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!

(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.

Varuna the National Writers’ House, formerly Eleanor Dark’s residence

Last week I participated in a writing residency at the Varuna, the National Writers’ House, thanks to a fellowship with WestWords and Varuna. Over six delightful days I talked, walked, ate, and bonded with Nicole Cadelina, a scriptwriter, Samara Lo, a middle-grade fantasy writer, and Libby Hyett, a young adult writer, as well as our mentor, young adult novelist Wai Chim.

It really was a wonderful time, with each of us learning many things from each other, including industry tid-bits, the differences between the American and Australian literary scenes, the similarities and differences between the diasporic Asian experiences, how to eat the famed Sheila’s delicious salmon frittatas while keeping room for dessert, how not to chop wood with an axe, and most importantly, how to build a fire from scratch.

I personally also spent some time walking and gaining inspiration for NAT/JESSIE/JIMMY, the project for which I was awarded the fellowship, but also for THE RED DUST, which is a project I’m working on for Marian Street Theatre for Young People, both of which are partially set in the Blue Mountains. The clear mountain air and cool temperatures meant that the gardens were still filled with the bright mouths of azaleas, whose colours I captured in the scribblings of a poem.

Many thanks again to James Roy and Chris Donahue at WestWords for the support throughout the week, as well as the Eleanor Dark foundation, Veechi, Amy, Vera, and of course, Sheila for making such a generous and hospitable space! I hope to be back again for some solitude and soup soon.

Clockwise: myself, Nicole Cadelina, Libby Hyett and Samara Lo

Recently I was lucky enough to receive a WestWords/Varuna Fellowship to spend a week at the historic Varuna completing the first draft of NAT/JESSIE/JIMMY, a poetic music narrative with music by Paul Castles. NAT/JESSIE/JIMMY is a meditation on the overlap of experience between Asian, queer and Wiradjuri characters and was earlier shortlisted for programs at Playwriting Australia and ABC. I’m very much looking forward to getting my teeth into it with mentor Wai Chim and meeting the other fabulous residents—Nicole Cadelina (screenwriter), Samara Lo (middle grade novel) and Libby Hyett (young adult novel)!