Culture

The joy of seeing Marvel’s first Muslim superhero

There were hilarious scenes showing different Muslim cliques at the Eid festival, a storyline on the women’s prayer room in the mosque, and even the mosque shoe...
Culture

I went to a Japanese primary school in Melbourne, and moved between two worlds

Out on the school yard, our free time resembled a circus. The Japanese education system placed unicycles in schools to encourage building core muscles, balance...
CULTURE

Zendaya on the pressures of being a young Black actress in Hollywood

"I feel incredibly grateful to be in this position because, without the women of the past, especially iconic Black women who have done what I've done before, I...
Family

The gift from Mum’s Cypriot watchmaker

Despite my embarrassment at walking up to a stranger’s house, I humour Mum. While her brain often short-circuits these days, I trust her instincts. Up to the...
Culture

Language school was a breeze compared to teaching my own kids Arabic

When my son finally uttered his ‘Kh’ sound after multiple attempts, he was thrilled. But even though I was happy myself, I felt a pang of guilt as a second-gen...
Culture

The surprising appeal of competency porn

Icing unicorn cookies, stacking boxes, speed-cutting soba noodles – there’s something about watching strangers being good at something that gives me a buzz.
Who Do You Think You Are?

Matt Moran's family history helped him understand why he became a chef

"Why am I so passionate about where our food comes from? Maybe it made me a better chef, just realising that so many of my ancestors were all bloody farmers!"
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 Let Me Tell You

Let Me Tell You is a new podcast from SBS Voices where eight Australians share the stories that shook them, and shaped who they are. Follow wherever you get your 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. 

 

EXTRACT

I have never forgiven our mother for you

There are so many things I tried to do for you, and every single one of them our mother ruined. Why? I don’t really know.
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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Family

I didn’t know why I needed a psychologist at 12, but it saved me

A few white lies didn’t mean I was a basket case. Just to prove it, I would sit in her room in silence for the full hour.
When I was 12 years old, I went to see a child psychologist. I saw the forms my mum had to fill in before they would “accept” me. I didn’t wet the bed and I wasn’t scared of the dark so I wasn’t sure why I had to go. So what if I had told ...
2 Jun 2022

Sweet Country

An Aboriginal man from the Northern Territory goes on the run after he kills a white man in self-defence in the 1920s.
2 Jun 2022

Australia's Queen of Burlesque

Meet internationally-renowned Australian burlesque artist Imogen Kelly as she reveals the secrets of her art form, and how burlesque allows performers to showcase their inner erotic fantasies.
Culture

My Ivy League dream wasn’t all it was cracked up to be

I’ve been told my whole life that education will markedly improve my life, give me a happy ending – by movies, by my family, by society at large. But my own education did not magically make my life better.
2020 wasn’t the best year for risk-taking. But while most people clung tightly onto jobs, friends, families – whatever semblance of safety in a chaotic year – I decided to upend my whole life. After four years of undergraduate study in Bri...
Family

Sliced fruit is my father’s love language

Instead of the more conventional Western desserts I saw in movies, we had fruit.
I joke that I don’t have a sweet tooth – that I’ve never been able to eat a whole block of Cadbury’s chocolate, or down a pint of ice-cream in one sitting. But I have, on many occasions, eaten huge punnets of strawberries by popping them i...
Culture

‘Moon Knight’ is the Egyptian story I’ve been waiting for

It was other Egyptians I wanted to see, Egyptians who might look like me and prove, for good, that I was worthy of my majestic, noble heritage.
Bangor Primary School library, with its gleaming rows of white iMac G4s and even whiter students, had three books about Egypt. There was a colourful, glossy story book covered in the visage of King Tutankhamun called ‘Wonders of Egypt’. Fu...
EXTRACT

I was the only Arab in my Alice Springs school

I’m already the only Arab in my school. They always pronounce my name, Youssef, as ‘Yosef’ or ‘Joseph’. But how can I blame them if I didn’t even know the name of my own birthplace until today?
I can feel the sweat on the back of my knees as we sit cross-legged in class. This always happens in the summer in Alice. It feels like at any moment your skin could just melt right off you. Our teacher is about to tell us something. I gaz...
Culture

As a Filipino, I carry the spirit of bayanihan within me

I arrived cold and wet, but I left with a glow in my chest. My heart was in awe of the kindness and generosity among strangers working for the common good.
It was a wet, cold Saturday morning in Melbourne. The kind of morning where most people would rather stay in bed and nurse a strong coffee. Me? I was on a tram with my umbrella on my way to a picnic with Filipinos. I only knew two Filipino...
CULTURE

I’m overcoming the fear of speaking Malay with an Australian accent

There’s a real fear of trying to pronounce all the intricacies of Malay words with my ‘ocker’ tongue. My distress at the laughter, from both sides of the culture.
“Takde saiz itu lah kak.” I can work this out. What’s the worst that could happen? A hundred bucks wasted on a baju kurung that’s way too small. Right. That’s not something I want to happen. I sigh as I fold my legs up onto my parents’ cou...
EXTRACT

I have never forgiven our mother for you

There are so many things I tried to do for you, and every single one of them our mother ruined. Why? I don’t really know.
Author Jackie Bailey’s sister, who lived with a disability, died at age 41 in 2015. In her new auto-fiction novel The Eulogy Jackie draws on how her life and death impacted her and her family relationships. I breathe on the window and sque...