Since 2017, the Neilma Sidney Literary Travel fund has provided access to professional development for emerging, mid-career and established Australian writers and literary sector workers.
On behalf of the Myer Foundation, this round’s judges and Writers Victoria, we are thrilled to announce the Round 12 Travel Fund recipients.
The judges for Round 13 were author, publisher and editor Xavier Hennekinne (NSW), writer, critic and librarian Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen (VIC) and programming manager Christine Gordon (VIC).
This round is the first for 2025, with 167 people applying for $1,006,032 in funding. After much deliberation, the judges awarded $50,595 to eight successful recipients.
Congratulations to:
- Writer and photographer Inga Simpson (NSW) – awarded funding to travel to Ushuaia, Argentina, to join an Antarctic Peninsula expedition as part of research for a novel title The Memory of Ice.
- Writer and teacher Ernest Price (VIC) – awarded funding to travel to the United States of America to undertake research about the rise of far-right extremism.
- Author, editor and translator Jennifer Down (VIC) – awarded funding to attend a month-long artist residency in rural Connecticut, USA, to work on her fourth book.
- Artist, illustrator and writer Lisette Muratore (VIC) – awarded funding to travel to Gambier Islands, French Polynesia, to conduct research for her project on atomic testing.
- Author Emily Maguire (NSW) – awarded funding to travel to Rome to research a novel that will be part of a thematic trilogy inspired by three women said to be behind the millennium-old story of a female pope.
- Writer Bradley David (VIC) – awarded funding to travel to Manchester, UK, to undertake research and work on his project Think of Yourself as Plural: A Novel on the Trail of Inheritance, Liminal Bodies, and Chromotrope Diasporas.
- Novelist and scriptwriter Clare Atkins (NSW) – awarded funding to travel to Vietnam to work on Red, Yellow Green, a historical fiction novel about three generations of a Vietnamese-Australian family.
- Publishing Director of Books+Publishing, Dr Kate Cuthbert (VIC) – awarded funding for the staff of Books+Publishing to attend regional and remote festivals to provide coverage of events that are not among the mainstays of the literary calendar.
To read more about the Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund, including previous rounds and recipients, visit this page.