About the project

The Australian Multilingual Project aims to provide a space to showcase some of the linguistic complexity that resists and persists in Australia today.

Multilingual people often engage in what is referred to as ‘code-mixing’ or ‘code-switching’, which means using two or more languages at the same time in the same piece of communication. Most of the time, this multilingualism is discouraged, seen as demonstrating a lack of proficiency, considered a ‘pollution’ of the dominant language (English), and so on.

This space is different.

Here, multilingual writers can mix their languages with English to their hearts’ content. The work we publish demonstrates the linguistic, aesthetic and creative reach of multilingual writing and seeks to interrupt, enhance, challenge, and generally complicate, the flow of English.

Our initial focus was on poetry, but we are now publishing prose as well.

All work will be available online as text and as audio files. Translations and glossaries will be provided at the writers’ discretion. All work remains the property of the named author.

The Australian Multilingual Writing Project is the creation of Nadia Niaz.

Nadia Niaz is a Naarm/Melbourne-based writer, editor, and academic.

Nadia received her PhD in Creative Writing and Cultural Studies from the University of Melbourne, where she teaches Creative Writing in the School of Culture and Communication. Her areas of interest are multilingual creative expression, particularly in poetry, the practicalities and politics of translation, and language use among third culture kids and other globally mobile cohorts.

Nadia is a simultaneous trilingual whose first languages are English, French and Urdu. Other languages she grew up around, listed in the order in which she can understand them include Hindi, Punjabi, Spanish, Italian, Nepali, Farsi, Turkish and Swiss German. She lived in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Switzerland, and the USA as a child and moved to Australia in 2006, where she began her study of poetry and multilingualism.

You can follow Nadia on Twitter at @NadiaNiaz and find links to her writing and other projects on her website.

Vanessa Giron is a Latinx writer and editor currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. She is the Spanish editor for Australian Multilingual Writing Project and has written for Junkee, The Big Issue, Kill Your Darlings, as well as others. In 2018 she was an inaugural featured author with Djed Press, New Review critic with Witness, and in 2019 she was a Hot Desk Fellow with The Wheeler Centre.

Vanessa is also extremely online--you can find her on Twitter @vanesssagiron and vanessagiron.com

Grace Feng Fang Juan is a writer and filmmaker based in Melbourne. Actively engaged with the multilingual and trans-cultural space, she writes in Chinese and in English languages, exploring the in-betweenness and fluidity created by her diaspora experience through different mediums.

Grace participated in both the Victorian and National Talent Camp in 2018, facilitated by AFTRS and Film Victoria. Their support assisted Grace to develop and deliver her independent project GIRL, INTERPRETED. 

The production was principally funded by Screen Australia.

Outside of her creative practice, Grace works at the ABC as Audience and Content Expert – Chinese. 

Ameel Khan specializes in using research and data to solve complex, cross-business technical and communications challenges.

He has a background in technology, web development, and digital strategy, as well as in marketing, communications, and consulting.

Over the years Ameel has worked at large multinationals; small start-ups; local and global non-profits; and government organizations.

He's been active on social media since 1996, and has been building websites and intranets professionally since 1997.

He is currently a digital and social media manager in the corporate sector.

You can follow Ameel on Twitter @ameel and on his website.