Express Media and the Kat Muscat Fellowship Committee are thrilled to announce the shortlist for this year’s Kat Muscat Fellowship, which offers support and development to a young Australian writer and/or editor of an underrepresented gender.

The 2021 Kat Muscat Fellowship shortlist is:

Millie Baylis, a writer and arts worker living in Melbourne, on Wurundjeri land. She writes memoir, essays and short fiction, largely about trauma, chronic illness, disability and care. In 2019 she was a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow and a Moreland Writer in Resident. Her work has appeared in places like Kill Your Darlings, Overland and The Big Issue Fiction Edition. 

Alex Creece, a writer, poet, student and average kook living on Wadawurrung land (Geelong, Victoria). She also tinkers with other people’s poems as the Production Editor for Cordite Poetry Review. Alex was awarded a Write-ability Fellowship in 2019 and a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship in 2020. She is currently working on her debut poetry manuscript, S C R E E C H.

 

Dženana Vucic, a Bosnian-Australian writer, editor, and critic. Her poems and essays have been published in Cordite, Overland, Meanjin, SAND, Kill Your Darlings, Going Down Swinging, Australian Poetry Journal, the Australian Multilingual Writing Project, Rabbit, and others. She is a 2020 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow and tweets at @dzenanabanana.

Max Castle is an emerging writer, editor and community anti-violence worker living on unceded Wurundjeri lands. Their current writing centres trans and non-binary experiences of eating disorders, collective healing and transformative justice

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The 2021 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 aged 16-30. Now in its sixth year, the Fellowship aims to  continue Kat’s legacy and further develop the future of defiant and empathic young Australian feminists.

Veronica Sullivan, chair of the Kat Muscat Fellowship custodial committee, said of this year’s shortlist: “Across a very strong field, these four applicants stood out as compelling and original projects that embody Kat’s legacy of defiance, feminism and empathy. The shortlisted projects are thoughtful, tender, funny, and joyful, and traverse forms including memoir, poetry, autotheory and anthology. They address challenging and important themes such as neurodiversity, eating disorders, trans lives, illness, family, and refugee experiences. Each of the four shortlistees is deserving of support and a wide readership.”

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

The Kat Muscat Fellow is selected by 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. This year’s Fellow will be announced March 14th, 2021, with our annual Blue Breakfast event occurring later in the year (governmental restrictions permitting). 

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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