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 2023 Kat Muscat Fellowship shortlist is:

Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne is a freelance editor/writer/programmer. Their work has appeared in Cordite, Rabbit Journal and Overland, among others.They were shortlisted for the 2022 Val Vallis award, and were the recipient of the 2021 Harri Jones memorial prize, as well as being one of the 2021 Ultimo prize recipients. They were one of the 2021 Next Chapter recipients. They are a genderqueer trans femme and live on unceded Wurundjeri land in Naarm.  

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.

Emily Clements has been a writer for as long as she can remember. Her debut memoir The Lotus Eaters (Hardie Grant Books, 2020) was shortlisted for the National Biography Award; when the judges described her as a ‘bodacious talent’ she knew she had to subtly work it into her bio somehow. Her writing has also been shortlisted for the Scribe Nonfiction Prize, the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction, the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing and the Melbourne Young Writers Award. She is a former editor for Voiceworks and Visible Ink. You can find her and her cat content online @emily_clementsy.

In addition to the shortlisted writers, Express Media and the Custodial committee wanted to congratulation one Highly Commended writer on their excellent application and work- speaking to the themes of Defiance, Feminism and Empathy.

This year’s Highly Commended writer is Daniel Ward!

 

Daniel Ward is a poet and musician. they are the editor and founder of ‘no more poetry’, an independent publisher of poetry books and art magazines. their second and most recent collection is titled eternal delight paralysis. Daniel is currently writing their third book titled lavender poems, a series of writing generated through automatic writing techniques guided by sensory explorations, meditation and mantra. their work explores relationships between transgenderism and pantheism and is interested in the poem as both a problem and a prayer. Daniel also performs predominantly improvised music under the moniker bodies of divine infinite eternal spirit and is the drummer and guitar player for Wet Kiss.

 

The 2023 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.

The Kat Muscat Fellowship custodial were deeply impressed with the standard of applications this year. In an extremely competitive field, these four shortlisted writers blew the custodial committee away!  Applicants demonstrated strong engagement with the values of ‘Defiance, Feminism Empathy’ through their writing and editing, whether personally, politically or creatively.

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 in mid March, 2023. 

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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