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'Award winning writer Frank Moorhouse made a tough decision earlier this year when he was scheduled to visit China with a group of fellow Australian writers. Moorhouse, a member of Sydney PEN's eminent Writers Advisory Panel, withdrew from the tour arranged by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as a protest against the 11-year sentence handed down to Chinese writerand Honorary Member of Sydney PEN, Liu Xiaobo, on Christmas Day 2009.'(3)
'If moments define our lives, for Libby Hathorn there was one defining moment that left her feeling "more than usually powerless". It was the early 90s and Libby was researching her novel, Valley Under the Rock (Hodder Headline, 1994). In the story, the mother of the protagonist was hiding something from her daughter about her relationship with someone who went to war. Needing to know about the period Libby started to research Vietnam, delving into books, poems and photos. As it turned out, what she found would affect her so much that she left the book and began instead to write poetry about the Vietnam War.' (p. 6)
'Sydney based poet Jane Gibian's most recent collection is Ardent, published in 2007. It features work from an Asialink Literature Residency spent in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2002. Jane spoke to Sydney PEN President Bonny Cassidy about her experiences of contemporary literary culture in Vietnam and the tensions within it.' (p. 8)
