Peter Clynes, Ara Sarafian and Mia Wotherspoon, all current students at RMIT, will head to Guangzhou and Yangshou in April 2016, along with other emerging and established writers. The WrICE program will provide a life-changing experience for the emerging fellows, who have already begun to make their mark as writers.

Clynes, a student of RMIT’s Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing) and Diploma of Languages in Chinese, has acted as a co-editor for theQueen’s College Newspaper, and co-founded the Kumiho Society in order to self-publish a collection of short stories and visual arts with other members of his programs.

Sarafian is a previous winner of the Australian Writers’ Centre short story competition and been published in The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings, and The Conversation, among others. He was short listed for the 2015 Monash Creative Writing Prize and is now writing his first manuscript while working part-time as an online editor for the ABC.

 Wotherspoon has previously undertaken an editorial internship for The Lifted Brow, and has written for Visible Ink. She is currently a freelance writer and editor, and is working on a full-length manuscript, a collection of short stories and some creative nonfiction warticles. Sarafian and Wotherspoon are both studying RMIT’s Associate Degree in Professional Writing and Editing. 

RMIT’s WrICE program, which aims to build an Asia-Pacific community of writers, spark networks and raise the professional profile of writers across the region, is an initiative of nonfictionLab with support from the Copyright Agency. Between 2013 and 2015, WrICE has brought together 24 emerging and established writers from the across the region for collaborative residencies and public events in Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Melbourne.

Story by Emma Morgan (edited by Katrien Van Huyck)