Launched at Bathurst Writers’ and Readers’ Festival a new fund, to support an emerging writer, was launched in memory of the late Bathurst writer Tracy Sorensen.
Bathurst Writers’ & Readers’ Festival is a project developed in partnership between Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, Bathurst Library, Books Plus and Arts OutWest.
The late author Tracy Sorensen was an avid supporter of the Festival. We are excited to announce the development of a new Emerging Writers Residency opportunity in Bathurst, in memory of Tracy.
Your contribution will be used to support a stipend for an emerging writer to attend a residency to develop new work, engage with regional communities, and build professional practice in a culturally safe and supportive environment.
We are aiming to provide $3000 for the writer, plus accommodation and studio space. We hope to make this an annual residency so any donations over the $3000 will be saved for next year.
*the above fundraising total is updated daily as donations are processed by the bank.
For information about the Residency please contact Arts OutWest on 02 6338 4657 or kyshead@csu.edu.au
About Tracy Sorensen
Tracy Sorensen was an author, activist and environmental campaigner, teacher, filmmaker, journalist, crafter.
Her debut novel, The Lucky Galah (Picador, 2018), was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. It was shortlisted for the 2019 Russell Prize for Humour Writing, the UST Glenda Adams Award for New Writing (NSW Premier’s Literay Awards), the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2018 and longlisted for the Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction 2019 and the Dublin Literary Award 2020.
In 2019 Tracy received the $100,000 Judy Harris writer-in-residence fellowship, an annual grant given by the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre, which she use to research and develop The Vitals.
Tracy Sorensen earnt a Phd in Creative Practice from Charles Sturt University where she was also a member of Charles Sturt University’s Creative Practice Circle . Her PhD thesis was on Handicraft and Storytelling in the Anthropocene. She officially became Dr Tracy Sorensen from Friday 2 February 2024. Her wider research interests included environmental communication, writing the more-than-human, and the role of handicrafts in storytelling.
Her second novel, The Vitals, was published by Picador/Pan Macmillan in 2023. Both novels played with giving voice to non-humans: The Lucky Galah is narrated by a pink and grey galah, and The Vitals is narrated by a middle-aged woman’s abdominal organs.
Read the May 2025 obituary for Tracy
Image: Tracy with the cover of her book The Vitals at the Charles Perkins Centre Sydney.