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Words

a Portfolio and Blog

Writing Awards

  • Four Centres’ Emerging Writers Program, WAPI (2021-2023)
  • Katherine Susannah Prichard Fellowship Residency (2022)
  • Midsumma Pathways Fellowship (2021-2022)
  • Ballina Region for Refugees Seeking Asylum Poetry Prize, second (2021)
  • Emerging Writer Development Program, Westerly (2021)
  • To The Front Playwright Program, Static Drive and Blue Room Theatre (2021)
  • Inclusion Matters Fellowship, Centre for Stories (2019-2020)

Publications

Forthcoming:

  • “Revisiting the harm and consequence of development” – Voices from the Darker Side of Development 2 (TBA)
 
Literary and arts reviews
  • Literature, Fremantle Press
  • Literature, University of Queensland Press
  • Literature, live art and cultural events, ArtsHub
  • Live art and cultural events, FringeWorld Perth Fringe Festival (2021-2022)
 

Appearances

Upcoming

  • TBA

 

Past

Electronic / Print:

 

  • Wings. (2022). In In Flux. Nichols, A. Azul, D. Lawson, N. The Swamp System & Dawkins, U. (eds).
  • never coming out. (2022). In In Flux. Nichols, A. Azul, D. Lawson, N. The Swamp System & Dawkins, U. (eds).
  • How do they rest, Ballina Region for Refugees Seeking Asylum Poetry Prize winners poetry feature, in Social Alternatives Journal (2021)
  • Fractals of Domestic Violence. (2021) In Westerly (66.2), Taylor, J. (ed). 
  • a closed book is but a block of paper. (2021) [excerpt, play] In Tasting Plate
  • Reflections as a Westerly Writing Development Program Fellow (2021)
  • Critical essay: “Racism: Stories on fear, hate and bigotry“. (2021) Mascara Literary Review.
  • “Interview with Emily Sun: A vociferous invitation to exist” – Portside Review (July, 2021)
  •  “Yours or other”, Soft Borders, Hard Edges, 5.1, [poem] (print and digital, 2021)
  • “Not a girl to be picked on”, Soft Borders, Hard Edges, 5.1, [poem] (print and digital, 2021)
  • “Things left unsaid”, Soft Borders, Hard Edges, 5.1, [poem] (print and digital, 2021)
  •  “Transphobia and the Domestic and Family Violence Field”, Archer, (May, 2021)
  • Live arts and culture events reviews, FRINGE WORLD, (2021-2022)
  • Feminist Writers Festival, interviews with Australian authors, (April, 2020 – April, 2021)
  • Feminist Writers Festival, reviews (2020 – 2021)
  • “Known”, Bent St, Volume 4.2, [poem] (print and digital, November, 2020)
  • “Fiercely Independent”,  Bent St, Volume 4.2, [poem] (print and digital, November, 2020)
  • “Secret Pockets” – To Hold the Clouds  [narrative non-fiction] [anthology of prose and poetry] (November, 2020)
  • Visible Witness” – Journal  [narrative non-fiction] (digital, October 2020)
  • V for Vulnerable” – Westerly [non-fiction] (print and digital, July 2020)
  • WA Poets Inc Perth Poetry Festival – World Poetry Day [poem] (March, 2020) 
  • “The nail that sticks out gets hammered in” [review of “Growing up queer in Australia”. Edited by Benjamin Law] Singapore Review of Books (December 2019)
  • “#CBD” – Bent St, Volume 3 [poem] (print and digital, November, 2019)
  • Perth Culture [reviews of live events, art exhibitions, and performance arts]
  • Emergent Arts, A Case for a Perth-based Asia-Pacific Arts Festival, 2014 [non-fiction contribution]
  • untitled in Brillig, [prose] (print, Volume 1995)
  • untitled in Brillig, [prose; poem] (print, Volume 1997)
  • Content creation for clients and projects including: Feminist Writers Festival, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, Regional Arts Australia Summit, Regional Arts WA, Australian Theatre for Young People, Women’s Community Health Network WA, Leadership Western Australia, Department of Communities, City of Subiaco, United Nations for Sustainable Development Goals 2020, and others

Writing Community

  • Flora’s Salon 2020-2022 (currently on hiatus)
    • Co-host and facilitator
    • WHEN: Paused
    • WHERE: The Nook, Subiaco Library, 237 Rokeby Road, Subiaco
  • Sunday Writing at WA State Library 2020
    • Guest host and facilitator
  • SFF (Science fiction, fantasy, spec fic) Collective 2020
    • Guest co-facilitator
  • Playwright collective
  • Reviews
    • ArtsHub
    • Fremantle Press
    • UQP
    • Feminist Writers Festival
    • FringeWorld Festival
    • Emerging authors, particularly disabled and/or LGBTIQA+
    • Arts and cultural events/experiences
  • Sensitivity reading
    • disability and chronic illness, queer identity and rights, human rights
    • domestic and family violence, intimate partner violence, trauma
Brass fountain pen on white background. Image by Art Lasovsky.

Creating in the age of a global pandemic

As many of us are keenly aware, our global community is continuing to evolve in response to the ongoing and dynamic challenges of COVID-19. Paid work and participating in public spaces is high-risk for me, as a disabled person with chronic illnesses.

If you are financially able and find my words, art, or other projects, to be meaningful, valuable, or in some way helpful, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi or being a supporter through Paypal or Patreon.

Sharing my writing and advocacy (with credit please!) is also a much appreciated way to support my work.

Thank you for visiting.

Two hands holding a papercut heart. Image by Kelly Sikkema

Commissioning Content

Do you need a speech or presentation that will be compelling, evidence-based, and inspire action? Do you need people to understand and work with you towards your mission? Do you want to build a sense of community, build relationships, develop partnerships and communicate effectively with stakeholders?

I can develop messaging and content that will help people to understand and feel passionate about the mission and aims of your organisation or project. Connecting with community members and stakeholders is necessary if you want to create social change, whether by achieving impact in an urgent campaign or inspiring commitment to a cause. 

Adele specialises in not-for-profit and for-purpose strategic development, community engagement, facilitation, and social impact.

Major Works In Progress

Yin Yang fern. Image by Mario Dobelmann.

I am currently researching and developing two major non-fiction works:

  • A collection of women’s stories, exploring their defining moments, challenging the definition of success, and celebrating the ways in which they have and continue to leave a mark on those around them. Women (including trans and femmes), GNC, NB, iand intersex people continue to hold up half the sky but their stories do not fill half our shelves or half the pages we read. Excerpts from interviews and conversations will be featured in the podcast.
  • A challenge of the paradigm we utilise to respond to (and seek to prevent and reduce) family, domestic, and gendered violence in Australia and the ways in which it fails to appropriately encompass cultural safety and intersectional risks, needs, and experiences of First Nations’ and Indigenous Peoples, people of colour, LGBTIQA+ people, people with disability and people whose experiences are moderated by remoteness/rurality/visa status. 

New works are inspired by fairy-tale and mythology to explore dark themes and the edges of our potential for different ways forward. 

My poetry plays with form, imagery, and lyricism to explore and challenge definitions, identity, and existence. 

My art practice incorporates the underlying philosophy of wabisabi in melding traditional and contemporary methods, recognising that we straddle multiple ways and truths, and there are many possibilities in navigating the worlds we find ourselves occupying. I challenge the idea that cracks, fragility, visibility of broken history are synonymous with lesser than. Our valuable and idiosyncratic stories and inform our present and future potential, and scars are witness to those journeys.

Podcast - Under Development

Explore the journeys of Wonder Women from around Australia sharing their reflections on their core values and exercising vulnerability. Gain insights while you join us in challenging the definitions of success, and celebrate what it means to be a woman.