Ancestral Afterlives

a Writing Workshop with Lamisse Hamouda
Register until September 19

workshop info
As writers, we rely on words. We know a language; we inherit a language – but does knowing guarantee knowing? Lose language – then what? Then who? What could it mean to release our expectations of ancestry to speak in our language? How do we witness our ancestral afterlives both as continuity and break – as what we carry, and what carries on from us? What might we hear when we listen to drifts of silence, fracture, and absence? How might we be remade through the stories we haven’t yet listened for?
Applying concepts of the absent but implicit, critical fabulation and subjugated histories to biographical and memoir writing, this workshop offers tools to engage in gaps, silences and fracture when writing about, or with, family. This workshop is suitable for both emerging and established writers. Please note: this workshop will be conducted in English.

bio
Lamisse Hamouda (she/her) is a writer, poet, workshop facilitator and narrative therapist working across creative writing and performance. Lamisse was the first Arab-Australian writer to win the National Biography of the Year Award in 2024, with her debut novel, ‘The Shape of Dust’. Lamisse has published across a range of platforms and anthologies; her recent works include published poetry in the Sweatshop anthology ‘Ritual: Australian-Muslim Poetry’, and her poetry series ‘Griefscape’ produced in collaboration with musician Han Reardon-Smith for issue 48 of Runway Journal. An experienced workshop facilitator, Lamisse teaches creative writing, and provides mentoring to emerging and established writers. She is a 2025 Keesing Studio Writer-in-Residence in Paris, and is currently completing her Masters in Narrative Therapy & Community Work at the University of Melbourne.