was able to attend some fantastic talks by Donika Kelly and Patricia Smith.

I was also very lucky to receive a Rona Jaffe Foundation scholarship to attend Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, which ran throughout August. There, I had the privilege of participating in the inimitable Brenda Shaughnessy and Victoria Chang’s classes, as well as hanging out with my awesome cohorts in the virtual Barn. My attendance at both Bread Loaf and Tin House were supported by a Create NSW grant.

In September I was published in the Spring 2021 edition of Meanjin which was a real treat for me — many thanks to Bronwyn Lea for ushering it through! If you have a subscription, you can read the poem here, and if not, you can read it here.

Next up after a bit of a break is attending the 2022 Palm Beach Poetry Festival as a Kundiman scholar under the guidance of Matthew Olzmann in January, followed by studying with Leila Chatti at the Tin House Winter Workshop in February. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to work with all these incredible poets and am looking forward to the coming year!

(left) Nicole W. Lee, (right) Neil Aitken

I’m very excited to have been selected for a Spring (Autumn) 2021 mentorship through the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (USA) with US/Canadian poet Neil Aitken. The mentorship is offered twice a year with participants selected from hundreds of applications in several genres.

Neil is the author of Babbage’s Dream and The Lost Country of Sight (Philip Levine Prize), and holds an MFA from UC Riverside and a PhD from the University of Southern California. Also of Chinese, STEM, and libretti-writing background, Neil and I have had some great talks so far about being part of the BIPOC community, the world of literary journals, and working across multiple genres.