Writers puzzled after State Library Victoria cancels workshops for teens citing ‘child and cultural safety’

Omar Sakr, Jinghua Qian and Alison Evans have been left to speculate on whether cancellations relate to their pro-Palestinian stances

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State Library Victoria has cancelled a series of writing events out of concerns over child and cultural safety", leaving some of the participants demanding an explanation.

The free annual writing bootcamps for teenagers, covering fiction, nonfiction, playwriting and poetry, were pulled suddenly from the library's program last week, and in one writer's case, just 24 hours before he was due to hold one of his teaching sessions.

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