Culture

This year, I chose to live in a hotel

By day, I lived the typical life of an international student. By night, I came home to an upmarket hotel.
Relationships

I secretly lived in my partner’s family home for years

Why didn’t we move out? It was simple – we couldn’t afford it.
PARENTING

Why I stopped making my children's school lunches

Little by little I’ve given up domestic control and that for me has been the best way to maintain equality in how our household is run.
work

I was a paper delivery kid with a programming side gig

I started out as some poor kid living in a small town, and now I have Dad and the internet to thank for a well-paid job and middle-class life.
Friendship

For years, my best friend was my stand-in parent

For three years, we didn’t speak. I began dreaming of her every night, my subconscious crying out for Veronica’s presence in my life.
Parenting

When motherhood comes with hearing loss

If my surgeon had told me after my operation that I would lose my hearing again, would I have had my babies?
Grief

The unique grief of losing a cousin in a large family

Just like his old friend, I wish I’d spent more time with my cousin before he was taken so suddenly. I wish I knew more about his life, his struggles and his...
00:01:04
The world of online dating
Single parents are the busiest people in the world, so it’s not easy to fit in a love life. We talk to parents about how they find navigating the daunting world of dating apps when they ‘get back on the horse’ post-separation. The Swiping Game: Must Love Kids is steaming On Demand.
  • Produced by SBS Voices
Listen to Love Me, Love My Anxiety

Love Me, Love My Anxiety is a new podcast from SBS Voices. Listen in the SBS Radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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SBS Emerging Writers' Competition

Entries for the SBS Emerging Writers' Competition are now closed. See you in 2022 for next year's competition. 

 

Sydney Writers' Festival 2022

Free event: Come and see us at the Sydney Writers' Festival

SBS Voices is proud to present a free panel on memoir writing at this year's Sydney Writers' Festival with special guest Benjamin Law.
Books

Top entries selected for 2021 SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition anthology

The collection, which will be published in 2022 by Hardie Grant, will feature the work of emerging writers from across Australia.
EMERGING WRITER'S COMPETITION

It's never too late to be an emerging writer

“It’s really important to recognise that you can be an emerging writer at 60. You’ve lived a full, long life. You’ve got a lot more perspective on the world than...
SBS Emerging Writers' Competition

SBS Emerging Writers' Competition winner Cat Yen on the heartbreak that broke her creative dam

“What I really wanted for anyone to get from reading this piece was that even if you grew up with not a lot, you can still be a very complex person with a story...
Emerging Writers' Competition

Meet the winners of the SBS Emerging Writers' Competition 2021

Five winners have been chosen from the 2021 SBS Emerging Writers' Competition. Find out more about their stories and what inspires them.
Second prize

SBS Emerging Writers' Competition 2021 Runner Up: Arky Michael

This is the prize-winning entry from Arky Michael, titled 'Songbird'.
Second prize

SBS Emerging Writers' Competition 2021 Runner Up: Maya Hodge

This is Maya Hodge's prize-winning entry, titled 'bidngen'.

More dispatches from Voices

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18 May 2022

Dramaworld

Korean TV drama super-fan Claire finds herself transported to a realm where she has the power to alter the show's storyline.
Culture

This year, I chose to live in a hotel

By day, I lived the typical life of an international student. By night, I came home to an upmarket hotel.
In February, when the borders re-opened and most international students were finally able to return to Australia, I envisioned many great things about my life in a new country. What I didn’t imagine, when I relocated from Nairobi to Melbou...
PARENTING

Why I stopped making my children's school lunches

Little by little I’ve given up domestic control and that for me has been the best way to maintain equality in how our household is run.
When my daughter started school, in typical mum-of-first-child fashion I got deeply involved in making sure I created awesome school lunches for her. I was swayed by the Instagram posts of influencer mummies making fancy dips, fruit cut in...
11 May 2022

Cobra

The UK prime minister (Robert Carlyle) convenes an emergency committee of Britain's leading experts, crisis contingency planners, and senior politicians to deal with an unfolding national emergency.
11 May 2022

Eurovision Song Contest 2022

It's almost Eurovision time, Australia! The 66th Eurovision Song Contest will be available to stream live on SBS On Demand from 11 to 15 May.
Relationships

I secretly lived in my partner’s family home for years

Why didn’t we move out? It was simple – we couldn’t afford it.
We’re lying in bed when we hear the front door unlock. I’m in my partner Andrew’s home. More precisely – his family home. When the door sounded, we are very much post-coital in his parents’ room. I panic because there is nowhere to hide. H...
Friendship

For years, my best friend was my stand-in parent

For three years, we didn’t speak. I began dreaming of her every night, my subconscious crying out for Veronica’s presence in my life.
It all started with a boy, as these things tend to. I was in Year 7, a new high schooler, and developed a crush on a much older boy in Year 10. After weeks of mutual flirting came the day when we became ‘official’. We snuck into the darken...
Parenting

When motherhood comes with hearing loss

If my surgeon had told me after my operation that I would lose my hearing again, would I have had my babies?
“Can’t you hear them?” my husband would say to me countless times when my children were in the next room crying for help. “Oh, are they crying?” I would reply and rush off to help them. I struggled to hear my babies cry. Even if my husband...
Grief

The unique grief of losing a cousin in a large family

Just like his old friend, I wish I’d spent more time with my cousin before he was taken so suddenly. I wish I knew more about his life, his struggles and his successes.
It’s late on a Wednesday evening and I’m standing under the shower, hot water slamming into my shoulders, tears streaming down my face. That morning, we had buried my 34-year-old cousin at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney’s west. He was a much-...
Extract

A harsh joke in high school became a symbol of my life

As the emcee read out the next award – ‘Most Likely to Die a Virgin’ – the room erupted into side-splitting laughter.
My mother, who had three daughters and a son before me, says she had an inexplicable burst of energy when she was pregnant with me. “This one’s a fighter,” Mum would later recall to relatives, partly because she was expecting (and hoping f...