Vivian Pham has been awarded the Copyright Agency – UTS New Writer in Residence fellowship for 2024.
I reread the acceptance email a dozen times before I could muster up a celebratory scream. I am honoured and delighted to become a part of UTS' community of writers through the Copyright Agency-UTS New Writer's Fellowship. I look forward to having my very own office on campus to write, listen, and to be a source of encouragement for any students interested in writing.
Vivian Pham
Vivian is a Vietnamese-Australian novelist, essayist and poet from southwestern Sydney. She is the author of the novel The Coconut Children, published to critical acclaim by Penguin Random House in 2020. Written during high school and published when she was 19, it tells the story of childhood friends Sonny and Vince growing up in 1990s Cabramatta. This led to Vivian being named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists in 2021, as well as the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards. The same year, her novel was also shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, Multicultural NSW Award, Victorian Premier’s Prize for Fiction and the Voss Literary Prize.
Vivian believes in the power of storytelling to change your life and uplift the people around you. In 2018 and 2019, she was a delegate to the International Congress of Youth Voices, a summit for young activists nominated by nonprofits around the world for their writing and engagement which took her to San Francisco, US, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The summit was instigated by the novelist Dave Eggers to empower young people trying to uplift their communities through storytelling. One of a handful of speakers at Nourse Theatre, she shared a stage with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Rep. John Lewis, and Khaled Hosseini. In 2023, she was a mentor at Varuna Writers’ House and guided emerging writers with their manuscripts. That same year she received the DVAN-Millay New Author residency at the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay’s iconic Steepletop residence in New York to work on her draft poetry collection. She is currently in the process of writing the stage and film adaptations of The Coconut Children.
During her fellowship here in FASS, she will be working on her second novel. Owl: The Year Without Winter is set in the real world – if, in the real world, seasons were geographically allocated. The titular character Owl is from the land of Winter, a place which is experiencing extreme weather due to forces unknown to her small town. To save her town – and the world – from ruin, the entrepreneurial Owl must travel to Spring, Autumn and Summer. Her novel seeks to portray biodiversity issues, the resilient beauty of the natural world, and how different cultures understand and respond to climate disasters.
Vivian holds a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and Philosophy from Western Sydney University.
Completing a second or third book is often difficult. The Copyright Agency – UTS New Writer in Residence fellowship is a unique opportunity that provides a writer with the financial security to complete a new work, to take creative risks, and to connect with Australia’s leading creative writing program. Past fellows include celebrated novelists, memoirists, playwrights, and essayists such as Anwen Crawford, Brie Lee, Christopher Raja, and Nardi Simpson.