The Emerging Writers’ Festival work, learn and play largely on the land of the Kulin nation, and pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.

EWF celebrates the history and creativity of the world’s oldest living culture.

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Free, Project, Online & Panel

Sinister Wisdom: Panel

Sinister Wisdom holds the honour of being the longest running lesbian literary magazine in the world.
In this panel, Sinister Wisdom interns, Darla and Pelaya, will hold an intergenerational discussion on the history of lesbian writing and artmaking with Sinister Wisdom’s current editor, Dr Julie Enszer, as well as Joan Nestle (co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives) and Dr. Yasmin Tambiah.

Darla and Pelaya will also discuss the new issue of Sinister Wisdom, Body of Land—an issue arising from the persisting need for cultural diversity in lesbian and queer narratives. In interrogating how the intersection of queer and racial identities inform notions of belonging, Body of Land hopes to show the multiplicity of lesbian and queer histories.

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Monday 9 September, 9AM

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Featuring...

Darla Tejada

Darla Tejada is a long time reader and emerging writer based in Naarm. She is currently undertaking graduate studies in English and her favourite activities include reading obscure queer fiction and taking long aimless walks. You can read her works in publications like Archer, More than Melanin and KYD.

Pelaya Arapakis

Pelaya Arapakis is a cultural worker, musician and writer based in Naarm.

Joan Nestle

Joan Nestle is an 84 year old fem lesbian, co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, NY, (1974-) author and editor of ten books on lesbian, queer culture and literature. She is also a board member of Sinister Wisdom.

Julie Enszer

Julie R. Enszer, PhD, is the author of five poetry collections, including The Pinko Commie Dyke with illustrations by Isabel Paul (Indolent Books, 2024), and editor of OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture, Fire-Rimmed Eden: Selected Poems by Lynn Lonidier, The Complete Works of Pat Parker, and Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989. Enszer publishes Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal. More at www.JulieREnszer.com.

Yasmin Tambiah

Yasmin Tambiah, of Sinhalese and Tamil descent, grew up in Sri Lanka. Trained as a European medievalist, she subsequently researched sexuality and law in postcolonial states, and gender and militarization. Currently working in research management in Australia, Yasmin has also lived in the USA, with stints in Trinidad, India, England and Spain. Her award-winning creative writing has appeared in ‘Nethra’, ‘Conditions’, ‘Sinister Wisdom’ and ‘ZineWest’, and in ‘The Vintage Book of International Lesbian Fiction’ (1999); ‘Celebrating Sri Lankan Women’s English Writing: 1948-2000’ (2002); and ‘Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English poetry from Sri Lanka and its diasporas’ (2023).

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