Who Are APWN

APWN is an initiative of Melbourne PEN Centre, supported by Australian PEN Centre and Asialink.
Melbourne PEN is a member of International PEN, the world wide association of writers whose primary concern is the promotion of literature as a means of understanding across borders. It is an apolitical, non-government, not for profit organization.
http://www.pen.org.au
http://www.internationalpen.org.uk

The Asialink Centre is a non-academic department of The University of Melbourne. The Asialink Centre promotes public understanding of the countries of Asia and creates links with Asian counterparts.

Asialink Arts has been working since 1990 to promote cultural understanding, information exchange and artistic endeavour between Australia and Asian countries.To date Asialink Arts has worked with 19 countries in Asia including: Bangladesh, Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Asialink Arts offers artistic and cultural programs within Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Literature and Arts Management and has on-going communication networks and experience in and with Asia.
http://www.asialink.unimelb.edu.au


    APWN is an alliance of many individuals and organisations including: PEN Centres; Pacific Writing Forum; Paradox Literary Centre; Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership (http://www.apwriters.com); The Literary Centre.

    The International Advisory Committee (IAC) role is to advise on the development of: the direction and concerns of the network; network membership; website; meetings and opportunities for dialogue or the presentation of writing and writers; regional performance circuit; funding; and further activities of Network. The current members are:

  • Dr Isagani R Cruz, is a Full Professor and a University Fellow at De La Salle University.  He writes plays, essays, and short stories in Filipino and English, for which he has won numerous national and international awards.  He has written or edited more than 30 books.  He is National Secretary of the Philippine Center of International PEN.
  • Born in Africa in 1970, SAMPURNA CHATTARJI is an award-winning poet, fiction writer and translator. Her books include The Greatest Stories Ever Told and Abol Tabol: The Nonsense World of Sukumar Ray, both published by Penguin India. Her poetry has featured on Hong Kong Radio; in the international documentary Voices in Wartime and in First Proof: The Penguin Book of New Writing from India 2; Fulcrum Number Four 2005: Give the Sea Change and It Shall Change: Fifty-six Indian Poets (1951-2005) and Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices from a New Generation of Women, an anthology released by the International Museum of Women (IMOW) in San Francisco, to name a few. She was the winner of the Charles Wallace India Trust Creative Writing Scholarship 2005, which took her to Edinburgh and the recipient of the Highlights Foundation Scholarship 2006 which took her to New York this summer. She is also the winner of the 2nd prize in the All-India Poetry Competition 2005, organized by the Poetry Society of India and the British Council for her poem ‘Salt’.  Sampurna is an Executive Committee Member of the PEN All-India Centre, Mumbai.
  • Mohit Prasad teaches Pacific Literature and Creative writing at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Fiji. He has published two volumes of poetry through the Pacific Writing Forum based at USP, Eyes of the Mask (1998) and Eating Mangoes (2000). His research interests lie in popular culture and he wrote The History of Soccer in Fiji. At present publication of his creative work is on the backburner as he finished a Phd on Indo-Fijian Diaspora and Popular Culture at the University of Western Sydney. A new collection, Kissing Rain, is being readied for publication. Two other collections of poems; Jahajin in the Songs of Kipling, and Vijay Singh Chased Chickens on my Fathers Farm are being read towards publication later in 2005.
  • Goenawan Mohamad, commentator, journalist, poet, Jakarta, Indonesia
  • Ivy Alvarez is the author of Mortal (Washington, DC: Red Morning Press, 2006). A MacDowell and Hawthornden Fellow, the Australia Council for the Arts and the Welsh Academi both awarded her a grant to write poems for her second manuscript. http://www.ivyalvarez.com
  • Kirpal Singh is currently teaching Creative Thinking at the Singapore Management University. He writes fiction and poetry.
  • Jane Camens is the Director of Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership (http://www.apwriters.com) and also started Hong Kong’s literary festival. She is a writer and journalist, and a member of both HK and Sydney PEN.
  • Fred Armentrout, Hong Kong PEN Centre (English speaking);
  • Nicholas Jose has published short stories, essays and translations and several acclaimed novels, including Paper Nautilus (1987), The Rose Crossing (1994), The Custodians (1997) and The Red Thread (2000). His most recent book is Black Sheep: Journey to Borroloola (2002). He has written widely on contemporary Asian and Australian culture. He is a member of Sydney PEN Centre.
  • Michelle Berridge has substantial experience in written and oral communication and a deep interest in the human condition. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree with First Class Honours in English from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and has since spent two years working with an independent publisher to research and write a substantial non-fiction text. Michelle is passionately committed to nurturing creativity in the community and has contributed in a voluntary capacity as Secretary and Chair of the Canterbury Branch, New Zealand Society of Authors.
  • Maiping Chen Independent Chinese PEN Centre
  • Tran Vu - Vietnamese Writers Abroad PEN Centre
  • berni m janssen is the co-ordinator and webspinster of apwn. She is a writer, cultural worker and a member of Melbourne PEN Centre.
  • Dr Judith Buckrich was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1950 and emigrated to Australia with her parents in 1958. She has returned to Hungary several times and was working for the English language Daily News during the 1989 velvet revolution. She is an Honorary Research Fellow in Melbourne University’s Cultural Heritage Unit and a Consulting Fellow of the World Innovation Foundation. Judith is the author of Melbourne’s Grand Boulevard: The Story of St Kilda Road, The Montefiore Homes:150 Years of Care, George Turner: A Life, The Long and Perilous Journey: A History of the Port of Melbourne, Lighthouse on the Boulevard: A History of the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind and Collins: Australia’s Premier Street. She has several entries in the Encyclopedia of Melbourne, including those on Collins Street and St Kilda Road and was an image researcher for the project. In 2005 she curated an exhibition ‘History: Community: Identity: Showcasing Melbourne’s Diversity’ for the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. In her other writing life she has written her own one woman shows, short stories, feature articles. She has taught writing at Deakin University. Judith has recently completed a history of the Prahran Technical School to be published in 2007 and has begun researching the 150 year history of the Melbourne University Boat Club to be published in 2009. She is Chair of the International PEN Women Writers’ Committee and Vice-President of the Melbourne Centre of PEN.  She regularly speaks about her work on television and radio and gives talks at the National Gallery of Victoria, Royal Historical Society of Victoria and for many other organizations.
  • Dr. Cathie Koa Dunsford [Nga Puhi Maori/Hawai’ian & Pakeha ancestry] is author of 20 books in print and translation in USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Turkey, including the Cowrie novel series featuring strong tangata whenua from the Pacific region http://www.spinifexpress.com.au She is director of Dunsford Publishing Consultants, which has brought 184 new and award winning Pacific authors into print internationally: http://www.dunsfordpublishing.com She is recipient of two literary grants from Creative New Zealand Arts Council and was International Woman of the Year in Publishing in 1997. She has taught writing and publishing courses at Auckland University since 1975.  She tours the world performing from the books with traditional Maori waiata and taonga puoro. Contact:
  • Dr. Karin Meissenburg is a translator, editor, researcher and author, based in Germany, Orkney/UK and Aotearoa/New Zealand. She is co-director of Global Dialogues, an international editing and translation company. Karin participated on the Translation Panel at the first Asia and Pacific Writers Conference in Melbourne, 2005, where the politics of translation was debated with spirit between professional translators and writers. She is the author of several articles and books including The Writing on the Wall, Asian-American Writing on the Pacific Rim and The Dynamic Web: Contextual Logic.