International students at CQUniversity Sydney have been inspired to put pen to paper and describe their time as a student in a foreign country.

The students, whose second language is English, are from Brazil, China, Indonesia and Nepal and are enrolled in a range of disciplines at CQUniversity.

CQUniversity's Professor Alison Owens, Professor Donna Lee Brien and Dr Janene Carey have encouraged international students to participate in creative writing workshops. Assisted by academics at CQUniversity, the students have revealed how being an international student has had challenges but has also been a life-changing and transformational experience.

Professor Donna Lee Brien, Associate Professor Alison Owens and Dr Janene Carey were recipients of a CQUniversity Studies of Learning and Teaching Grant which encourages budding writers to tell their stories of cross-cultural learning and adaptation in Australia.

Professor Brien said the project has been distinctive in that the students are using their authentic, uncorrected voices as second-language English speakers.

The project was inspired by Xiaolu Guo's internationally acclaimed novel, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2007).

Guo tells the story of a young Chinese woman's foreign learning journey in her own Chinese version of English. Reviewers praised this fresh approach, with the Chicago Sun Times calling it 'new territory'.

"So much is written about foreign students but so little is written by them about their experiences," Prof Donna Lee Brien said.

"Giving students agency over their own expression in this creative environment unleashed some striking images and turns of phrase."

"A Chinese English writer observed that Australian seawater has the perfect balance of salt for making soup."

Dr Janene Carey, who completed her own PhD in creative writing at CQUniversity, was impressed by the range of topics the student writers chose to address.

"One student wrote about the ‘battle' of the final exam, while others found inspiration in blue-eyed poverty and the confusing notion of loyalty programs in supermarkets."

Professor Alison Owens (left) and Professor Donna Lee Brien (middle) work with Huiyu (Emily) Gu who is a student of Master Professional Accounting. Associate Professor Alison Owens said: "Not only is this empowering for the students, it is also wonderful to see these second language expressions valued rather than corrected."

"In this context, just like Guo's novel, the student voice is seen as unique and interesting, with much to communicate, rather than ungrammatical and second-rate," Associate Professor Owens said.

In 2013, the group (students and conveners) are going to continue to meet online.

Completed stories are going to be collected in a publication and presented at a public reading on CQUniversity's Sydney campus in mid-2013. A radio feature of the stories is also being produced.