Michael Mohammed Ahmad & Winnie Dunn in conversation with Roanna Gonsalves

About this event

Sweatshop is devoted to empowering culturally and linguistically diverse communities through reading, writing and critical thinking. This talk will be based around the amazing work Sweatshop do for voices of colour in Australia.

Sweatshop is a literacy movement based in Western Sydney which is devoted to empowering culturally and linguistically diverse communities through reading, writing and critical thinking. The movement provides research, training, mentoring and employment opportunities for emerging and established writers and arts practitioners from Indigenous and non-English speaking backgrounds.

This event is part of Waverley council’s United to end racism campaign.

Waverley Council is committed to building a welcoming, cohesive and resilient community where people of all cultural backgrounds can belong and participate in social, cultural, economic and civic life.

In 2021, as part of the development of Waverley Council’s Cultural Diversity Strategy, community members asked Council to take a strong stance against racism and discrimination, and ensure that community members feel safe and supported.

In 2022, after consultation with its Multicultural Advisory Committee, Waverley Council launched its local campaign, United to End Racism, to:

• raise awareness about all forms of racism and its impact
• create opportunities for meaningful conversations
• empower everyone to take simple steps to help end racism.

Winnie Dunn is the General Manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and the editor of several critically acclaimed anthologies, including Another Australia (Affirm Press, 2022). She is a writer of Tongan descent from Mount Druitt and holds a Bachelor of Arts from Western Sydney University. Her work has been published in The Guardian, HuffPost, Griffith Review, Meanjin and SBS Voices. Winnie is currently completing her debut novel, Dirt Poor Islanders, which will be published by Hachette in 2023.

Michael Mohammed Ahmad is the founding director of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and editor of After Australia (Affirm Press, 2020). In 2012, Mohammed received the Australia Council Kirk Robson Award in recognition of his outstanding achievements in community cultural development. His debut novel, The Tribe (Giramondo, 2014), won the 2015 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists of the Year Award. His second novel, The Lebs (Hachette, 2018) received the 2019 NSW Premier’s Multicultural Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Award. Mohammed received his Doctorate of Creative Arts from Western Sydney University in 2017. His latest novel is The Other Half of You (Hachette, 2021).

Roanna Gonsalves is the author of The Permanent Resident (UWAP) published in India and South Asia as Sunita De Souza Goes To Sydney (Speaking Tiger). She was born and brought up in Mumbai, India. She attended St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and came to Australia in 1998 as an international student. The Permanent Resident won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award Multicultural Prize 2018, and was longlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award 2018. Her writing has been compared to the work of Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri.