Didem Caia

Didem is a Turkish Australian writer who grew up in the western suburbs of Melbourne. She is a writer of plays, essays and fiction. Her plays have been produced and developed in Melbourne, Sydney, Edinburgh, London, New York and Chicago. She has received development grants through the Australian Arts Council, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, Copywright Agency, Melbourne City Council and Western Chances Scholarship Program. Her plays Vile, Isolation, Work in Progress and the University of Longing have all been funded through Melbourne funding bodies. Vile was shortlisted for a number of Australian theatre awards and in 2015 was shortlisted for the Theatre 503 New Play award in London. In 2015 she travelled to the UK and US to take part in a number of theatre festivals and showcase her plays. Her essays and fiction have been published through Currency House Press, australianplays.org, Meanjin, Yen magazine, Express Media, Artshub and The Age. Her work draws on her mixed cultural heritage and she fuses personal stories of the working class, womanhood, and home to bring light to the many facets of being Australian. Didem received a Graduate Diploma in Dramatic Art when she was 16 through recognition for prior learning, and is also a graduate of RMIT, NIDA and the VCA.