Repose

Passage Series #6

In her debut book, Amelia Zhou poses the question, "How do I perform or not perform?" Weaving together poems, fiction, and lyric essay, Repose follows an unnamed woman grappling with the limits of the self on the everyday stage of labor and routine, charting her emergent modes of resistance. She is already steps ahead, deftly shifting between worker and dancer, roving through the haunted space in which a performance has just ended, the ruins of a house, or a skyscraper aflame. Seeking the edges of form-where it exceeds itself, where it breaks down-Repose offers a narrative of girlhood invigorated by the mutual possibilities of dreaming and defiance. Amelia Zhou's Repose is the 2022 Open Reading Period Book Prize winner, and was selected by guest judge Asiya Wadud.

Amelia Zhou works with writing and movement, with an interest in exploring their various intersections as they arise in forms such as poetry, prose, or performance. In 2021 she was awarded Gold Prize at the Creative Future Writers' Awards (UK) and was a recipient of the Ultimo Prize (Australia), both for prose. Her work has been published most recently in Overland, LUMIN Journal, and Ambit; exhibited at Orleans House Gallery; with further writing in numerous UK and Australian publications. She holds a MA in Creative Practice from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance (2020) and is an incoming PhD student in English at the University of Cambridge. Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, she now lives in London.