Our Stories, Our Voices: A Workshop for BIPOC Writers
Description
Australia is more plural than its bookshelves have ever suggested. The writers in this room know that — and they wrote anyway.
Our Stories, Our Voices brings together writers and storytellers who identify as BIPOC for 90 minutes of conversation, craft and community. It is built around a simple idea: that hearing from writers who have navigated a complex cultural landscape — and made something worth reading from it — is both practical and necessary. Not a lecture. Not a panel of grievances. A room full of people who already understand each other’s starting point, learning from those who are further along the path.
Who is this event for? In the Australian context, BIPOC includes Black, Indigenous, and all People of Colour — writers from African, Middle Eastern, North African, South Asian, East Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, and all other non-European backgrounds, and those of mixed heritage. Our use of these terms is grounded in the Australian lived experience of racialisation, not imported US demographic categories. If this description speaks to your experience, this event is for you.
What to expect
Melissa Cranenburgh moderates a panel with Maxine Beneba Clarke, John Morrissey and special guests — writers whose work reflects the cultural plurality of contemporary Australia. The conversation will move through their origins as writers, their experience of the publishing landscape, and what continues to sustain them. No two journeys look the same; that is the point.
The panel is followed by a facilitated writing workshop, with prompts drawn directly from the conversation. You are not required to share what you write. You are not required to speak. You are welcome to listen, observe, and take what is useful.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to register their interest in the WOW BIPOC Writers Collective — a new, ongoing community for BIPOC writers in Melbourne’s west, with future writers’ cafés, peer workshops and author talks to come.
For the workshop, please bring the writing aid or materials you prefer to work with
Format
• Welcome, Acknowledgement of Country & access check-in, introduction — 15 minutes
• Panel discussion — 45 minutes
• Facilitated writing workshop — 30 minutes
Moderator & Facilitator: Melissa Cranenburgh
Panellists: Maxine Beneba Clarke, John Morrisey, and special guests to be announced
Presented by Williamstown Literary Festival & Writers Out West
Cost Pay what you feel — free or $15. No one turned away.
This is a culturally safe, trauma-informed space. We are neurodivergent-aware. If you have specific access requirements, please contact the festival team in advance.
Lineup
Jane Wong
Jane Wong is a mixed-race writer and multidisciplinary creative raised by elders of many cultures. A former contributor to The Age and recovering ad person, she is currently working on her first novel — fiction that smells like eucalyptus, sounds like acid jazz, and sometimes tastes like cha siu on toast. A Certified Director and executive consultant across health, arts and NFP sectors, she is a BIPOC Committee Member at Writers Out West and the founding organiser of this event.
Melissa Cranenburgh
Melissa Cranenburgh is a Jewish–Anglo-Indian writer, editor, broadcaster and educator from Naarm/Melbourne. She worked in senior editing roles for more than a decade, including as Associate Editor of The Big Issue and co-editor of The Big Issue’s Fiction Edition. She presented Triple R’s book show Backstory, and now teaches across RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing Associate Degree and Certificate programs. She runs her own copywriting, editing and manuscript assessment business, melissacranenburgh.com, and is completing her first memoir – ‘Half-Baked Bread’ – exploring the complicated inheritance of a multi-generational mixed-race identity.
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Maxine Beneba Clarke is one of Australia’s most celebrated poets. She is the author of over fourteen books, including the bestselling memoir The Hate Race, the ABIA and Indie award-winning short fiction collectionForeign Soil, the Victorian Premier’s Award-winning poetry collection Carrying the World, the ABIA award-winning poetry collection It’s the Sound of the Thing, the Kate Greenaway Medal longlisted illustrated poemWhen We Say Black Lives Matter and the CBCA honour book The Patchwork Bike, which also won theBoston Globe Horn Prize for Best Picture Book. She was the inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence at The University of Melbourne.
John Morrissey
John Morrissey is a Melbourne writer of Kalkadoon descent. He was the winner of the 2020 Indigenous Writers Mentorship and runner-up for the Nakata Brophy Prize in 2018. John’s debut Firelight won an Aurealis Award and a Queensland Literary Award, and in 2024 he was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist. Bird Deity is his first novel.
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