Migrant Women's Stories - Book Launch

KÖKSAV.AU - Cultural Patterns Art Collective Australia warmly invites you to the Melbourne launch of Boynumdaki Ağırlık (“The Weight on My Neck”), a collection of powerful stories written by Turkish-speaking migrant women.

“In these pages, there are stories of starting over, holding on, and establishing shattered identities in different ways. Some are trying to make room for themselves in the noise of a factory, while others are looking for their own voice while raising their children between two languages and two cultures.”

— Sultan Çinar

📅 11 October 2026

📍 Vizzini Social Club

🕐 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

WHO ARE WE?

The KÖKSAV Women’s Stories – Labour Series, Australia Group was formed when women of Turkish background living in Melbourne came together in response to this invitation. Over time, what began as a writing project developed into a strong space for solidarity, where women learn from one another, share their experiences and come together through collective creative practice.

OUR PURPOSE

The purpose of the KÖKSAV Women’s Stories – Labour Series, Australia Group is to:

• Bring women’s often unseen labour and creative abilities in storytelling to light, and encourage women to write;

• Make women’s lives, experiences and struggles visible in all their complexity through storytelling;

• Enable migrant women to have a visible presence in Australian literature in their own voices;

• Translate these stories of lived experience in Australia into English and share them with English-speaking readers;

• Create a lasting, open and supportive space where women can transform their lived experiences into literary and creative work.