2023 Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition Winner

Posted: Wednesday May 24, 2023

Xiaole Zhan

Congratulations to Xiaole Zhan for winning the 2023 Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition with their essay, ‘Muscle Memory’

Currently living in Melbourne, Xiaole is studying towards a Bachelor of Music, majoring in composition, at the University of Melbourne and is the Creative Editor of the student magazine, Farrago. Their winning essay follows Xiaole’s desire to explore how music can shape self-identity and the perception of one’s body.

'I’m also attracted to music as a way of describing the body because I often feel disembodied from myself—the body is not something that can always be controlled or known and sometimes the body remembers things that the mind doesn’t. For me, music has this paradoxical quality of being both entirely rooted in physicality but also entirely disembodied—where does the music go once the hands leave the keys?’

Xiaole’s winning essay can be found in Landfall 245: Autumn 2023
Find out more at https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/news/otago0244951.html