Creatives In Residence at UTS

Eda Gunaydin, Sheila Ngoc Pham and Felicity Castagna have been writing essays in response to the architecture and space of UTS library. These essays have been used as the basis for a creative work that will soon become a permanent installation over four storys of UTS library. The installation will be composed of text fragments taken from our essays, which will be designed into a number of text installation pieces by Marian Abboud.

Holding The Space at The Sydney Writer's Festival

Thank you to everyone who held the space with us at our Sydney Writer’s Festival event!

Place is one of our makers. It shapes who we are and helps us form friendships, our politics, sense of community and identity. Join poet, legal scholar and essayist Alison Whittaker; writer, critic and visual artist Anwen Crawford; and essayist Eda Gunaydin for an evening of stories, provocations and talks about what it means to be here. MC’d by Maeve Marsden. Afterwards, join us for drinks and light refreshments at an afterparty hosted by DJ and performance artist Ilhan Abdi.

Presented by The Finishing School, The Parramatta Artists’ Studios and the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. Supported by the City of Parramatta and Western Sydney University.

Eda Gunaydin releases Root and Branch

Eda Gunaydin has released her first book Root and Branch, which has become one of the most talked about books this year.

You can purchase Root and Branch anywhere you can buy books or purchase it directly from the publisher HERE.

‘I have come to see that I am an argumentative person who is frequently convinced that my angle, my take, on a matter, is the right one. This kind of delusional self-belief is not rewarded in many other spheres of social life, so I write essays. ‘

There is a Turkish saying that one’s home is not where one is born, but where one grows full – doğduğun yer değil, doyduğun yer. Exquisitely written, Root & Branch unsettles neat descriptions of inheritance, belonging and place. Eda Gunaydin’s essays ask: what are the legacies of migration, apart from loss? And how do we find comfort in where we are? 

Michele Freeman grapples with the publishing industry's problem with class

The Australian Publishing Industry Has a Problem With Class by Michele Freeman (From Overland)

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that a vast majority of people who do the essential work of keeping things ticking along are largely invisible—save for national emergencies, when all of a sudden cleaners and supermarket workers are wheeled out in front of us to ‘tell us what it’s like’. The idea that these same people have larger lives and stories though, is still something that Australia’s literary world struggles to grasp.

Long ago, when the world was different and you could go to events in person, I attended a Sydney Writer’s Festival panel entitled The Larrikin Lie.

The discussion was a mixed bag, and while the panelists made so many good points—around the exclusionary nature of the term larrikin, or the way it can be used to excuse racism and bigotry, or even how it has come to be co-opted, particularly by politicians—there were also some noteworthy missteps. At one point, social researcher Rebecca Huntley shared with the audience what she clearly thought was a valuable insight: namely, that when she questioned a (presumably working-class) focus group in rural Queensland, they told her they didn’t appreciate being questioned as if they were ‘dumb bogans’. They think! And feel! It seemed Huntley—the highly educated daughter of a lawyer, and board member of Bell Shakespeare—was telling us.

Continue reading here:

https://overland.org.au/2021/10/the-australian-publishing-industrys-problem-with-class/

Brittany Searle has been awaded a WestWords Fellowhsip along with Samara Lo and Belle Butler

Brittany Searle is an English teacher from the Campbelltown region who writes about Western Sydney with great affection and is working on a memoir. Samara Lo lives in the Hills, and was one of our WestWords-Varuna residents last year, working under the guidance of Wai Chim. Samara is a passionate fantasy fan and is writing her second middle-grade fantasy novel. And Belle Butler is a musician, photographer and writer who lives in the Blue Mountains.

In addition to the financial support included in this program, Brittany, Samara and Belle will be paired with carefully selected mentors to help them get their projects to where they need them to be, and in preparation to help them take their careers to the next stage. We have secured one of the three mentors, but we won’t say which – you’ll need to read next week’s newsletter to get that information.

Sheila Pham profiles Western Sydney for The Guardian

Sheila Pham has been profiling and responding to Western Sydney’s concerns during this time of uncertainlty. You can read and hear her great work in the Guardian and on the ABC. Here are some places to start:

From The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/27/sydney-lockdown-if-were-all-in-this-together-lets-ditch-the-scapegoating

From The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/12/a-tale-of-two-michaels-one-recovered-from-delta-at-home-the-other-ended-up-fighting-for-his-life?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1628704590

From The ABC

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/blueprintforliving/lost-and-found-western-sydney-bankstown-parramatta-bringelly/13574478

Felicity Castagna releases her latest novel Girls In Boys' Cars

A complicated friendship.

A roadtrip in a stolen car.

The stories that define us.

And two funny, sharp, adventurous young women who refuse to be held back any longer.

Rosa was never really trying to hurt anyone, no matter what they said in court.

But she's ended up in juvenile jail anyway, living her life through books and wondering why her best mate Asheeka disappeared.


A page-turning novel about a complicated friendship; a road trip through NSW in a stolen car; the stories that define us; and two funny, sharp, adventurous young women who refuse to be held back any longer.

Extra/Ordinary open until April 2022

Extra/Ordinary

23 October 2021 - 9 April 2022

Extra/Ordinary presents a creative response to FCMG’s museum collection through art installations and prose. Artists and writers reflect on the stories told and left untold by our objects, photographs and records.

Artists: Make or Break, Dacchi Dang, Jennifer Leahy, Re-Right Collective, Liam Benson, M. Sunflower, Mary Nguyen, Ginette Morato and Gail Barclay
Writers: Sheila Ngoc Pham, Masako Fukui, Hajer, Deniz Agraz (Finishing School Collective + Friends)

Sounds/Words Sydney Writers' Festival 2022

Five writers. Five electronica artists. Listen. Move. Talk. Watch the stars. Let the power of storytelling in all its forms, transport you through the secret gardens, deconsecrated churches, crumbling and renovated sandstone buildings of The Parramatta Female Factory and Institutions Precinct. Featuring sounds by The New Age Noise Collective, words by The Finishing School and special guests, in one of Australia’s most significant and spellbinding historical sites - The Female Factory and Institutions Prescint.

Featuring Liliana Occhiuto and Brittany Searle, Liana Molina and Zarlasht Sarwari, Xiaoran Shi and Yumna Kassab whose work was voiced tonight by Violette Ayad, Ailsa Liu and Vivian Pham, Kavita Bedfor, Hajer, Faith Chaza and Felicity Castagna

Creatives in Residence UTS Library

The Finishing School will be the 2021 Creative In Residence at The Univeristy of Technology Sydney Library. Eda Gunaydin, Felicity Castagna and Sheila Ngoc Pham will be working with the visual artist Marian Abboud in order to create a series of workshops and installation pieces that respond to the architecture of the library and the architectural archives within it.

Images of Marian Abboud and The Finishing School Collaboration for Eat Talk Dance 'Eat Talk Dance' photo credit Jacquie Manning.jpg

Eda Günaydin signs with NewSouth Publishing

We’re excited to report that Eda has just signed with NewSouth Publishing for her debut collection of nonfiction which explores race, class, gender and violence and Turkish diaspora. It’ll be out in 2022. In the meantime, there are a lot of excellent examples online of Eda’s work, most recently Tell All in Sydney Review of Books which has been widely shared around the world. When you read it, you’ll understand why.

Rawah Arja is killing it!

Rawah Arja is currently everywhere - and she deserves to be. We’ve been a huge fan of hers ever since we first met through the FS mentorship program, and it’s such a thrill to see her have such an impact out there in the world. Her heartfelt and honest videos of her life, her family and her community have gone viral and she’s become a bonafide social media star.

Rawah’s brilliant young adult book The F Team was recently published by Giramondo Books. If you want to find out more about it and how it’s been received, here are a few good places to start:

the-f-team.jpg

Sheila Ngoc Pham on Vivian Pham

We are so excited about Vivian Pham’s new book The Coconut Children. Here’s what the blurb says:

Growing up can feel like a death sentence

Life in a troubled neighbourhood demands too much too young. But Sonny wouldn’t really know.

Watching the world from her bedroom window, she exists only in second-hand romance novels and falls for any fast-food employee who happens to spare her a glance.

Everything changes with the return of Vince, a boy who became a legend after he was hauled away in handcuffs at fourteen. Sonny and Vince used to be childhood friends. But with all that happened in-between, childhood seems so long ago. It will take two years of juvie, an inebriated grandmother and a porn stash for them to meet again.

Sheila interviewed Vivian for the Sydney Writers’ Festival and penned a long essay about The Coconut Children and what it represents for Sydney Review of Books too.

coconut children.jpg

The Finishing School Becomes Incorporated

The Finishing School has become incorporated and is now entering a new phase. We are redeveloping ourselves as an arts collective that focuses on cross-disciplinary work. We will be working with visual artists, radiomakers, filmmakers, dancers and people working in other artforms to create dynamic and meaningful work. But we’re proud of history, which we’ve summarised here:

The Finishing School has been based at Parramatta Artists Studios (PAS) since its formation in 2016. We ran community-focused storytelling nights, as well as a mentorship program for women writers in western Sydney. This included one-to-one consultations as well as a writers’ group in where members shared and workshopped their writing in a safe and supportive setting.

We’ve been highly active in the cultural life of this area and beyond. Our members and collaborators represent the distinctive and diverse voices of this region with a strong dedication to collaboration and artistic excellence.

In 2017 the collective produced a large-scale installation for Parramatta Lanes, a festival which attracted well over 100,000 visitors. The group has held several popular events for the Sydney Writers’ Festival at PAS. We were honoured to be a finalist in the prestigious Imagine Awards for a collaborative event with the Parramatta Weave group which was run as part of Art Month.

Our achievements have increased the profile of female writers and artists in western Sydney, and we continue our work with this goal. We wish we could do more but we’re limited by resources and our busy lives, but we have lots of big plans for 2021 and beyond.

collaboration.jpg

May Ngo on Shopping Centres

We enjoyed May Ngo’s essay, ‘Shopping Night’, which was published in Sydney Review of Books:

I sit down in one of those plastic chairs in the food court of Merrylands shopping centre. My Dad has gone off somewhere and I wait for him with a coffee, nicely watered-down, from Michel’s Patisserie. I see mothers here with their prams, though the prams look more like giant toy cars that seem to enclose their smiling babies. As the day starts to veer toward lunch, office workers appear, in their belted pants and ironed blouses, to grab a quick bite to eat. In the food court there is so much choice: sushi, wraps, fish and chips, curries. I see some hesitant pensioners eyeing the fried noodles. By the afternoon there will be teenagers in their school uniforms hanging around and lining up at the McDonalds counter…

Read the full essay here: https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essay/ngo-shopping-night