PRESS RELEASE 1 December 2020
For the second year running Australian creatives are returning to Brunei under the Young Entrepreneurs & Leaders Speaker Series to deliver an impactful program around Australia-Brunei partnerships.
The Tiny Lit Fest is a local literary festival in Brunei that aims to amplify and celebrate local literature, and play a part in nurturing the local literary ecosystem, including publishers, readers, writers, printers, educators and all kinds of storytellers. Held as part of the Brunei December Festival 2020 (3-13 December), Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Southeast Asian authors, artists, publishers and editors will join audiences to discuss the ins and outs of all things literary.
Four signature Australia-Brunei events will dominate the Young Entrepreneurs & Leaders Speaker Series events at the Fest. The Stella Prize, a major Australian literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing will be leading a series of two masterclasses on poetry and prose writing, with award-winning authors Laniyuk and Sarah Ayoub.
Stella was created in 2012 to counter the gender bias rife in the Australian literary landscape at the time.
“Stella’s ultimate purpose is to ensure women and non-binary writers are celebrated for their contribution to Australian culture and that readers can find and enjoy their books,” says Executive Director Jaclyn Booton.
“Sarah Ayoub and Laniyuk have been incredibly popular with the young and emerging writers that participate in Stella’s Schools Program… The chance to hear from them directly in an intimate workshop setting is not one I’d pass up!” says Ms. Booton.
Award-winning comic book artist Nicola Scott and author Andrew Constant will join Brunei-based Fanboys Infinite for an exclusive session on the comic industry in the age of pandemics and their experiences working on some of the biggest characters out there – from Superman, to Wonderwoman and more.
Our Q&A panel event on Children’s Publishing will feature Australian and Singaporean industry leaders, including Grace O’Hara from Small Fires Publishing (Melbourne), Felicity Dunning from University of Queensland Press (Brisbane), and Priti Sharma from Epigram Press (Singapore).
“There is a lot of work to be done in making inclusive stories that celebrate our differences and reflect our experiences. Small Fires are excited to be part of the Tiny Lit Festival, which honours the tradition of storytelling across cultures, and which seeks to spark conversations around how publishing can be more inclusive,” says Grace O’Hara.
Australian events will finish on the 9th of December with Robert Wood from the Centre for Stories (Perth), Wallea Eaglehawk from Revolutionaries (Brisbane), and Amir Muhammad from Buku Fixi (Kuala Lumpur) discussing small and independent publishing, voices from the margins, and the stories that often go untold.
All events are free and open to the public. For more information and to sign up to events, visit: https://socialgoodoutpost.com/curates/asean-digital-delegation/tiny-lit-fest/ and for the full program of events, check out @theTinyLitFest on Instagram.
This event series is a collaborative partnership between Heartwrite, the Australian High Commission in Brunei Darussalam, the Australia-ASEAN Council and Social Good Outpost.
