We started out as a mentorship program that targeted emerging women writers in western Sydney, with the goal of improving their skills to become professional practitioners. You can read about some of our many achievements in ‘What we’ve been up to’. Our core directorship is currently Felicity Castagna, Hajer, Eda Gunaydin and Sheila Ngoc Pham but we work with a wide section of female writers both from western Sydney and beyond and also many of the writers who were involved in our orginal mentoship program. We try to be as least territorial as we can - our writers move in and out of working with our collective and we don’t ask them to brand themselves as being part of the collective. We believe this enables a healthier literay community where we can hopefully work with rather than compete with each other.
Writers who were part of The Finishing School origanl mentorship program:
Rawah Arja, Claire Nemorin, Zralasht Sarwari, Joanne Kee, France Gai Pung An, Ailsa Liu, Brittany Searle, May Ngo, Michele Freeman, Eda Gunaydin, Ruth Mooney, Kelly Cheung, Faith Chaza, Felicity Castagna, Sheila Pham, Hajer, Chloe Higgins, Peta Murphy.
In 2021 we are working on projects with:
A host of other writers including Yumna Kassab, Masako Fukui, Vivian Pham, Deniz Agram and Tanya Vavilova.
As well as:
Visual Artists Sheila Ngoc Pham, Shireen Taweel, Mehwish Iqbal, Linda Brescia, Maria Abboud and the all-female electonica group, New Age Noise Collective.
In 2022 we are working with:
Laura La Rosa, Anwen Crawford, Alison Whittacker, Kim Pham, Gary Lonesborough, Bina Bhattacharya, Zharlasht Sarwari, Zhora Aly and May Yousif through many of our public events.
As well as:
Sound artists Ilhan Abdi and Faith Chaza and visual artist Marian Abboud
In 2023 we are working with:
Deniz Agram, Mohammad Awad, Felicity Castagna, Lanneika Denne, Gabriel Faatau’uu-Satiu, Eda Gunaydin, George Haddad, Sarah Malik, Smitha Peter, and Geneva Valek.
As well as:
The Seed of Hope Collective from The Think + Do Tank and Marian Abboud
Our core directorship:
Eda Gunaydin
Eda Gunaydin is a Turkish-Australian essayist whose writing explores class, race, diaspora and Western Sydney. She has been a finalist for a Queensland Literary Award and the Scribe Non-Fiction Prize. Her debut essay collection Root & Branch is out now with NewSouth Publishing. She has obtained numerous shortlistings, awards and fellowships, and was the 2018-2019 Dinny O'Hearn fellow with the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne. Her first is forthcoming in 2021 with New South Publishing.
Hajer
Hajer is a writer, actress and founder of the 'Iraqi Diaspora Creatives Network' an Instagram page showcasing Iraqi creatives across the globe. Hajer's writing explores the experiences of womanhood, messy friendships and everyone’s favourite topic--dysfunctional families.
She is currently writing a novel that has been long listed for the Richell Prize.
Hajer produces an arts event called Sahra Salon. She is also part of the core directorship of the Finishing School Collective. In 2023, she will direct the inaugural SWANA Film Festival.
Felicity Castagna
Felicity Castagna has published four novels for adults and young adults including her most recent book, Girls In Boys’ Cars (2021, Pan Macmillan) which received The Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for YA and is now being adapted for stage and screen. Her previous novel, No More Boats (2017, Giramondo) was a finalist in the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Awards and is published internationally by Europa. Her young adult novel The Incredible Here and Now (2014, Giramondo) received The Prime Minister’s Award for Young Adult Literature as well as the IBBY Award and was a finalist in several other awards including the CBCA Book of the Year Award. She has worked with artists in many different fields to produce cross-artform collaborations for The Sydney Festival, The National Theatre of Parramatta, The Four Winds Festival, The Sydney Opera House and many other places as well as with The Finishing School Collective. Her creative non-fiction and critical responses to literature and art are published both here and internationally on platforms such as The Sydney Review of Books, Electric Literature, LitHub, The Griffith Review and ABC radio and television.
Sheila Ngoc Pham
Sheila Ngọc Phạm is a writer, editor and radio producer working across public health, media and the arts. She writes for a wide range of literary and mainstream publications, and was a finalist for the 2021 Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism. Her most recent essay 'Western Sydney is dead, long live Western Sydney!' was commissioned by urban theatre projects and published on Sydney Review of Books. She is Contributing Editor for diaCRITICS, the journal of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network based in the United States. Sheila has previously held digital and editorial roles at the ABC, as well as producing features and stories for ABC Radio National. She co-produced Tongue Tied and Fluent, a five-part series exploring multilingualism in Australia, which was awarded an ABU-UNESCO Together for Peace Media Award 2021. Her most recent audio co-production is the My Bilingual Family podcast for SBS, which launched on International Mother Language Day 2022. Sheila lives on Dharug land with her husband and two children.