Portraits of Women as Creative Writers – In Conversation with Amani Haydar, Shirley Le and Winnie Dunn

Amani Haydar is a visual artist and writer of Lebanese heritage. She is also an advocate for women’s well-bein Amarni g and safety and a former lawyer. In 2015 Amani Haydar suffered the unimaginable when she lost her mother in a brutal act of domestic violence perpetrated by her father. Her book The Mother Wound (2021), exploring the effects of domestic abuse and state-sanctioned violence on women, has won multiple awards including the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction. Writing with grace and beauty, Amani has drawn a story of female resilience and the role of motherhood in the home and in the world. In the book she uses her own strength to help other survivors find their voices. Amani’s writing has also been featured in collections such as Racism, Arab Australian Other, Sweatshop Women, and anthology After Australia.

Shirley Le is an Australian writer of Vietnamese heritage from Western Sydney and a member of the Sweatshop Writers Collective. Her first novel Funny Ethnics (2023) catapults readers into the sprawling city-within-a-city that is Western Sydney and the world of Sylvia Nguyen: only child of Vietnamese refugee parents, unexceptional student, exceptional self-doubter. It's a place where migrants from across the world converge, and identity is a slippery, ever-shifting beast. Shirley Le’s writing has also appeared in The Age, Overland, Meanjin and Sweatshop anthologies.

Winnie Dunn is an Australian writer of Tongan heritage from Mount Druitt in Western Sydney. She is the general manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and the editor of several critically acclaimed anthologies including Sweatshop Women and Another Australia. Winnie's debut novel, Dirt Poor Islanders (2024) is a potent, mesmerising novel that opens our eyes to the brutal fractures navigated when growing up between two cultures and the importance of understanding all the many pieces of yourself. It is the first published novel written by a Tongan-Australian.

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