Happy New Year from Wind&Bones

Hello from Hannah and Will at Wind&Bones,

Happy New Year to our subscribers and friends all around the world. This New Year, as we stood on the balcony here in Tainan, Taiwan, watching the fireworks over the rooftops, we felt excited by the year ahead.

The main news in this January edition of our newsletter is our upcoming residency at the Taiwan Literature Base (台灣文學基地), where we will be spending two weeks working on some new short fiction projects.

The Taiwan Literature Base is a beautifully restored Japanese-era dormitory complex, which now hosts writers from Taiwan and from around the world. It will be a bit chilly in Taipei, so we’ve invested in new hot water bottles. Thus armed, we’re looking forward to working on a collaborative series of stories that we’re calling 經緯, or Interweavings. In the international media, stories about Taiwan are often lacking in nuance and complexity, so what we’re interested in exploring is how Taiwan is a place built of many stories, many languages, and multiple, interwoven identities.

As part of our residency, we’re also running a creative writing workshop on the 18th January, and holding a public reading on the 25th January. If you are around in Taipei, please come along. Both events are free! They will be in English, with Mandarin translation, thanks to our friend the interpreter Gregory Laslo. To register for either event, you just need to click the button below.

In Other News

Mother Tongue Manifesto

Our Tâi-gí (Taiwanese language) and Gaelic translation project is now in full swing. If you haven’t read about this, you can go to the link here.

Just before Christmas, we had an online meeting with our fabulous writers and translators, Elissa Hunter-Dorans, Kiú-kiong (a former writer at the Taiwan Literature Base), Lisa MacDonald and Naomi Sím. Our writers are now hard at work on the first drafts of their stories. Meanwhile, we are planning the paperback edition of the final publication, to be released by Wind&Bones Books in mid-2025.

At Taitung University

We’ve also been back in Taitung, one of our favourite cities, working with Dr. Ching-yueh Hsieh and his brilliant, talented students, exploring writing and social change. You can find out more here.

Philosophy and Writing at the Wansha Performing Arts Centre

We’ll say more about this next time, but we’re excited by our upcoming events at the Wansha Performing Arts Centre / 涴莎藝術展演中心. Our free bilingual (Mandarin/English) public philosophy salon, which takes place every month on a Saturday afternoon, is going into its second year. Meanwhile, in 2025, Hannah will be heading up a new Creative Café for Writers, which will be starting in February. More news soon!

Writing and Mentoring

And of course, we’re still hard at work on our new book projects, as well as mentoring writers to help with theirs. We’ve got a couple of exciting writing projects that we’re working on, and that we will announce later in the new year. And we have some open slots for writers who would like mentoring or support in their work. You can find out more by clicking the button below.

That’s all for this month! Thanks for reading, and get in touch if you want to say hello, or have any ideas for fun and interesting creative collaborations! We always love to hear from people.

Wishing you all a happy, productive and transformative 2025!

With all best wishes,

Will & Hannah

Wind&Bones