"Growing up Italian in Australia meant growing up with migrant stories. My head was full of people and places that seemed foreign and yet were utterly familiar—part of me, like my Italian face and my Italian surname. Migration is not just about geography. The ‘places’ can be cultural, emotional, sometimes utterly notional."
—Elise Valmorbida, Forbes interview, 2019
Elise devises and teaches creative writing workshops that explore Migration Stories. Sometimes she calls them Suitcase Stories. Participants may be from different countries or cultures, but many people—and many characters—‘migrate’ in other ways: perhaps their journey is from one kind of life, or one identity, to another.
WRITING ABOUT PLACE—fully booked
1-day workshop at CoAsIt Melbourne: 2 March 2024
WRITING 'HOME'
1-day workshop with WRITERS VICTORIA: 18 February 2024
WRITING MIGRATION STORIES
1-day workshop with WRITERS VICTORIA: 26 March 2023
WRITING FAMILY STORIES
2-day workshop with CoAsIt Melbourne: 11 + 25 February 2023
WRITING FAMILY STORIES
1-day workshop with CoAsIt Melbourne: 28 January 2023
GUARDIAN MASTERCLASS
Migration Stories 1-day workshop (London): January 2020
FABER ACADEMY [AUSTRALIA]
Migration Stories 1-day workshop (Sydney): 21 March 2020
Migration Stories 1-day workshop (Melbourne): 28 March 2020
'SUITCASE STORIES' TALK
The first in the CoAsIt Italian Australian culture series, recorded remotely via Zoom from London in lockdown, May 2020
link here