Weekend Writers’ Residency 2026

Weekend Writers’ Residency 2026

Introducing Our TDTF Writers’ Residency Lead Writer for 2026

Amani Haydar is an author, visual artist, and advocate for women’s health and safety based on Dharug land. Amani’s ground-breaking feminist memoir The Mother Wound (Pan Macmillan, 2021) explores the effects of domestic abuse and state-sanctioned violence on women and has received several awards including the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction and the 2022 Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year. The Mother Wound has recently been translated into Arabic, allowing audiences worldwide to engage with the Arab-Australian experience. Amani’s writing has also been featured in anthologies including Admissions: Voices within Mental Health (Upswell), Another Australia (Affirm Press), Racism (Sweatshop) and Arab Australian Other (Pan Macmillan).  As an active visual artist and former Archibald Prize finalist, Amani collaborates with communities and community organisations to deliver multidisciplinary storytelling workshops for people from migrant backgrounds. Amani’s illustration work has been featured in publications like The Very Best Doughnut by Randa Abdel-Fattah and Safar by Sarah Malik.


Shape, Write, and Grow Together - Apply for the TDTF Writers’ Residency 2026

Applications for Writers’ Residency are now closed.

What We’re Exploring in our residency

We’re seeking bold, imaginative, and grounded approaches to topics such as:

  • Multilingual and multicultural literary creation

  • Translation as a creative practice

  • Diasporic literatures and South–South dialogues

  • Writing for social and environmental justice

  • Blurring and expanding genre boundaries, especially in non-fiction

  • And other emerging or yet-to-be-discovered themes

I have never ceased to be amazed by the brilliant sparks that rub off at language contact points, creating a new language.
— Quote from Yu Ouyang, quoted by Wenche Ommundsen, “Multilingual Writing in a Monolingual Nation”, Sydney Review of Books (24 July, 2018)
 

MEET OUR 2025 WRITERS IN RESIDENCE