Express Media and the Kat Muscat Fellowship Committee are thrilled to announce Munira Tabassum Ahmed as the recipient of the 2022 Kat Muscat Fellowship, which offers support and development to a young Australian writer and/or editor of an underrepresented gender.

The 2022 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 seventh year, the Fellowship aims to continue Kat’s legacy and further develop the future of defiant and empathic young Australian feminists.

Munira Tabassum Ahmed, the recipient of the 2022 Kat Muscat Fellowship, says:

“It is a tremendous honour to be named the 2022 Kat Muscat Fellow, and I thank the Kat Muscat Custodial committee, the Muscat family, and Express Media endlessly. The support of the fellowship will be indispensable to my growth as a young writer and allow me to seek out resources for professional development. I will be working on a hybrid manuscript, tentatively titled ‘Biomythography for the Last Poet-King’ that will explore how the mythos of martyrdom intersects with motherhood and girlhood, and the means by which language and voice can be tools to challenge subjugation.

Even though I never got the chance to work with Kat Muscat, the way her writing continues to be deeply impactful proves her brilliance. I am so grateful that the people who knew her best have entrusted me with this opportunity, and I truly hope that my work further contributes to Kat’s incredible legacy of defiant, intersectional empathy.”

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.

Chair of the Kat Muscat Custodial Committee, Veronica Sullivan, says:

“The Kat Muscat Fellowship custodial committee are absolutely thrilled to announce Munira Tabassum Ahmed as the 2022 Fellow. In an incredibly strong year of Fellowship applications, we were instantly enthralled by Munira’s project, a hybrid manuscript exploring language, power, myth and community through the worldview of Bangladeshi women. It is rare to encounter a young writer with a voice and craft so dazzlingly original and so fully-developed, and we can’t wait for readers to be moved, challenged and compelled by her work.”

We congratulate Munira and look forward to working with her. We can’t wait to read the incredible work she will produce.

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Munira Tabassum Ahmed  is a 16-year-old writer. Her work is published in Best of Australian Poems 2021, Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal, SOFTBLOW, Emerging Writers’ Festival, Runway Journal, The Lifted Brow, Cordite, and elsewhere. She was a 2020-21 youth curator and moderator for the Sydney Writers’ Festival, and co-host of a 2021 Culture Makers Lab workshop with the Immigration Museum, Melbourne. Currently, she edits Hyades Magazine.

 

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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