About WrICE 

WrICE (Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange) brings together Australian and Asia-Pacific writers for collaborative residencies in Asia and Australia. 

At the heart of WrICE is a simple idea: to give writers of different backgrounds and levels of experience a chance to step outside their familiar writing practices and contexts and connect deeply with writers from different cultures and across generations through an immersive residency program. WrICE is a respectful and generative space for reflection, conversation, creative sharing, and surprise. 

Since its inception in 2014, WrICE has brought together over 90 writers from 15 countries across the Asia-Pacific: South Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, West Timor, Timor Leste and Australia. For the first five years, WrICE was held as a series of in-person residential writing retreats and public events in various cities and settings across Asia and in Australia. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted WrICE to be held digitally from 2020-2022. In 2023, an Indigenous-led WrICE residency conceived, curated and facilitated by the project’s Artist Fellows Ali Cobby Eckermann and Dicky Senda took place in Kupang and Mollo in West Timor.

The WrICE program (2014-2018) was produced by the non/fictionLab at RMIT University with the support of the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund (Australia). From 2020-2022 WrICE residencies were conducted as a partnership between RMIT’s non/fictionLab and Sing Lit Station (Singapore). From 2021-2024, the WrICE program has been conducted in parallel with the Connecting Asia-Pacific Literary Cultures research project.

WrICE was conceived and directed by Francesca Rendle-Short and David Carlin, who have since been joined on the WrICE team over the years by Ali Barker, Clare Renner, Penny Johnson, Alvin Pang, Sreedhevi Iyer, Bernice Chauly, Joshua Ip, Charlene Shepherdson, Michelle Aung Thin, Lily Rose Tope, Melody Ellis, Daryl Qilin Yam and Emma Cupitt.

Beyond just exposure to different cultures and perspectives, WrICE was especially enriching in that it made me rethink my place within my own culture as a writer. – Martin Villanueva

Ren I Tang, George Town, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia, WrICE Penang/Singapore residency 2014, (participants left to right) Alvin Pang, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Jennifer Down, Amarlie Foster, Harriet Knight, Laurel Fantauzzo, Francesca Rendle-Short (writer/facilitator), Melissa Lucashenko, Eddin Koo, Robin Hemley, image David Carlin

Data visualisation, WrICE program network analysis, 2014-2018