KAVITA BEDFORD

Writer and editor based in Sydney

ABOUT

Kavita's first novel, Friends & Dark Shapes, will be published by Europa Editions (USA), Edizioni E/O (Italy) and Text Publishing (AUS) March 2021. She is a 2018 Churchill Fellow exploring migrant and refugee narratives and has written for a range of publications including Guernica, The Guardian, The Griffith Review, Roads & Kingdoms. She was the former Editor of The Point Magazine, exploring the impact of overseas conflict on diaspora communities, and is the Creative Producer of a grassroots storytelling project, Mapping Frictions: Stories from Western Sydney.

She is the 2020 Westwords Writer in Residence at Western Sydney University. Kavita is also a trained Hatha Yoga teacher and currently teaches Beginner levels of Yoga classes and meditation.

She is represented by Sterling Lord Literistic Agency, New York, USA.

PANELS & GUEST SPEAKING

Kavita has spoken and run workshops for The Commonwealth Secretariat UK ( Fiji), YouTube Creators for Change, The Sydney Writers Festival, State Government, National Young Writers Festival, Newtown Festival, The Walkley's Storyology conference, and lectured at the University of Technology, Sydney and Macquarie University.

AWARDS & GRANTS

2018 Churchill Fellowship in Europe

2016 Australia Council for the Arts Development Grant for novel writing residency at San Miguel Poetry Festival, and Under the Volcano Fiction Writing, Mexico

2015 Walkley Foundation Women in Media Mentorship

2015 Multicultural NSW Unity Grant

2015 YEN Magazine Short Story Prize Finalist

2014 Scanlon Foundation Grant
2013 Australia Council for the Arts Grant
2013 Westwords Under 30 Western Sydney Writers’ Fellowship

Australia

2012 Macquarie University Anthropology Department Prize for ethnography

2012 Editors' Choice prize in the University of New South Wales Tharunka, Non-Fiction Writing Competition

2009 Winner of The Waverley Words Literary Festival Fiction Prize

2007 The Charles Sturt Foundation, Ron Camplin Academic Major Scholarship for Contribution to Media

Photo credit: Christopher Woe

PROJECTS

My major themes of exploration dwell on place—drawing on how the organization of space and architecture are connected with the politics and lived experience of place and urban experience—and the perspective of the ‘outsider’ and migrant voices in literature.

THE POINT MAGAZINE

Former Editor and journalist for The Point Magazine, a community-based and youth-focused digital publication that looks at countering violent extremism and the impact of international events on local multicultural groups in Australia.

Photo credit: George Voulgaropuolos

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MAPPING FRICTIONS: STORIES FROM WESTERN SYDNEY

Creative Producer for a storytelling project dedicated to celebrating stories from Western Sydney. These are people with diverse stories to tell. Despite this, sensationalist tales have dominated the media headlines have been of high crime rates, violence, and religious extremism.

Photo credit: George Voulgaropuolos

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STORIES OF STRENGTH PROJECT

Workshop facilitator. In order to combat negative perceptions and stereotypes in the region, we have teamed up with a NGO and Sydney’s independent youth broadcaster FBi radio and local Western Sydney high schools, to train up young people to create podcast stories of “strength” from their community.

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IN CONVERSATION BINGE THINKING PODCAST

This episode is part of a special Binge Thinking series in collaboration with the Brisbane-based literary journal Griffith Review, Millennials Strike Back edition. Talking all things countering violent extremism and how I got into this field.

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