The Kat Muscat Fellowship

With the generous support of the Muscat family and the broader community, Express Media is honoured to present the Kat Muscat Fellowship, offering support and development for a young writer or editor. 

Kat Muscat was a brilliant young mind of the Australian writing community, whose formidable talent was demonstrated extensively through her incisive writing and perceptive editing. Kat was an integral part of the Express Media community for many years, before stepping up to become Editor of Voiceworks from 2012 – 2014. Throughout her 10 years with Express Media, Kat helped to shape the careers of young writers and editors from all around Australia. 

Kat’s writing embodied her personal mantra of defiance, feminism and empathy, and the recipient of the Fellowship will take up her notion of challenge: exploring bold subjects, thinking deeply and critically about the world and the culture we consume, and reflecting and building on the craft of writing or editing. 

The Kat Muscat Fellowship offers professional development up to the value of $5,000 for an editorial project or work of writing by a young person of an underrepresented gender. The work must respond to the above values and provocation, continuing Kat’s legacy and further developing the future of defiant and empathetic young Australian writers and editors. 

The Kat Muscat Fellow is selected by the Custodial Committee of The Kat Muscat Fellowship, which includes members of Express Media’s board and staff, the Muscat family and appointed community members. Past recipients include Bri Lee (2016), Fury (2017), Ana Maria Gomides (2018), Liana Skrzypczak (2019), Maddie Godfrey (2020), Dženana Vucic (2021), Munira Tabassum Ahmed (2022), and Taylor Mitchell (2023).

The Fellowship is made possible with the generous support of the community and the Muscat family.

Eligibility Requirements 

To be eligible, applicants must: 

  • Be a person of an underrepresented gender or sex. This includes cis women, trans women, trans men, agender people, non-binary people, intersex people, genderqueer people, genderfluid people. Ultimately gender diverse people and those who are otherwise marginalised due to their gender or sex.
  • Be aged 16 to 30 at the commencement of the fellowship on February 26, 2024.
  • Be an Australian citizen or permanent resident of Australia
  • Propose a suitable project that aligns with the theme of ‘Challenge’, and the values of Express Media and The Kat Muscat Fellowship. 

The committee is evolving and so is the language we use for the fellowship. In regards to gender eligibility for this fellowship, if you feel this should include you but doesn’t, please get in touch (details below). 

What Can I Apply For? 

The Kat Muscat Fellowship offers professional development up to the value of $5,000 in 2024. These funds may be used towards professional development opportunities, including, but not limited to: mentoring, residencies, interstate travel, or project fees. 

A proposed budget must be submitted as part of the application process, and the final budget will be developed in consultation with Express Media.   

Selection Criteria 

These must be directly addressed in your application:

Vision: What is your idea and proposed project?

Impact: What impact will the Kat Muscat Fellowship have on your artistic practice and career, and what is the potential impact of your project on the wider community?

Capacity: What relevant experience or track record have you demonstrated, or how can you outline your personal and creative potential to make this project happen?

Feasibility: How will you realise or execute your proposed project, and is it achievable within the budget and timeframe of the Fellowship? Please include a brief budget to indicate how the funds will be used and if you have secured other funding for this project. If you would like to use our budget template you can download it in Word format here. 

The Custodial Committee of The Kat Muscat Legacy Projects, which includes members of Express Media’s board and staff, the Muscat family and appointed community members, will select successful applications. 

Reporting

The successful applicant will be required to submit a brief update in October 2024. At the completion of the fellowship, the successful applicant will be required to provide a report on the activity undertaken throughout the year. 

This report will be retained for Express Media and the Muscat family for their records and may be used to promote the Fellowship in future years. Guidelines for reporting will be provided to the fellow by Express Media.

 

Applications have been extended to 11:59pm on January 28, 2024

APPLY NOW

 


PAST FELLOWS

Taylor Mitchell | 2023 Fellow

Taylor Mitchell writes essays and fiction. Her work has been published in Griffith Review, Overland and Kill Your Darlings, and she was named runner-up of the Kill Your Darlings’ New Critic Award in 2022. Previously the art program manager at the Environmental Film Festival Australia, she is currently the editorial assistant at Science Write Now and a research assistant examining moving image works critiquing colonial constructions of the so-called-Australian environment.

Munira Tabassum Ahmed | 2022 Fellow

My work through the Fellowship has been distinctly powerful to my own understanding of Kat Muscat’s legacy of defiance, feminism, and empathy; I am endlessly thankful to the Kat Muscat Custodial committee, the Muscat family, and Express Media for this. 

Dženana Vucic | 2021 Fellow

I am so grateful to the Kat Muscat Custodial committee, the Muscat family, and Express Media for this incredible opportunity. Kat Muscat was involved in the first Express Media program I ever participated in and offered me support at the very start of my writing career. I am deeply honoured for this opportunity to create work that embodies ‘feminism, defiance and empathy’ just as she did.

 

Maddie Godfrey | 2020 Fellow

Thank you endlessly to the Kat Muscat Custodial committee, the Muscat family, and Express Media’s incredible team for selecting me as the 2020 Kat Muscat Fellow.

(Image credit- Rachel Barrett)

 

Liana Skrzypczak | 2019 Fellow

 

Thank you to Express Media’s board, staff, the Muscat family, and appointed community members for entrusting this fellowship to me and my ambitious, square peg of a novel, The Lore of Jeju. I hope to be an advocate for Kat’s legacy – a legacy that reminds us how bold prose, brave ideas and fearless delivery can challenge accepted norms and bend the world better one word at a time.                

Ana Maria Gomides | 2018 Fellow

I am so grateful to have been offered this profoundly meaningful fellowship. Kat was a fierce person, editor, writer and activist. Being given the opportunity to contribute to her legacy is an honour that fuels the fire in my belly and my resolve to create something great. My vision is to create a book compilation of short stories, personal essays, and narrative non-fiction, that highlight our intergenerational experiences of womanhood, trauma and dispossession – but also of defiance, joy and triumph. We are Latinx, Black, Brown, First Nations Brazilian, and migrant women; some of us are queer, some mentally ill. […] I call my project Strange and Bitter Crop […] My hope is that one day Strange and Bitter Crop reaches the hands of a secondary student in Australia and she, too, is catapulted into her own journey of the Self.

Read Ana Maria Gomide’s work online

Fury | 2017 Fellow

It is a hushed fact that people who have received a grant or fellowship are more likely to receive another one. Something about one funding body putting faith in you lends credibility and assurance to other funding bodies. It is because of this that I believe my being awarded the Kat Muscat Fellowship greatly assisted in securing funding from the City of Melbourne for a separate project; a graphic novel. The Kat Muscat Fellowship is – and will be, going forward – an integral part of my being able to work, write and create professionally. This opportunity is not a singular opportunity in terms of my career, it is something that will continue to generate opportunity for me.

Check out Fury’s writing online

Bri Lee | 2016 inaugural Fellow

The Kat Muscat Fellowship changed my entire career trajectory. It put me on the map and helped me secure a literary agent which led to my signing with Allen & Unwin. More importantly though, it allowed me to pay two incredible mentors who helped me through the process of drafting my manuscript and who have continued to help me navigate the complexities of the writing life. I have no doubt that I would not be the writer I am today – either on paper or just for myself – without the fellowship. For anyone thinking of applying, please know that I almost didn’t, because of imposter syndrome. I didn’t know what the committee wanted, but felt sure it “wasn’t me”. If that sounds familiar, then know that it’s self-sabotage. Sit your butt in a chair and nail your application. It’s never a waste of time. You never know what might come of it.

Check out Bri Lee’s debut memoir Eggshell Skull (2018, Allen & Unwin)  

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WAYS TO SUPPORT THE FELLOWSHIP

The Kat Muscat Fellowship is made possible through the generous support of our community. Please follow the link below to make a one-off or regular recurring donation to support the development of empathetic and defiant young writers and editors.

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DEFIANCE, FEMINISM, EMPATHY: The Writing of Kat Muscat

Defiance, feminism, empathy. These were the principles that Kat Muscat lived by. This book is a tribute to a strong, angry, and vibrant young voice that was lost too soon, but through her work, will never be forgotten. In October 2018 we launched The Writing of Kat Muscat: a collection of Kat’s published works. You can buy a copy of the book in our online store.