2025 Shanghai Western Sydney Writing Exchange
We are delighted to announce that award-winning Australian poet Eileen Chong will be travelling to Shanghai this September for a two-month residency as part of the Shanghai Writers Program.
The Shanghai Writing Program, a prestigious two-month international residency in Shanghai, China, began in 2008 and has since hosted writers from over 30 countries. Varuna and Western Sydney University now partner with the Shanghai Writing Program to offer a reciprocal fellowship, with an Australian writer visiting Shanghai, and a Chinese writer visiting Australia. In 2024, Varuna and Western Sydney University welcomed Yu Shi from the Shanghai Writers’ Association to stay in residence at Varuna and to present at the University.
Eileen Chong was born in Singapore of Hakka, Hokkien and Peranakan (Straits Chinese) descent. Chong’s books have been shortlisted for several major awards, including the Anne Elder Award, the Australian Arts in Asia Award, the Kenneth Slessor Prize and the Multicultural Prize in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry, and twice for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Her first collection, Burning Rice, is on the New South Wales English syllabus in Australia as a prescribed text for the Higher School Certificate from 2019. It is the first ever collection of poems by an Asian Australian poet to be on the list.
This program is presented in partnership with:
