Melbourne City of Literature Virtual Writer in Residence with Geelong Regional Libraries

By Oshadha Perera | Posted: Wednesday Jan 21, 2026

1st of November. I was sitting at my desk, early morning sunshine filtering in through my windows. My laptop and notebook were open, excitement buzzing through me. It was going to be the first day of the writers residency I was going to be involved in this month: Melbourne City of Literature Virtual Writers in Residence.

Melbourne City of Literature Virtual Writers in Residence is an online writing residency that pairs writers from Cities of Literature from around the world to arts organisations in Melbourne. This year, the programme had ten writers from a variety of different countries spanning Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America. I was paired with Geelong Regional Libraries, which comprises a central library in the city of Geelong, as well as 20 community libraries and several mobile libraries.

My first task during the residency was to learn about Geelong’s history and explore their Heritage Centre collection. The Geelong Heritage Centre maintains an extensive collection of archives, much of which has been digitised at https://archives.grlc.vic.gov.au. Their collection includes photographs, plans, maps, newspaper records, paintings and much more that tell the story of Geelong’s history. It was really interesting to piece together Geelong’s history using snippets of photographs, maps and so on, and see how the city has changed over time, from the times of industrialisation and gold mining to the advanced manufacturing and education hub it is today.

An interesting find during this process was the connections between the architecture of Geelong and Dunedin in the 19th century. Records in the Heritage Centre collection, alongside Dunedin archivist David Murray’s website https://builtindunedin.com, show that architects, such as J L Shaw and David Ross, have designed buildings in both Dunedin and Geelong. Another connection between the two cities is in Waikouaiti, 45km north of Dunedin, which has a street named Geelong Street.

The Heritage Centre collections proved to be a rich source of inspiration for writing. My first piece of writing during the residency, a poem, was inspired by photos of the 1973 Barwon River Flood and 1915 Inverleigh Flood. Flooding has continued to be a common occurrence around the world as extreme weather events become more frequent, with both Geelong and Dunedin experiencing flooding events last year. My poem explored the effects of flooding, interconnections between people and waterbodies, and our changing relationship with the environment.

A second piece of writing, a short story, was written around the themes of family, relationships and loss & grief, using Barwon Heads as its setting. This was inspired by a photo of the Barwon Heads coast from the Heritage Centre collection, estimated to be taken between 1920 and 1940. Barwon Heads is a coastal town 20km south-east of Geelong, where the Barwon River opens into Bass Strait, and is a picturesque town with sandy beaches and shallow shores.

Aside from working with Geelong Regional Libraries, I also had the opportunity to take part in weekly meetings with the other nine writers in residence, organised by the Melbourne City of Literature. We got the chance to discuss and learn about each other’s creative practices and writing processes and share our progress as we worked on projects with our host organisations. These meetings also featured guest speakers from Melbourne, including poet and educator Claire Gaskin, Artistic Director and co-CEO of the Emerging Writers Festival Jess Zanoni, and poet and novelist Francesca de Tores. We were able to hear about a variety of topics including their work and creative practices, the influence of Melbourne on their journeys and their advice for writers.

As my writing residency came to end, I was grateful for the opportunity to learn more about Geelong, use their archives collection to inspire some new writing and meet a wonderful cohort of writers from all over the world. A big thank you to Melbourne City of Literature for organising the writing residency programme, Geelong Regional Libraries for hosting me as their writer in residence and Dunedin City of Literature for supporting writers in Ōtepoti and connecting us with the Cities of Literature network’s programmes.

Read Oshadha's poem and short story he wrote during his residency.