At the awards dinner for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards last night, outgoing director of the Wheeler Centre Chrissy Sharp announced the introduction of 20 new Wheeler Centre Writers’ Fellowships. These fellowships will allow 20 writers access to a desk at the Wheeler Centre, each for a two month period, along with a stipend of $1000.

Readings is proud to be supporting these new fellowships, which are being funded by the Readings Foundation. Managing Director of Readings, Mark Rubbo, says: ‘I am very pleased that the Foundation is able to make this grant to support Australian writers. Personally, the work of writers has provided me, my family and Readings staff with a living (and much pleasure) over the years; it is a great privilege to be able to give something back to writers.’

The new fellowships have grown out of similar fellowships which were offered to the three writers who were shortlisted for the Unpublished Manuscript award last year - a prize which is resting this year and will be run again at the 2012 Emerging Writers’ Festival.

Keep an eye on the Wheeler Centre website in the coming weeks for application information.

Speaking of applications, we’ll be doing a call-out for a new round of Readings Foundation grant applications very soon, so stay tuned for that - and some other big news about the Foundation coming soon too!