{"id":29285,"date":"2025-09-16T10:19:31","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T02:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/?post_type=media-release&p=29285"},"modified":"2025-09-16T10:19:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T02:19:35","slug":"festival-of-writing-to-celebrate-50-years-of-world-class-writers","status":"publish","type":"media-release","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/festival-of-writing-to-celebrate-50-years-of-world-class-writers\/","title":{"rendered":"Festival of Writing to celebrate 50 years of world-class writers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Â鶹ֱ²¥ and some of its most famous alumni are inviting the community to celebrate half a century of producing world-class literary talent, with a Festival of Writing<\/a> to mark 50 years since the university\u2019s Creative Writing course\u2019s first graduating class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the oldest university courses of its kind in Australia, the Creative Writing<\/a> major started in 1972 when Curtin was still known as the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT), before the first graduates received their diplomas in 1975.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The years since have seen some of Australia\u2019s biggest literary names participate in the course as students (Tim Winton, Natasha Lester, Sam Carmody), staff (Elizabeth Jolley, Dr David Whish-Wilson, Dr Liz Byrski, Professor Kim Scott) or both (Dr Elizabeth Tan, Dr Madison Godfrey).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year also marks 25 years since Curtin established its successful Professional Writing and Publishing<\/a> course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Festival of Writing will feature speeches and panel discussions with renowned authors, as well as workshops and an exhibition at the TL Robertson Library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Â鶹ֱ²¥ Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne<\/a> said the course\u2019s impressive list of graduates spoke to its quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of Australia\u2019s favourite fiction authors, poets and non-fiction writers have studied Creative Writing at WAIT or Curtin,\u201d Professor Hayne said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Festival of Writing offers a unique opportunity to celebrate Curtin as a wonderful environment to nurture and follow one\u2019s literary dreams, no matter how big.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re proud to play a part in the creation of words which entertain, inform and captivate readers across the country and the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Khin Myint will be among the writers at the Festival, with his novel Fragile Creatures<\/em> having won or been shortlisted for several literary awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Myint studied his undergraduate degree at Curtin before returning to complete his PhD in Creative Writing (Memoir) in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I found at Curtin was a rare balance between creative freedom and scholarly rigour,\u201d Dr Myint said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause the department\u2019s leaders are practicing writers, they understood the craft in the way I needed it explained, while their academic strengths pushed me to dig deeper into my themes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat combination helped me sharpen my craft and carried me to being a published author.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curtin alumna Natasha Lester has also found great success with novels such as The Paris Seamstress<\/em> and will deliver the Festival\u2019s keynote speech, the inaugural Liz Byrski Lecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of her speech, Ms Lester will announce Curtin will partner with Fremantle Press to offer a Liz Byrski Award for narrative non-fiction writers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The award will enable writers to undertake a part-time writing residency at Curtin, with the opportunity for new and emerging students to interact with the resident writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to think of another writer as iconic as Liz Byrski, who has mentored and supported so many other writers and who has contributed quite so much to the fields of literature and journalism,\u201d Ms Lester said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn award for non-fiction in Liz\u2019s name would be both a fitting tribute to one of Australia\u2019s greatest writers and would give new and emerging writers something inspirational and meaningful to strive for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Festival of Writing runs from 11am to 5pm on Saturday, September 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please visit the event homepage<\/a> for more information and to register.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Â鶹ֱ²¥ and some of its most famous alumni are inviting the community to celebrate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4457,"featured_media":29287,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":3,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-29285","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"experts":false,"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":[22646,24387,24388]},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Natasha-Lester-crop-1000x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Jeremic","display_name":"Samuel Jeremic"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/29285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/29285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29285"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=29285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}