KAVITA BEDFORD

I am an Australian-Indian author and freelance writer based in Sydney.

My first novel, Friends & Dark Shapes, will be published by Europa Editions (USA), Text Publishing (AUS) and Edizioni E/O (Italy) in 2021.

ABOUT

I am a writer with a background working in journalism, anthropology and literature. I am the 2020/21 Westwords Writer in Residence at The Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. My writing has appeared in Guernica, the The Guardian and Griffith Review, and I was 2018 Churchill Fellow exploring migrant narratives. I teach yoga and work in media and global studies in Sydney.

My first novel, Friends & Dark Shapes, will be published in 2021 by Europa Editions (US), Text Publishing (AUS) and Edizioni E/O (Italy).

I am represented by Mary Krienke at Sterling Lord Literistic Agency, New York, USA.

PANELS & GUEST SPEAKING

I often give talks to high school students and guest lecture to both undergraduate and postgraduate level students in anthropology, global studies and creative writing.

I have been on panels and delivered talks for The Commonwealth Secretariat UK ( Fiji), YouTube Creators for Change, The Sydney Writers Festival, State Government, National Young Writers Festival, Newtown Festival, The Walkley Foundation's Storyology conference.

AWARDS & GRANTS

2020/21 Westwords Western Sydney Writer in Residence at The Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University

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

Friends &

Dark Shapes

A group of friends moves into a share house in Redfern. They are all on the cusp of thirty and big life changes, navigating insecure employment and housing, second-generation identity, online dating and social alienation—and one of them, our narrator, has just lost her father.
How do you inhabit a space where the landscape is shifting around you, when your sense of self is unravelling? What meaning does time have in the midst of grief?

AvailablE:

AUSTRALIA March

2021

Text publishing

United states

april 2021

europa editions

LEARN MORE

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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CREATIVE

"And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did
And what did you want?

to call myself beloved,
to feel myself beloved on the earth"

raymond carver

Read

ELSEWHERE JOURNAL
(Germany)

YEN MAGAZINE

(Australia)

UNDER the VOLCANO

Best Writing
(Mexico)

GUERNICA MAGAZINE

(United States)

GOING DOWN SWINGING

(Australia)

GRIFFITH REVIEW

(Australia)

ARTICLES

I write in the field of migration, countering violent extremism, and diversity.

The Guardian, The Modi Express: a modern spectacle, and an attempt to leave the leader's dark past behind

The Guardian, To prevent homegrownIslamist radicalism, drop the media hysteria

Roads & Kingdoms , Detained in Suburbia

Griffith Review, Smiling Faces of Integration

Women's International Perspective, A voice for the people: Chile's Mural Art

Tharunka, The Rice Barn Is Now Empty: practices of stealing and divorcing women in Lombok

Junkee, Three Stories from Western Sydney you will never read in the Daily Telegraph

Crikey, This is our community’: inside the real Lakemba that Blair ignored

Struggle Street review: poverty porn and the problem with FIFO journalism

The Point Magazine, Pepe the Frog and the rise of alternative-right memes
The evolving threat of violent extremism

Can Denmark's Aarhus approach help Australia combat violent extremism?

Deng Adut Thiak’s journey from child soldier to Australia Day Hero

Film Review: Ali's Wedding

South Sudan: Hope amid the heartache
The human sound project

From Robespierre to ISIS: the Eras of Extremism

Straight Black Atcha: lessons from black comedy

CONTACT

Thank you for visiting my site.

For publicity enquiries relating to Friends & Dark Shapes (USA) please email my publicist Tatiana Radujkovic: tatiana[at]europaeditions.com

For publicity enquiries relating to Friends & Dark Shapes (AUS) please email my publicist Jane Watkins: Jane.Watkins[at]textpublishing.com.au

For general author enquiries please email my agent Mary Krienke at Sterling Lord Literistic: mary[at]sll.com

For all other enquiries and if you want me to write for you, please email me at: kavitabyds[at]gmail.com

KAVITA BEDFORD

I am an Australian-Indian author and freelance writer based in Sydney. My first novel, Friends & Dark Shapes, will be published by Europa Editions (USA), Text Publishing (AUS) and Edizioni E/O (Italy) in 2021.

ABOUT

Friends &

Dark Shapes

​

AvailablE:

​

AUSTRALIA March

2021

Text publishing

​

​

​

United states

april 2021

europa editions

PROJECTS

THE POINT MAGAZINE

MAPPING FRICTIONS: STORIES FROM WESTERN SYDNEY

CREATIVE

"And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did And what did you want?

to call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth"

​

raymond carver

(Australia)

Best Writing (Mexico)

(United States)

(Australia)

(Australia)

ARTICLES

I write in the field of migration, countering violent extremism, and diversity.

​

The Guardian, The Modi Express: a modern spectacle, and an attempt to leave the leader's dark past behind

​

The Guardian, To prevent homegrownIslamist radicalism, drop the media hysteria

​

Roads & Kingdoms , Detained in Suburbia

​

Griffith Review, Smiling Faces of Integration

​

Women's International Perspective, A voice for the people: Chile's Mural Art Tharunka, The Rice Barn Is Now Empty: practices of stealing and divorcing women in Lombok Junkee, Three Stories from Western Sydney you will never read in the Daily Telegraph

Crikey, This is our community’: inside the real Lakemba that Blair ignored

Struggle Street review: poverty porn and the problem with FIFO journalism The Point Magazine, Pepe the Frog and the rise of alternative-right memes The evolving threat of violent extremism

​

​

​

​

CONTACT

I am an Australian-Indian author and freelance writer based in Sydney.

My first novel, Friends & Dark Shapes, will be published by Europa Editions (USA), Text Publishing (AUS) and Edizioni E/O (Italy) in 2021.

"And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did
And what did you want?

to call myself beloved,
to feel myself beloved on the earth"

Best Writing
(Mexico)

Women's International Perspective, A voice for the people: Chile's Mural Art

Tharunka, The Rice Barn Is Now Empty: practices of stealing and divorcing women in Lombok

Junkee, Three Stories from Western Sydney you will never read in the Daily Telegraph

Struggle Street review: poverty porn and the problem with FIFO journalism

The Point Magazine, Pepe the Frog and the rise of alternative-right memes
The evolving threat of violent extremism