Developing from SCWC’s multi-year partnership with Illawarra Multicultural Services, and with funding support from the Australia Council for the Arts RISE program, our Emerging Refugee /CALD Writers Program offers support for writers from a refugee or CALD background to work one-on-one with a dedicated mentor to develop their writing for publication and public presentation.

With the SCWC, Illawarra Multicultural Services presents a bi-yearly program of creative writing workshops with local English language educators in the lead up to a writing competition themed around Refugee Week and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Read more about past competitions here and here. Talented writers who are identified through this process are referred to our writing mentor.

We are also making two places available to writers from Refugee or CALD backgrounds via application.

Zohra Aly has an MA in Creative Writing from UTS and is a member of Writing NSW. She has written features as a freelancer for Sydney Morning Herald and magazines like Mindfood and Sunday Life. Her essays have been published in Meanjin and Sydney Review of Books, as well as the anthology Second City (Giramondo, 2021). Zohra's short fiction appeared in the UTS Writer's Anthology Empty Sky (Brio Books 2020) and her essay 'Feel the Quiet' was chosen for publication in Island Online's Australian Nature Writing Project. In 2021, she was an emerging curator for Writing NSW's Boundless Festival. She is a guest curator for the 2023 South Coast Writers Festival.

About the program: the SCWC’s Emerging Refugee & CALD Writers Program aims to recruit talented emerging South Coast writers to work with a mentor to deepen their writing skills, develop new work, and publish and present this work to local audiences. Emerging writers in this program will be connected with mentor, Zohra Aly, from whom they will receive 20 hours of mentoring. Mentoring may include feedback on work, referrals to relevant peer writing groups, and subsidised access to workshops, development of relevant peer relationships and connections within the field, or connection with events that provide professional industry knowledge. Mentees will be invited to discuss their participation in the program and their work, at a SCWC event.

Criteria 

Please note that these mentorships are only available to:

  • early stage or emerging writers aged 18+

  • who are writing fiction, non-fiction or poetry,

  • who come from refugee backgrounds, or identify as CALD and,

  • who live in the following LGAs: Wollongong, Kiama, Shellharbour, Eurobodalla, Shoalhaven, Bega Valley and Wingecarribee.  

  • All applicants should be financial members of SCWC. If you do not have the financial means to pay for membership, SCWC’s Hardship Policy can assist you. Please contact us for more details. 

Applications  

To apply for a mentorship, complete the application form below.

Current round of applications closes the 21st of March 2023

Enquires can be made at any time and start dates will be negotiated between mentee and mentor. 

Mentoring Fees 

Mentoring incurs a fee which will contribute to SCWC’s ability to offer the mentorship program on an ongoing basis. Fees can be paid upfront or in instalments. The scale of fees is - Waged: $ 400, Concession/Unwaged/Students: $200, Hardship:$0