Bendigo Writers Festival withdrawal | Strategic Plans vs strategic planning | Banned. With. collaboration | And another thing about model (rule) minimums
Plus... Emerging Writers Festival program launch, how to get #CaughtREADHanded in August, and more
Panel withdrawn from Bendigo Writers Fest
I was so looking forward to this weekend’s Bendigo Writers Festival, where I was meant to join Madison Griffiths and Cher Tan as part of the Cities of Literature Book Club to discuss Looking at Women Looking at War by the late Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina.
However, following the decisions and actions of Festival and Presenting Partner La Trobe University this week, and in solidarity with fellow participating writers, we no longer feel able to take part.
In a group statement withdrawing our participation, our panel wrote:
We were dismayed to learn that our colleagues in the Festival’s La Trobe Presents sessions were told they would be required to abide by La Trobe’s Anti-Racism Plan, including definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia that would inhibit criticism of Israel’s genocide in Palestine.
While we were not included in this cohort, we feel unable to participate in a framework that restricts authors’ freedom of expression - particularly given the subject of our panel was to be about writing and war crimes, rights and resistance, through the lens of Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina’s war and justice diary (published posthumously after she herself became a victim of Russia’s war crimes).
As mentioned in our previous emails, we planned to have a conversation about the role of writers in documenting and being on the receiving end of war crimes. While Amelina’s book would have grounded that conversation in Ukraine, we agreed to take part in the panel on the understanding that the discussion would inevitably extend to Israel's war crimes in Palestine, and to the censorship and complicity of Australia's own arts organisations, mainstream media, and war stenographers in enabling the genocide of Palestinians to continue.
In line with the Code of Conduct for Bendigo Writers Festival Speakers received from you this afternoon, we planned to approach these topics with care, balance and respect, and in no way consider them to be inflammatory or divisive - particularly at a time when being a writer has never been more dangerous.
In the 10 years of its war against Ukraine, Russia has killed more than 220 members of Ukraine's literary community (up to January 2025). In the last two years alone, Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists and media workers in Gaza (more than were killed in World Wars 1 and 2, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Ukraine combined). This made 2024 the deadliest year for writers since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data over 30 years ago. 70% of those killed were killed by Israel. Which is important because, as Amelina reminds us, the second rule of war reportage is to explicitly name who is responsible: ‘The perpetrators must be identified along with the degree of their involvement.’
We are appalled that another writers festival has made the choice to censor the very writers it relies upon, and in such a rushed and clumsy manner that will cause harm to its authors, audiences and the Festival’s own credibility and viability.
Choosing to notify writers the day before the Festival will have a negative impact on speakers’ already-limited incomes, as well as the Festival’s own income through loss of ticket sales. Choosing to do so in a way that endorsed the controversial Universities Australia definition of antisemitism (a month after the Australian Federal Court ruling that anti-zionism and criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic) risks the Festival’s reputation, governance and duty of care. And following those decisions with a disingenuous email that downplayed speakers’ concerns and implied that their inability to accept La Trobe’s definition of wellbeing or safety meant the speakers themselves were unsafe was unfair, harmful, and risks damaging the Festival’s ability to program in the future.
Although we are extremely disappointed to lose the opportunity to speak on these issues, we cannot in good conscience appear at the Festival while Palestinian and First Nations colleagues have been particularly targeted to toe a pro-Israel (or at best, Israel-neutral) line. Further, due to how this has played out, we no longer feel confident that we would be able to discuss these issues in a safe and supported manner that underpins our responsibilities as writers during this critical period in time.
After our close reading of Looking at Women, Looking at War, we feel Amelina would have made a similarly principled stand. As she writes early in her book, "history does not leave me [or us] with much choice".
Always was, always will be. Slava Ukraini. And Free Palestine.
My heart goes out to all of the programmed authors, ticket-holders, BWF team and collaborators, Lviv and Melbourne Cities of Literature, and everyone who wanted to hear these important conversations. But we can - and we must - do better.
Throwback: the statements we make
Unfortunately, the Bendigo Writers Fest mess is just another reminder that failure continues to be the status quo when it comes to Australian arts, cultural and non-profit organisations’ response (or lack of response) to Palestine and similar polycrisis issues as matters of governance, risk and crisis management, financial sustainability and duty of care.
It’s nearly a year since Overland published my piece on the statements we make (which went on to become my most-read article of 2024).
Since then, in spite all the bad-practice examples they’ve had to learn from, we’ve only seen more organisations failing to live up to their purpose or values (including at the highest levels), with very little systemic change (which I’ll talk more about in my return conversation with the Take on Board podcast, due out later this month).
‘In navigating crises and everyday-business alike, everything we do tells the world who we are. There is no neutral, no position that doesn’t come with risk. Pro-actively managing that risk is necessary business, and more effective than leaving it up to others to infer what systems or oppressions our silence accepts or upholds.’
Read more on the Overland website.
Strategic Plans vs strategic planning
When arts boards and organisations don’t know the difference between Strategic Plans and strategic planning, they risk focusing on self-perpetuation instead of purpose.
Yes, these two concepts obviously overlap, so bear with me as I work through the semantics. Because I’ve noticed recently that boards and orgs don’t always know what they mean, and don’t always know what they need.
So, here are some prompts to help you work that out…
Banned. With. collaboration with Absent on Arrival
I will never get over what a gift and a joy it is to make work with artists you admire.
After months of over-excited online plotting, my friend and sound artist Gennaro Sallustio (aka Absent on Arrival) and I were thrilled to release our collaboration on Banned. With., one of the poems from my debut poetry collection, Public. Open. Space. (Fremantle Press, 2023).
Banned. With. was inspired and informed by a six week digital poetry residency at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 2018, part of the Asialink Arts Creative Exchange program. My words and Gennaro’s soundscape explore how digital and physical spaces are controlled and restricted, resisted, protested and endured.
And another thing: model (rule) minimums
When it comes to governance, what is the difference between what’s recommended and what is actually required?
This month's 'and another thing' vlog looks at the ACNC's new constitution templates and the difference between what's recommended and what is actually required when it comes to model rules.
(Spoiler: it's much, much less than you think).
You can find the full list of credits on my website. Or for the full version and archive, you can join me as an advocate, ally or accomplice from just $2.50/month).
Tickets on sale for Emerging Writers Fest
I am thrilled to be back in the Emerging Writers' Festival program as part of Making Arts Careers Work: A Roundtable with Overland literary journal with Cher Tan, Aviva Tuffield and Luke Horton.
Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available for Friday 12 September roundtable on the Emerging Writers Festival website.
July reading recs
My reading highlights from July were:
Always Was, Always Will be by Aunty Fay Muir and Sue Lawson, a must-read history of iconic First Nations protest movements from the 1788 colonisation of so-called Australia to the 2023 Voice referendum. Powerful, inspirational, essential.
Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary by the late Ukranian writer Victoria Amelina. Not an easy read, but a vital one. I sobbed my way through its stark and devastating documentation of those who document war, the grief the book holds fragmented like grief itself, pieced together posthumously after Amelina was killed in a Russian attack.
A re-read of Oathbound, the third magical Arthurian-esque adventure in Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn Cycle, about race and responsibility, privilege and power, running away and re-finding the missing pieces of ourselves.
Clever things I read on the internet include:
Get #CaughtREADHanded in August
Australian reading rates are plummeting. According to Australia Reads, more than a quarter of Australians don’t read or listen to a single book in the space of a year. Despite this trend, new research reveals that half of Australians want to read more. Which requires those of us that read for pleasure to lead by example and help put reading back in the public domain.
As I wrote for the Volume national reading symposium, many of us read in private, or using headphones or digital devices that hide our reading habits.
‘Initiatives that model reading in public are an important part of making the value of reading more visible, and reestablishing it as a normalised and productive behaviour. This could include reading together as a family, school or social activity, book clubs in pubs or social media readathons, or leveraging trusted or celebrity recommendations as entry-points for new or reluctant readers.’
Which is why I’m delighted to support the #CaughtREADHanded reading campaign inspired by Australian authors and illustrators Adrian Beck and Ebony Frost, which challenges readers and role-models from every corner of our community to post pics of themselves reading at home, in public, or somewhere unexpected this month!
You can download the logo from Ebony’s website and use it to post as many times as you like using the #CaughtREADHanded hashtag, especially during CBCA Book Week (16-23 August 2025).
Helping through the helplessness
While the media tide is starting to turn, there are still a lot of people who don’t know the extent of the horrors in Palestine. People who would be happy to help, but just don’t know how.
Unfortunately, donating to aid agencies right now is all but pointless. There’s no shortage of aid, but Israel refuses to open the gates into Gaza - or only through military-controlled aid points, at which hundreds of innocent and staving Palestinians have been shot at and killed over the last month.
While the Australian Government has finally promised to recognise a Palestinian State, words alone aren’t enough. Israel continues to starve and bomb Palestinians to death on our watch (and with our tax dollars).
If you’re looking for ways to help through the helplessness:
Tell your MP to end Australia’s complicity in Israel’s genocide via this online GetUp campaign (it takes <1 minute to make a big difference).
Donate to a mutual aid campaign. The limited goods on the black market are scarce and hugely expensive, but they’re the only way to help Palestinian families right now. Mutual aid is solidarity, not charity. No amount is too small.
Please consider a donation to Hend and her family.
Or choose another campaign to support on Operation Olive Branch or Gaza Funds, and ask your friends and family to help too.
Make Ecosia your default search engine, which not only supports the boycott, but reduces your environmental footprint by avoiding Google’s built-in AI (which uses 10-50x more energy than non-AI search engines) and because Ecosia plants trees for every search you make.
Download and use the Boycat app to help shop ethically.
Attend a local rally or event.
All of us, as UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese says, have the power to influence the system. Together, we can make a difference.
Thank you, Kate.
Congratulations on the stand you are taking.