Tuesday 10 September, 6.30PM
Saturday 7 September, 11AM-5PM
Sunday 8 September, 11AM-5PM
National Writers’ Conference
In 2024, The National Writers’ Conference returns to The Wheeler Centre for a weekend of professional and creative development, connection-forging and wisdom sharing.
Saturday 7 September, 11:00AM
Pitch Perfect
Find out the must-haves for delivering a great pitch and the pitfalls to avoid. This session will provide the guidance of a publishing industry leader to help whip your pitch into perfect shape.
Saturday 7 September, 3PM
Queer Zines
Join accomplished comics artist and writer Mia Nie for an inspiring Queer Zine Making Workshop. Experiment with visual language and expression, share stories, and form new connections in a fun, supportive environment. Learn new zine-making techniques, from content creation to layout design.
Saturday 7 September, 4:15PM
Changing Pace: Words Beyond the City
Launch into travel and experiential-based storytelling with three of EWF’s favourite emerging, regional-based writers. Discover what life beyond the city brings to their practices, and how attending writers’ festivals is shaping their careers.
Thursday 1 August, 6:30PM
Program Launch: Divinations
Celebrate the launch of the 2024 Emerging Writers’ Festival, as well as our debut as a springtime affair.
Thursday 5 September, 7PM
Opening Night: LIB[ERA]TION
To mark the opening EWF24, Guest Curator Mackenzie Lee asks: What does an Era of Liberation look like, and how is writing both a tool and an act of liberation, for the self and the collective?
Thursday 8 August, 6PM
Texting Images: BLINDSIDE & EWF Ekphrastic Workshop
As part of Blindside and the Emerging Writers Festival’s 2024 Ekphrastic Writing Program, Naarm-based poet and critic Dr Autumn Royal will reveal the history of ekphrasis to illuminate the relationship between literary and visual realms.
Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September
Chapters: A Workshop Series
Across four sessions, unblock your creative energy, scope out new writerly connections, establish a pleasurable reliable routine, and have the chance to perform new work.
Friday 6 September, 6:30PM
Chapter One: Unblocking Creativity
The first of four Chapters, this workshop is all about establishing a writing practice.
Friday 6 September, 7:30PM
Make It Up Club: EWF Edition
Enjoy an evening of readings from debut authors and performances that play on the threshold of music and literature.
Friday 6 September, 6:30PM
elegy
What does it mean to write in honour of the dead? Who is elegy for, and what are the ethical considerations and implications of such writing?
Friday 6 September, 8PM
Do You Think I’m Sexy?
From sensual dreams, to awkward encounters, fan fiction to personal fantasies, this night will be a veritable feast of words and wonder.
Saturday 7 September, 3:15PM
Channelling Reality
Writing about the self, whether it be through the lens of memoir, or in fiction, holds endless scope for possibility, experimentation, and discovery. It also goes hand in hand with myriad ethical considerations and creative challenges.
Saturday 7 September, 12PM
Building Worlds
From real places to fantasy lands, these writers have mastered the art of immersing their readers in a time and place.
Saturday 7 September, 1:15pm
Editing Essentials
Enjoy a mini workshop to inject some hands-on energy into the day. Take a stab at finessing your own work with the guidance of a seasoned editor.
Saturday 7 September, 2:15PM
Research & Archive Use
Hear how these research virtuosos go about archive fossicking. Learn tips on how to keep track and organise your research, and questions to ask yourself throughout your investigations.
Sunday 8 September, 11AM
Beyond the Mainstream
Learn what is involved in self-publishing, the pros and cons of working with a publisher, and what to expect on the road less travelled.
Sunday 8 September, 2:15PM
Editing Unveiled
In reality, most writing is really editing – and few can do it alone! Hear from book and journal editors, publishers, and literary industry experts about the editor-writer relationship, the purpose and ethics of editing, and everything that goes into revising your writing with rigour.
Sunday 8 September, 1:15PM
Like & Subscribe
Marketing yourself is a new, crucial component of getting your work out there. In this micro-workshop, brush up on the basics of existing online as a writer.
Tuesday 10 September, 6:30PM
Writing Short Stories
The first in our Writers’ Toolbox series. Learn what makes a great short story by analysing your own favourites.
Sunday 8 September, 12PM
Insider Information
Submitting work to literary prizes, residencies and journals can be daunting, but it doesn’t need to be.
Sunday 8 September, 4:15PM
Richell Prize Showcase
We can’t believe it’s already been ten years since the Richell Prize began. To mark this milestone, we’re holding a showcase with our friends at Hachette, celebrating the stellar alumni of the past and anticipating the incredible writers to come.
Monday 9 September, 10AM
Masterclass: Arts Writing
Arts journalism is many writers’ first foray into publication. However, in 2024, there are increasingly fewer avenues to access exciting, thorough, and diverse writing about music, film, theatre, food, and more.
Monday 9 September, 10AM
Keynote: Writing People
Hear from award-winning writer, Daniel Browning, on what it means to artfully render the essence of a person.
Monday 9 September, 11:15AM
On Art
Arts writing is often the best way to start out as a writer – to have your writing published, work with editors, meet likeminded people and make a bit of a cash. But it can be hard to know what pocket to start out in and how to sustain.
Monday 9 September, 12:30PM
Niche Journalism
From interview technique, through to the opening article line, learn about key aspects of the craft for writers working across topics and forms.
Monday 9 September, 9AM
Sinister Wisdom: Panel
Join this panel from Sinister Wisdom, the world’s longest-running lesbian literary magazine coming to Australia.
Monday 9 September, 6:30PM
Chapter Two: Creative Connections
Chapter Two of our Chapters workshop series is a relaxed round-table discussion about collaboration, sharing work, and forging reciprocal creative relationships.
Monday 9 September, 6:30PM
Writers’ Salon: Poetic Resistance
Join poet, writer, and educator Hasib Hourani for an evening of poetry, and its power to preserve culture, provoke change, and speak truth to power.
Tuesday 10 September, 12:30PM
LUNCH/BREAK: Fresh Eyes with EWF
Writing is often viewed as a solitary act, but a fresh set of eyes on your work can make a world of difference. Bring along a work-in-progress piece and join us for a hands-on workshop session.
Tuesday 10 September, 8:30AM
Morning Pages: Embodied Writing
Start the morning with an intuitive walk around Melbourne followed by a writing session. Walking can allow the mind to process information and shake new ideas loose. Likewise, exploration and observation of built and natural environments can inspire thought and help us create new connections for our writing.
Tuesday 10 September, 8PM
Trick of Light
Join us for an evening of multimodal performances and visual treats as writers and artists come together to revel in the light, after dark.
Wednesday 11 September, 8:30AM
Morning Pages: No Typewriters / No Talking
Indulge in one hour of shared sustained silence, in a simple ritual to concentrate on the thing we want to do — but so often find many reasons not to — write.
Wednesday 11 September, 12:30PM
LUNCH/BREAK: Moodboarding & Collage
Join us for a relaxed collage and moodboarding session, perfect for writers seeking fresh and dynamic ways to develop their stories.
Wednesday 11 September, 6:30PM
Chapter Three: Where to from here?
Part of our Chapters series. This penultimate chapter will equip you with advice and wisdom about sustaining enthusiasm, building resilience, and how to keep writing long-term, even through the inevitable lows and highs.
Wednesday 11 September, 6:30PM
Writers’ Salon: Writing to the edge of reality
In this intimate evening workshop, surrealist writer Raeden Richardson will traverse writing that defies easy categorisation to help you develop a new vocabulary for writing to the edge of reality.
Thursday 12 September, 10AM
Masterclass: Creative Living
How can we bring artistry into our daily lives, beyond our writing practice? From slowing down and surrendering to the process, to imbuing our rituals and routines with beauty and curiosity.
Thursday 12 September, 10AM
Keynote: Ritual & Risk
Hear from writer, artist and producer Madison Griffiths about how she integrates risk, ritual and passion into her creative practice, to make for a fulfilling and sustainable career in the arts.
Monday 9 September
Next Big Thing
Celebrate new works and fresh writing talent in this special EWF24 edition of The Wheeler Centre’s much-loved Next Big Thing readings series.
Sunday 8 September, 3:15PM
Between Chapters
Hear from these celebrated writers, about the precarity, challenges and strengths of the mid-career phase.
Thursday 12 September, 6:30PM
Writers’ Salon: Invoking Eros
Join poet, artist and somatic facilitator Shannon May Powell in exploring how pleasure and desire can unfurl on the page to enhance your storytelling.
Thursday 12 September
Nocturnal: Earthshattering
Words and sounds are the mediums we turn to, to channel these transformative events. Join us Melbourne Museum to hear stories and tributes to experiences that rooted these artists to the earth or led them to transcend it.
Wednesday 11 September, 8PM
What’s Your Deal?
Perfection is overrated, so settle in for a night of comedic catharsis all about embracing one’s faults, flaws, and weird special interests that no one else understands
Saturday 7 September, 2PM
Texting Images: BLINDSIDE & EWF Ekphrastic Readings
BLINDSIDE & EWF present the Ekphrastic Writing Program. This initiative invites four emerging writers to produce an ekphrastic response to an exhibition from Blindside ARI’s 20-year exhibition archive, culminating in a night of celebratory readings, where writers will share the works created, in front of the very artworks they have responded to.
Friday 13 September
Morning Pages: Sweaty Palms, Fear in Fiction
What does it feel like to face fear on the page? From embodying emotion, to revisiting the stuff of nightmares, these writers discuss what fear is, and how it can propel one’s writing.
Friday 13 September, 12:30PM
LUNCH/BREAK: Flash Fiction
Inject some spontaneity into your lunch break and try your hand at this deceptively tricky, but ultimately thrilling form. With a series of short prompts to get you going, this session is for everyone; from those that naturally gravitate to bite-sized writing, to curious newcomers.
Friday 13 September, 5:30PM
Flight of the Bats
Join us, unplugged, at Fairfield Amphitheatre to hear readings that celebrate these motifs and more, while the foxes take flight overhead. A Spring staple, with a literary twist!
Friday 13 September, 7PM
EWF X Gammin Guild
Tune into the next chapter of the Gammin Guild’s live roleplaying story as part of EWF24 .
Saturday 14 September, 7PM
Body Curious
Join these body-curious artists for a night of performances, devoted to sensorial writing and self-discovery and expression through the body.
Saturday 14 September, 4PM
Journal Crawl
You’ve heard of, and likely have ventured on a pub crawl, but how about a lit mag crawl? EWF presents our first ever journal crawl.
Saturday 14 September, 3PM
Chapter Four: The Final Chapter
Celebrate the work written during the Chapters program. Sit back and enjoy listening to your fellow Chapters participants’ exciting new work.
Sunday 15 September, 7PM
Closing Night: BANQUET
Gather beneath stained glass for the final event of EWF24: an etheral spring banquet.
Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September
A Feather Landing
This digital writing exhibition is an invitation into stillness. Four poets experiment with communicating the wordless, drawing upon language as an imperfect signpost towards the shimmering presence that exists beneath and beyond all things.
Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September
Fanfiction: Beyond the Canon
Combining case studies of fanfiction writers turned best-selling authors, publishing ecosystems across the world, and what fanfiction means to fans, these writers discuss how these thriving communities of writers and readers provide a space for emerging writers to practice and gain feedback.
Saturday 14 September, 10AM
EWF X A Plus Market
Melbourne’s A Plus has gathered a posse of brilliant writers to reflect on their favourite writing about plus size bodies, and shine a light on the power – and sometimes, difficulty – in being visible, taking up space, and writing against shame.
Friday 13 September, 8PM
Scream Scenes
Dress up in your phantasmic finest for an evening of spine-tingling tales, from writers and ghouls alike.
Thursday 12 September
On Slowness
Led by writer Tiia Kelly, this workshop will suggest ways to apply slowness as a framework for thinking about your work, the writing process, and the wider industry.
Thursday 12 September, 11AM
Daily Devotions
Hear how these multi-disciplinarians harness daily habits and routines that flow into their artistic practice. Gain a fresh mindset, and uncover fun, practical techniques to ignite your own creative process.
Saturday 14 September, 11AM
Prose Pals
Come along to this literary speed-friending session for an opportunity to meet other emerging writers who identify as queer or gender diverse.
Sunday 15 September, 11AM
Pitch-It! sessions
Publishers are always on the lookout for new and exciting voices, so here’s your chance to show them yours. Use your 5-minute pitch as a professional development exercise that has the potential to be much, much more.
Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September
Frames to Fiction
Build an entire narrative around a single frame or a fragment of a screenplay. New prompts will be shared regularly on our Discord channel, inviting you to connect with fellow writers and fuel your creative fire.
Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September
Wall of Echo
Four artists from UWRF and EWF appear in this transcontinental literary sound board. Investigating UWRF’s “powers within humans” (live, speak, think), these writers are called upon to artistically represent their connection to such powers.
Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September
UWRF & EWF: In-Conversation
Join a cross-continental in-conversation reflecting on the evolving role of storytelling in a global context. Witness this exchange of ideas and dreams, as each writer enquires into the other’s diverse creative practice.
Wednesday 11 September
Digital Surrealisms
Is the world becoming unreal, or hyper-real? Sink into this series of audio surrealist works, from artists concerned with the obsolescence of memory, AI, and the relationship between creativity, and being chronically online.
Saturday 14 September, 11AM
Verse in Code: Creating Digital Poetry
Experience the creative potential of e-literature via this digital poetry workshop. You’ll be guided through real-time HTML, CSS and JavaScript edits—no previous experience required.
Sunday 15 September
LUNCH/BREAK Drop In: Blak & Bright Writing Club
Been inspired by everything at EWF24? For this special lunch time drop-in session, join multi-practice artist Elijah Money for a laid back writing club, where you can put it all down on paper! Bring along a work in progress, or sit down to a fresh page with new ideas, and spend some time dedicated to […]
Thursday 5 September, 6:30PM AWST
Centre for Stories: Dreams / Reality
Speculative fiction meets creative non-fiction in this night of readings at Centre for Stories. Witness writers as they trace the threshold between dreams and reality.
Wednesday 11 September, 6:30PM
Coming of Age in the Wild West
What does it mean to write the place you have lived? How do you harness the streets you have walked, and reflect back the people around you with care and consideration? In this special discussion event, these western suburbs writers come together to talk about the place, and the responsibility of writing it.
Saturday 14 September, 11AM
Poster Poems
Join poet Alison J Barton and Troppo Print Studio for a hands-on workshop all about different approaches to visual poetry. During the workshop, participants will have the chance to add to a collaborative poem, which will be turned into a paste up poster by Troppo Print Studio, to be unveiled at the end of the workshop. The workshop coincides with the ‘Future Foundations’ exhibition curated by Troppo Print Studio, which celebrates the past, present and future of printmaking and is currently showing at Counihan Gallery.
Friday 6 September, 4PM
Erasure & the Burning Haibun: Poetry Workshop
The Burning Haibun is a poetic form that burns away at the landscape of memory to find a distilled truth within. By considering erasure in its political context, this workshop will explore the power of the Burning Haibun and what it can reveal.
Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September
EWF X Sinister Wisdom: Body of Land
In interrogating how the intersection of queer and racial identity informs notions of belonging, Body of Land hopes to show the multiplicity of lesbian and queer histories. Body of Land is set for publication in 2025, with submissions opening in September.
Thursday 5 September – Sunday 15 September
20 Minute Cities
Take a literary tour around the world, with the help of the UNESCO Cities of Literature network! Join emerging writers from Heidelberg, Jakarta, Kozhikode, Krakow, Ljubljana, Nottingham, Quebec City, Reykjavik, Tukums, Vilnius and Wroclaw as they walk you through their city, introducing you to local writers and pointing out what makes their City of Literature great.
Thursday 12 September, 11AM
State of Emergence
In this panel discussion, writers will touch on their respective experiences in the publishing industry: from pitching articles to writing residencies, the publishing process to getting paid for their work.
Thursday 12 September, 12:30pm – 1:30pm
PEN Letter Writing Session
PEN Melbourne brings writers together to share experiences, explore ideas and conduct public conversations about how literature transforms, influences and fosters cross-cultural exchange. In this lunch time drop-in session, attendees can get involved with PEN’s letter writing program, designed to increase international pressure and attention on the persecution of writers exercising their rights to freedom […]
Speculate
How does fiction reflect and predict on the page, and what does it mean to speculate through literature? This discussion will dive deep into the world/s of speculative fiction, before making a very exciting announcement sure to delight emerging short fiction writers Australia wide.
Jumaana Abdu
Jumaana Abdu is the author of Translations (Vintage), her debut novel. She is a Dal Stivens Award winner and an alumnus of the Wheeler Centre Next Chapter program. Her work features in Thyme Travellers (Roseway Publishing), an international anthology of Palestinian speculative fiction. She has been published elsewhere in Kill Your Darlings, Westerly, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Liminal, Overland, and Debris.
Munira Tabassum Ahmed
Munira Tabassum Ahmed is a 19-year-old writer. Her work has been published in Frontier, Best of Australian Poems, Meanjin, Liminal, Red Room Poetry, and elsewhere. She was the 2022 Kat Muscat Fellow, 2024 WestWords Accelerator Recipient, and is currently working on her first novel.
Kgshak Akec
Kgshak Akec is a South-Sudanese writer, performing artist, storyteller, and a lover of words. Since the moment she learned how to write in English at the age of six, Kgshak has been writing out the stories that live inside her mind. As a migrant and non-native English speaker, Kgshak is fascinated by the unspoken words and unsung songs of the day-to-day. Her debut novel Hopeless Kingdom, inspired by her own journey of migrating to Australia, explores the relationship of a mother and daughter as they settle, break, evolve, and adapt in new lands through multiple heartaches and triumphs
Mega Anindyawati
Mega Anindyawati is a writer from Sidoarjo, East Java. Mega completed her studies at Airlangga University. She is emerging writer of Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) 2024. Her writings have been featured in Jawa Pos, Kompas.com, Radar Mojokerto, Harian Bhirawa, and others. Some of her books that have been published include Sabar Menanti Buah Hati (2019), Sepotong Kenangan dan Senja yang Memakannya (2021), Unconditional Marriage (2022), Manusia Setengah Udang Memakannya (2022), Miracles of Love (2022), Cepet Ndhelik! (2023), and others.
Manisha Anjali
Manisha Anjali is the author of Naag Mountain (Giramondo, 2024). She is the founder of Neptune, a research and documentation platform for dreams, visions and hallucinations. She is one half of Whelk, an ambient music project with multi-instrumentalist Genevieve Fry.
Whelk is an ambient music collaboration between multi-instrumentalist Genevieve Fry and artist Manisha Anjali. Whelk is made up of ethereal harp, textural percussion and otherworldly incantations.
Pelaya Arapakis
Pelaya Arapakis is a cultural worker, musician and writer based in Naarm.
Tīhema Baker
Tīhema Baker is a Māori writer who descends from the iwi (nations) of Raukawa te Au ki te Tonga, Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. His writing often deconstructs the complex interactions between the Māori and Western worlds, based on professional and personal experience. He is the author of satirical sci-fi novel ‘Turncoat’, which parodies the experiences of Māori public servants and was longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2024. He is also the author of young adult series ‘The Watchers Trilogy’, and various short stories and essays.
June Ball
Rebooting life after COVID has lead June Ball to re-explore a passion for screenwriting. In preparation, June participated in various programs including among others, “Screenwriting” by AFTRS, “How to Read a Film” by British Film Distributors Association, “Horror Webinar” by Robert McKee, and was accepted into “Originate” – Stage 1, by FilmVic. June studying with a screenwriting mentor from Access Arts Victoria. June has had both fiction and non-fiction published. June’s current screenplay is a quarter finalist in the ScreenCraft Feature Competition 2024.
Renay Barker-Mulholland
Renay is a self-described Blak of all trades. Proudly disabled, Biripi / Dunghutti woman, Renay is a visual artist, writer, disability and gender justice advocate.
Alison J Barton
Alison J Barton is a Wiradjuri poet widely published in Australian and international journals. In 2023 she won several fellowships with the Australian National Writer’s House (Varuna House) and her poetry was recognised in numerous prizes. In both 2022 and 2023, Alison’s work appeared in Best of Australian Poems. She was the inaugural winner of the 2023 University of Cambridge First Nations Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, and took up a two-month writing residency in 2024 with SomoS Arts (Berlin, Germany). Her first full-length collection of poetry, Not Telling, will be published in August with Puncher & Wattmann.
Margarita Bassova
Margarita Bassova is an emerging sound artist, writer, and head of the music-arts-culture publication Verve Zine.
Margarita’s writing is primarily rooted in music journalism, having written for international and local publications from Resident Advisor to Ransom Note, long-form pieces on Earmilk, Headthreads and beyond. In 2023 she was awarded Creative Australia’s Music Writers’ Travel Bursary to write about Australian music talent overseas, allowing her to document festivals in Singapore and Bali.
In 2022, Margarita released Verve’s first print edition, showcasing world-class local talent and with an accompanying “thoughts” zine.
Farah Beaini
Farah Beaini is a poet and performer interested in exploring stories of identity and belonging in an age of constant movement. Liquid and lyrical, her work blends mediums with transcending stories that tackle difficult conversations within the community. She has featured at major events and festivals, and her poems have also been broadcast on radio stations (ABC, PBS 106.7 FM, 3ZZZ, SBS Radio).
Mandy Beaumont
Mandy Beaumont’s debut novel The Furies was long-listed for the prestigious Stella Prize and shortlisted for the MUD Literary Prize and the Queensland Literary Awards. Her collection of short stories, Wild, Fearless Chests, was shortlisted for the Richell Prize and the Dorothy Hewett Award. Stories from the collection also won the MOTH International Short Story Prize and were shortlisted for other notable awards. She holds a PhD and a Masters in creative writing and is a regular feature writer and book reviewer for The Big Issue. Her new crime novel, The Thrill of It, will be out in 2025.
J. Taylor Bell
j. taylor bell is from Texas and is currently a PhD candidate at Monash University. His first poetry collection is titled HELLO CRUEL WORLD (Wendy’s Subway, 2022). Drop in anytime and wave hello @disco_steww.
Thea Belmont
Thea grew-up in rural Australia, developing her love of reading and writing from a young age. As a young adult, she left for the city, where she had her first brush with kink and fell in love with a world that balanced devotion and discipline.
She currently enjoys life in Sydney with her cat.
Isabelle Biondi Saville
Isabelle Biondi Saville is a tea-fuelled writer of short fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in Three Can Keep a Secret, Ourselves: 100 micro memoirs, the little journal, Powders Press and Queerlings. When she’s not writing, you will often find her crocheting or winding up her cat.
Maria Birch-Morunga
Maria Birch-Morunga is a Maori/Pakeha podcast host, facilitator and visual artist. Based in Melbourne, Maria’s practice includes fabric art, collage and co-creating Being Biracial podcast. Alongside Kate Robinson, Maria is part of the current cohort of Museums Victoria’s Culturemakers. The pair created Threads, an immersive digital film that is currently exhibited at Melbourne Museum. Maria has previously curated and hosted events at Footscray Community Arts, MPavillion, The Channel at the Arts Centre Melbourne and The Round.
Elizabeth Bourke
Elizabeth Bourke (she/her) is a young writer living on unceded Dharawal land. Her writing tangles nature, technology and queerness. Her work has been featured in Fremantle Press’ 2023 queer anthology ‘An Unexpected Party’, as well as Island, Voiceworks and Verandah. She was a finalist in The Age/Sydney Morning Herald 2023 Young Essayist Prize and highly commended for Express Media’s 2022 Catalyse Nonfiction Prize. She has appeared at the Emerging Writers’ Festival and National Young Writers’ Festival.
Maile Bowen
Maile Bowen is a writer, artist, and embodiment teacher based in Walyalup on Noongar Country. Her work explores the relationship to place and culture, influenced by her kanaka maoli heritage. Water and land are central to her work, which also weaves in years of writing on gender and feminism, when she created feminist publication Accidental Discharge, active from 2013-2017.
Katherine Brabon
Katherine Brabon is the author of the novels The Memory Artist, The Shut Ins and Body Friend. Her work has received the Vogel’s Literary Award, a NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the David Harold Tribe Fiction Award. Her third novel Body Friend was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the ALS Gold Medal. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne.
Katie Brebner Griffin
Katie Brebner Griffin is a freelance writer, artist and disability advocate. She has written for various outlets such as the ABC and Guardian Australia about chronic pain, sexual assault and finding joy in creative practice. Her writing and visual art takes a practical, informative approach to illuminating the complexities of life’s challenges, whilst also exploring the various dimensions of personhood beyond these experiences.
Heidi Brooks
Heidi is a Daingatti woman of mid north coast NSW now residing in Melbourne. When she isn’t working on a theatre production in costume she’s working on her own costumes, having been a cosplayer for over 12 years now.
Alisha Brown
Alisha Brown is a poet and musician born on Kamilaroi land. She won the 2022 Joyce Parkes Women’s Writing Prize, placed second in the 2021 Woorilla Poetry Prize, and was Highly Commended for the 2024 South Coast Writers Centre Poetry Award. She is currently an Editorial Intern for Red Room Poetry. You can find her work in Westerly, Griffith Review, Cordite, the Australian Poetry Anthology, Glassworks, Humana Obscura, and Blue Bottle Journal, among others.
Daniel Browning
Daniel Browning is an award-winning Bundjalung and Kullilli writer, journalist and radio broadcaster. Currently the ABC’s Editor Indigenous Radio, he also presents The Art Show podcast. Hailed by the judges as “an outstanding contribution to arts journalism”, his first book, Close to the Subject: Selected Works won the Indigenous Writing Prize at the 2024 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
Joe Bugden
Joe Bugden holds a BA from University of Sydney and a Master of Letters from UNE. He has written the libretti and composed the music for two chamber operas; ‘Death by Defenestration’, and ‘The Call of Aurora’, (based on the Antarctic explorer, Douglas Mawson). ‘Incidental Dreams from a Myoclonic Jerk’ which is published by Ginninderra Press is Joe’s first published collection of short stories. In July Joe was artist in residence through the La Baldi Foundation, in Montegiovi, Tuscany, working on the libretto for an opera based on the life of the Italian renaissance mathematician, Luca Pacioli.
Natalie Bühler
Natalie Bühler is an emerging poet, editor and arts administrator originally from Switzerland. She often incorporates her native Swiss German, which does not have a standardised written form, into her writing. Her work has appeared in Cordite, Tint, Blue Bottle Journal, boats against the current, swim press and the Tinted Trails anthology. She is the Program Administrator for Red Room Poetry, a founding editor of The Marrow poetry journal and is currently studying a Master of Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing at the University of Melbourne.
CAINNE
CAINNE @criticalsxxtheory (xe/xim/xyr) is an Afrox agender art worker, body worker and sxx worker born on Lenape Land currently residing on Wurundjeri Land. At Cubby Art Party, Cainne has given birth to “The Law of Beauty” and “De Bussy”. They are one half of disabled dance initiative, Disabled Pole Dancers, and a massage and movement therapist at Yahdy Studio. Their arts practice flows through poetry, prose, self publication, event production, music production, curation and dance. You can read their writing in @MoreThnMelanin, @TheNoncompliant.Artspublication and the first anthology publication from @swnarrativesalon and Cubby Art Parties self titled Arts Magazine.
Celeste Carnegie
Celeste Carnegie is a Birrigubba Juru and South Sea Islander woman whose career is shaped by diverse passions, which influence her work in technology, engagement, and inclusion. Her journey into the realm of technology was ignited by her upbringing, which was mainly influenced by her father’s enthusiasm for sci-fi series like Star Trek, Stargate, and Star Wars, which fueled her curiosity and fascination with technology.
Lara Chamas
Lara Chamas is a Lebanese artist, based in Naarm (Melbourne), fleeing from civil war, her parents migrated to Australia, where she was born. Her practice investigates topics of postcolonial and migrant narratives within the context of her cultural identity. Using narrative and experience documentation, storytelling, transgenerational trauma and memory and tacit knowledge; her research intends to explore links and meeting points between narrative theory, cultural practice, current political and societal tensions, and the body as a political vessel.
mohamed chamas
mohamed chamas spatializes inner realms, inspirited by the ‘dijital djinni’, a conduit for expression in digital media arts. Defying and responding to the military-entertainment complex, mohamed reenchants cyberspace by drawing on their relation to personal lineage and wider contexts of magickal and divinatory practices in ancient Islamicate regions. This dis/entangles as image, sound, poetry, virtual reality (VR), installation, performance and hybrid-corrupt forms. mohamed has exhibited at Testing Grounds, Seventh Gallery, Trocadero Art Space, Incinerator Gallery and MARS Gallery, with their literary work appearing in Running Dog, Emerging Writers Festival, Co- Magazine, The Lifted Brow, Liminal Magazine and Cordite Poetry Review.
Katy Chan
Katy Chan (PhD, Anthropology) is an early-career researcher and writer with her areas of interest in histories of colonialisms and (post)colonial subjectivity formation in Asia. She is the co-founder and co-host of the award-winning community radio show ‘Hong Kongology’ at 3CR 855AM. Currently, Katy is working on a project translating Australian First Nations poetry from English to Cantonese and other disappearing languages.
Kanika Chopra
Kanika is an avid reader, occasional writer, and all around curious person. She started the literary zine known as More than Melanin which publishes writings by POC and Bla(c)k women and LGBTQIA+ people from these communities. The zine is currently on its third issue.
Rijn Collins
Rijn Collins is an award-winning Melbourne writer with over one hundred short stories published in anthologies and journals, performed at literary festivals, and broadcast on Australian and American radio. Her collection of memoir, ‘Voice’ (Somekind Press, 2021) is based on her love of linguistics and languages, with a focus on Icelandic, Irish and Flemish. Her debut novel, ‘Fed to Red Birds’ (Simon and Schuster, 2023) and was inspired by her writing residency in a tiny Icelandic fishing village near the Arctic Circle. She currently lives in Melbourne with her novelist husband, in a house full of snakeskins and bird bones.
Emilie Collyer
Emilie Collyer lives on unceded Wurundjeri land. Her writing is widely published in Australia and internationally.
Alicia Cook
Alicia is a multi-lingual journalist whose work spans written and photographic projects. She spent five years travelling and living abroad, collecting stories and finding something to say. Excited by new places, Alicia uses multimedia storytelling to document the people and spaces she encounters.
Currently based in Castlemaine, Victoria and writing independently across The Blue and SUSSED on Substack.
Alicia is in the process of finishing her first manuscript based on her experiences walking in Australia and abroad. She also hosts a breakfast radio show called Currents, which airs Wednesday mornings from 7am to 10am.
Will Cox
Will Cox is a lutruwita-born, Naarm-based writer and critic. His short fiction has appeared in various journals, and his novella Hyacinth came out in early 2023 to acclaim. He’s a regular arts writer for The Age and he can be heard on RRR’s Primal Screen.
Ange Crawford
Ange Crawford is a writer, editor and PhD student in media and communications at RMIT. Her contemporary YA novel, How to Be Normal, won the inaugural Walker Books Manuscript Prize and will be released in early 2025, and she also has an essay in the forthcoming UQP anthology of personal essays by Autistic women, trans and gender-diverse writers. She is the current Emerging Writers’ Program coordinator at Seventh Gallery. Apart from writing, editing, and art, she is a fan of cats and synthesisers, and can often be found with an armful of books in a local independent bookstore.
Sharleigh Crittenden
Sharleigh Crittenden is a Wiradjuri writer, researcher and mother living on Wangal country. Her short fiction has been published online by Going Down Swinging, The West Australian and Aniko Press. Her practices centres around complex psycho-emotional experiences and less conventional, more experimental forms of storytelling, including flash, repeating and fragmentary narration.
Nina Culley
Nina Culley is a writer, critic, educator and horror enthusiast based in Naarm. Her arts essays and criticisms have been published in Kill Your Darlings, Liminal, Aniko Press, Mascara Review, among others. Nina is also an active arts and theatre contributor for Time Out Magazine, Limelight and Arts Hub. Her work often centres on Asian literature, delving into themes of intersectionality, the weird, and the fringe.
Skye Cusack
Skye is a queer & neurodivergent Dulgubarra-Yidinji writer living in Naarm. She founded BluSkye Marketing in early 2023 (feeling very clever for coming up with the name) with a vision for an accessible First Nations owned marketing agency. Outside of running BluSkye Marketing, you may find her around Naarm performing yarns that make you laugh, cry and wonder why she’s admitting these things to a live audience.
Emily Dale
Emily Dale has just finished a BA in Creative Writing at RMIT and is a copywriter and editor at Small Fish Business Coaching. At this period in her life, she resides in the ever-changing, expressive city of Melbourne/Naarm. She spends a lot of her time when not writing, exploring the city and the expansive land beyond on her trusty (rusty?) Yamaha SR, Percy.
Travis De Vries
Travis De Vries, a Gamilaroi and Darug multidisciplinary artist, is the driving force behind Awesome Black as its founder & managing director.
Robyn Doreian
Robyn Doreian is an Australian magazine journalist, educator, and the former editor of Australian metal monthly Hot Metal, and British rock bibles Kerrang! and Metal Hammer. Her plethora of band interviews includes Kurt Cobain, Keith Richards, Patti Smith, Slipknot, Metallica, Megadeth, Tool, Cradle of Filth, Ice-T, Patti Smith, Tori Amos and Amyl and The Sniffers. She is passionate about interviewing and writing about music — heavy metal is her devotion. As the first female editor of Kerrang!, the UK/world’s biggest rock weekly, and also the first female editor of British monthly, Metal Hammer, she remains a pioneer in her field.
Alex Duncan
Alex writes for television, theatre, audio and fiction. His play Rakali was nominated for Best Theatre at the 2023 Melbourne Fringe, and called “gloriously original” and “deliciously entertaining” by critics after a sold out season. He wrote, directed and acted in seven-part audio drama “Hovering”, produced by Clea Frost and released in November 2023. He writes across many genres, including horror, thriller and comedy, often using an element of magic realism or supernatural to transform an everyday situation into something complex. He brings his experience as a queer person growing up in a small town in Tasmania into his work.
Catherine Dunn
Catherine Dunn is an emerging artist whose practice includes poetry in both Auslan and English as well as theatre performance.
As a bilingual person, her art practice is inspired by the expression of human experience through language which can be both empowering and disenfranchising.
Performance highlights include presenting a panel discussion at Clin d’Oeil in Reims, France for an international Deaf arts festival, a Warehouse Residency at Arts House in 2022 presenting “More Than Words Can Say” and performing “Home Sweet Home” at Melbourne Fringe Festival 2021.
Michael Earp
Michael Earp is a non-binary writer and bookseller living in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia), the editor of Everything Under the Moon, Kindred, Out-Side and co-edited Avast! Pirate Stories From Transgender Authors with Alison Evans. They have a teaching degree and a Masters in children’s literature and have worked between bookselling and publishing for over twenty years as a children’s literature specialist. Their role managing The Little Bookroom saw them named ABA Bookseller of the year. Their writing has also appeared in Archer, The Age, PopMatters, The Victorian Writer, Aurealis as well as the anthologies Borderlands and Underdog.
Joshua Edward
Joshua Edward is the Co-Founder and Editor of Fine Art at independent publisher no more poetry, Vice-Chair of Blindside Gallery, Director of Design at ModaMorphosis, and Head of Graphic Design & Publishing at Fashion’s Alchemists. A sculptor with formal studies at the Victorian College of the Arts, Joshua graduated in 2018 and has exhibited broadly within Australia and internationally.
Astrid Edwards
Astrid Edwards is a bibliophile and literary critic. She hosts The Garret: Writing and Publishing and has interviewed more than 250 of Australia’s most prominent writers and publishers. She regularly moderates literary events and judges literary prizes, and is the Chair of Judges for the 2025 Stella Prize.
As a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne she explores environmental responsibility in publishing during the climate crisis. In 2023 she was one of Creative Australia’s inaugural Creative Climate Fellows.
Vahideh Eisaei
Vahideh Eisaei, is an Iranian-Australian storyteller, a Qanun player and a composer. Evolving into a storyteller, she blends poetry, spoken words, and music to reconstruct classical poetry with contemporary nuances. Vahideh’s work delves into the narratives, elements and motifs embedded in Persian music and poetry, crafting compositions and text that resonate with her experiences as a migrant woman in a new land. Most recently, she wrote, composed and performed in Love’s Universe is Inside You, directed by Michael Kantor, at the Melbourne Recital Centre and Aranya Festival In China.
Sam Elkin
Sam Elkin is a writer, community lawyer and author of Detachable Penis: A Queer Legal Saga. He co-hosts the Triple R radio show Queer View Mirror and is the 2024 City of Melbourne Boyd Garret writer in residence.
Photo credit: Marlo W
Julie Enszer
Julie R. Enszer, PhD, is the author of five poetry collections, including The Pinko Commie Dyke with illustrations by Isabel Paul (Indolent Books, 2024), and editor of OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture, Fire-Rimmed Eden: Selected Poems by Lynn Lonidier, The Complete Works of Pat Parker, and Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989. Enszer publishes Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal. More at www.JulieREnszer.com.
Anneliz Marie Erese
Anneliz Marie Erese is a Filipino writer of prose and poetry. Her works have appeared in Going Down Swinging, The Saturday Paper, Cordite Poetry Review, Meanjin and Island Online, among others. In 2022, she won the Deborah Cass Prize for Writing. She was also a 2023 Scholar at the Faber Writing Academy and a recipient of the Hot Desk Fellowship. Most recently, she was a Resident Writer at the Vermont Studio Center where she was at work on her first novel. She lives and works in unceded Wurundjeri land.
Gabrielle Everall
Gabrielle has a PhD in Creative Writing. This year she has put out her fourth collection of poetry through Collective Effort Press. Venus Without Furs. This is a feminist rewriting of Venus in Furs. She has been published in numerous anthologies including The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry. She has performed her poetry at La Mama, The Bowery in New York and The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She has also performed her work at The Evil Woman conference in Vienna and Prague.
Else Fitzgerald
Else Fitzgerald’s collection of short speculative fiction, Everything Feels Like the End of the World, was published by Allen & Unwin in August 2022.
Latoyah Forsyth
Latoyah Forsyth is an impact-driven and creative thinker, maker and leader in the arts, culture and creative industries. She is Head of Marketing and Visitor Experience at Melbourne Recital Centre, Chairperson of the Board at Emerging Writers’ Festival and a Board Director at Music Victoria. Latoyah has graduated from renowned leadership programs at Melbourne Business School and London Business School and channels her multifaceted skills into harnessing the power of the arts, culture, literary and creative industries to create positive value, impact and change for the community.
Genevieve Fry
Genevieve Fry is a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Naarm. Interested in exploratory music drawing inspiration from the natural world, their soundscapes encourage an inward journey touching on deep time, memory and sense of place. In both solo and collaborative contexts across the experimental, contemporary, and improvisation scenes, Genevieve layers textures of harp, recorder, synthesizer and voice.
Genevieve is the co-founder of Eastmint artist run studios, label and performance space which focuses on presenting and supporting music that promotes deep listening from a diverse range of artists across all genres.
Ananya G
Ananya G is a journalist at Mathrubhumi, a prestigious media company in Kerala, India and a celebrated author. With a postgraduate degree in English Language and Literature from Mar Ivanios College, she has penned seven notable works, including two short story collections, four novels, and a biography. Ananya’s literary achievements have been recognized with the Bhima Balasahithya Award, the Chacha Nehru Scholarship, the Mathrubhumi Kuttettan Award, and the DC Books Kunjunni Award.
Pedro Gunnlaugur Garcia
Pedro Gunnlaugur Garcia is a writer and translator.
Born in sunny Lisbon in 1983, but – unfortunately for him – raised mostly in the windy rokrassgat named Reykjavík. He is the author of two kinda OK novels: Málleysingjarnir (2019) and Lungu (2022).
Tigest Girma
Tigest Girma is an Ethiopian writer based in Melbourne, Australia. After graduating with a Bachelor of Education, she splits her time between writing and teaching. Passionate about exploring East African characters and myths, her work weaves Black stories with the dark and fantastical. In her free time, she can be found rewatching her comfort shows where the villain gets the girl. She invites you to visit her at tigestgirma.com or tiktok.com/tigestgirma. Immortal Dark is her debut novel.
Irma Gold
Irma Gold is an award-winning author and editor. Her debut novel, The Breaking, won the Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship and the Canberra Critics Circle Award, and was shortlisted for the ACT Notable Award for Fiction. Her short fiction has been widely published in literary journals, and her acclaimed collection is Two Steps Forward. Her next novel is forthcoming in 2025. Irma is also the author of five children’s books, and is the founder and co-host of the writing podcast, Secrets from the Green Room. She works full time as a freelance editor for individual authors and a range of publishers.
Dominic Gordon
Dominic Gordon is from Melbourne. His work has appeared in Meanjin, The Suburban Review and other literary journals. In 2018 Dominic was awarded the competitive Berry Street Fellowship, at the State Library Victoria, where he began work on what would become his first book, Excitable Boy: Essays on Risk. Since the 2024 release of his book, he has appeared on numerous ABC radio segments, his most recent was on Conversations with Richard Fidler. He lives with his partner and young son. And is currently working on a new collection of essays.
David Gould
Dr David Gould worked as a teacher and counsellor in schools and universities in Australia, France, and Japan. He then became Manager of the Committee for Melbourne’s business leadership program. In 2020 he completed his PhD and in 2023 his book ‘Survivors and Thrivers. Male Homosexual Lives in Postwar Australia’ was published. His current research is on Australian Rules Football and homophobia. David is co-founder of Bare Elements Entertainment company. He also founded and is President of Carlton Pride, the official LBGTI+ supporter group of the Carlton Football Club. David has assisted a Rohingya refugee family for the past decade.
Sophia Gracias
Sophia Gracias is a designer and artist who creates zines centered around the themes of self-care and inspiration. For many years, she has produced artwork as a form of self-care, using painting and collage to express herself. Her practice aims to explore the origins of inspiration for both herself and other creatives, especially in a world saturated with constant sources of #inspo.
Madison Griffiths
Madison Griffiths is an author, artist and producer. Her debut book Tissue (Ultimo Press) was released in 2023, and is a boldly poetic meditation on abortion and what it has the power to represent. She is the co-producer of Tender, a podcast that tracks the journey of individuals as they decide to leave an abusive relationship. In 2022, she was awarded the Walkley Foundation Our Watch Award for Excellence in Reporting on Violence Against Women, alongside co-producer, Beth Atkinson-Quinton. Her work largely centres around the lived experiences of women, especially those whose realities are shrouded in stigma, opposition and rebellion.
Sophie Hamley
Sophie Hamley has worked as a bookseller, editor, writer, content producer and web producer. She was a literary agent at Cameron’s Management from 2006 until 2014 and is a past President of the Australian Literary Agents’ Association. She is now a non-fiction publisher at Hachette Australia, publishing in a range of genres including biography, true crime, history, memoir, politics and science.
Bridget Harilaou
Bridget Ying Harilaou is a mixed-race, agender freelance writer living on Wurundjeri land. They write extensively about politics and race. You can find more of their work in Archer Magazine Issue #17, The Age and SBS Voices or on Instagram @bridget.ying
Jenny Hedley
Jenny Hedley is a neurodivergent writer, digital artist, critic, Writeability mentor and PhD candidate whose work appears in Cordite, Crawlspace, Diagram, Overland, Rabbit, The Suburban Review, TEXT, Westerly and the anthology Admissions: Voices in Mental Health. She lives on unceded Boon Wurrung land with her son.
Virginia Helzainka
Virginia Helzainka is a Co-Founder of Unspoken – Bali Poetry Slam, an initiative that conducts workshops and poetry slams every couple of months throughout the year. This endeavor collaborates closely with Bali’s local art, theater, and youth communities. In 2017, she authored the poetry book entitled Cocktail, Waves & Archer published under Mahima Institute Indonesia.
Melanie Hobbs
Melanie Hobbs writes short fiction about the immigrant experience, internet culture and the inner lives of women. She was the recipient of a Centre for Stories Fellowship in 2022 and has had her work published in various journals and anthologies. When she is not writing, Melanie is teaching or wrangling her small children.
Elena Hogan
Elena Hogan is an emerging writer and artist working on unceded Wurundjeri land. Since 2021, Elena has dedicated herself to her debut novel, Everything Before Gia, a family saga, queer mystery and social commentary on transgender rights. She has been published by Farrago, Voiceworks, the Emerging Writers Festival and Regional Arts Australia.
Dan Hogan
Dan Hogan (they/them) is the author of Secret Third Thing, which won the Mary Gilmore Award, the Five Islands Prize and was named one of the ‘best 25 Australian books of 2023’ by The Guardian. Dan’s poetry has been recognised by the Peter Porter Poetry Prize, Judith Wright Poetry Prize, and Val Vallis Award, among others. Dan runs DIY publisher Subbed In and edits the working-class literary journal Industrial Estate.
Hasib Hourani
Hasib Hourani is a Lebanese-Palestinian writer, editor, arts worker and educator living on unceded Wangal Country. His debut book, ‘rock flight’ will be released in September 2024.
William Huang
William Huang (he/him) is a writer and musician currently living in Naarm/Melbourne. He has interned for Portside Review, participated in Express Media Toolkits and has participated in the NGA’s Digital Young Writers’ Residency. William is interested in the avant-garde communities of days gone past, as well as critical theories and the emergence of new forms of utopian ideals. He is also interested in minority languages, as well as language learning more broadly.
Troy Hunter
Troy Hunter is an adult and YA crime fiction writer whose short stories have appeared in a variety of publications and journals. He lives in Melbourne and works as a marketing and communications consultant. ‘Gus and the Missing Boy’ is Troy Hunter’s first novel.
Adalya Nash Hussein
Adalya Nash Hussein is a writer and editor. Her work has appeared in Meanjin, Overland, Voiceworks, The Lifted Brow, Ibis House, Going Down Swinging and others. It has also been shortlisted for the KYD Creative Non-Fiction Essay Prize and the Scribe Nonfiction Prize. She has been a CA-SRB Emerging Critic, an Emerging Writers’ Festival Melbourne Recital Centre Writer in Residence, and Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow. She has edited for Voiceworks, Liminal and The Lifted Brow, and currently sits as Managing Editor of Australian Poetry and the Victorian Writer.
Darcy Hytt
Darcy Hytt is a palawa storyteller and arts worker living on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country. They explore relationality, futurity, power, and knowledge within contexts of queerness, disability justice, and Blak liberation.
Ronia Ibrahim
Ronia Ibrahim is a writer, artist and designer based in Naarm, originally from Aotearoa. Her work explores diasporic modes of storyteling. Her poetry and non fiction are featured across Australian and New Zealand publications, including Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite, SAARI Collective, Overland, Minarets, Starling and The Pantograph Punch. She is a 2024 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow, where she is currently working on her debut poetry collection. She is co author of Moon Musings, an onging faith-poetry zine project.
Hella Ibrahim
Hella Ibrahim is an editor with a passion for advocacy through the Arts.
Jordi Infeld
Jordi Infeld is a writer based on Wurundjeri land. She frequently collaborates with Rachel Schenberg on time-based poetry projects. Their book of middle-of-the-night writing, Certainly (certainly), was published last year by no more poetry, and they are currently working on a collection of poems written over the course of 24 hours.
Courtney Jaye
Courtney Jaye is a writer of Ngarrindjeri and Malaysian descent. She grew up all around Australia and is currently living on Kaurna country. She had her first memoir published in Roots: Home Is Where The Heart Is, placed in the Top 30 for the SBS Emerging Writers Competition 2020, was one of the 2024 recipient of the InReview x ArtsSA First Nations arts writing mentorship and has written for Kill Your Darlings and InReview.
Rae Johnston
Rae Johnston is a Wiradjuri woman who was born and raised on Darug & Gundungurra Country in the Blue Mountains of NSW. Rae plays Wilga Guulany in The Gammin Guild, an all-Indigenous Dungeons and Dragons group infusing Aboriginal storytelling with role-playing games. A multi-award-winning broadcast journalist with a focus on the geekier side of life, she was the first Science & Technology Editor for NITV at SBS, and currently travels the country as a host on NITV’s Going Places with Ernie Dingo, and ABC’s Back Roads. Rae serves on the boards of the Telstra Foundation and Swinburne University of Technology.
Saanjana Kapoor
Saanjana Kapoor is a recent Bachelor of Arts graduate from the University of Melbourne. Her writing has been published in Voiceworks, Island, Cordite, Meanjin, and more. She is currently a participant in Express Media’s Toolkits: Fiction, and a recipient of a New Colombo Plan Scholarship by the Australian Government.
Tiia Kelly
Tiia Kelly is a critic and essayist based in Naarm. Her work can be found in Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Australian Book Review, Overland, Senses of Cinema, and elsewhere. She is a commissioning editor for the film publication Rough Cut.
Josh Kemp
Josh Kemp is an author of Australian gothic and crime fiction. His debut novel, Banjawarn, was the winner of the 2021 Dorothy Hewett Award, the 2022 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction and the 2023 Western Australian Premier’s Prize for Best Emerging Writer. Jasper Cliff is his second novel. He lives in the Sout West of WA but finds himself drawn, over and over again, to the red dirt of the state’s north.
Dechen Khadro
Dechen is an emerging screenwriter with a background in philosophy and visual art. They are currently based in Naarm/ Melbourne and Central Java. They are working on their first feature script, “Brother, I’m Between Shadows”. Dechen loves minestrone and YMO.
Josh King
Josh King is a musician and poet based in Berrin/ Mount Gambier, South Australia. He has participated in several projects with Writers SA, Mount Gambier Fringe, and is one half of the electronic music group Sexy As Shit.
Kris Kneen
KRIS KNEEN is the award-winning author of fiction, poetry and non-fiction including An Uncertain Grace which was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, Wintering, shortlisted for the Davitt award and three QPLA awards, and The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen which was shortlisted for two QPLA awards and the Margarey Medal. Their poetry collection Eating My Grandmother won the Thomas Shapcott Prize. Their latest book Fat Girl Dancing was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. They have written and directed broadcast television documentaries and were the Copyright Agency Ltd Non-fiction Fellow in 2020.
Jessica Knight
Jessica Knight is a writer based in Naarm. Her memoir was published by Ultimo Press in 2024. It’s entitled Strange Little Girl.
Maggie Knight-Williams
Maggie is a young queer writer of Gamilaroi and settler ancestry with Ngunnawal kinship ties. She makes her home on Ngunnawal dhawura, studying law and going to parties. Her work is a natural byproduct of her navigation of relationships with Country, memory, and women.
Emilia Konwerska
Emilia Konwerska is a curator, literary scholar, columnist, and poet. Author of two books of poetry – “112” (papierwdole publishing house) and “Ostatni i pierwszy kajman” [The last and the first caiman] (J publishing house). Both books were nominated for Gdynia Literary Award. Her first book was recently published in Ukraine.
Benjamin Laird
Benjamin Laird is a software engineer and poet. His print and electronic poetry have been published in various journals.
Raghav Lakshman
Raghav Lakshman is a Naarm based artist specializing in experimental bass and glitch music, Braek’s left-field broken beat compositions are painstakingly crafted through reconstructed modular synth patches, samplers and analogue oscillations. The end result a complex microcosm of glitch heavy alien sonics defying genres and pushing boundaries of electronic process and composition.
Brodie Lancaster
Brodie Lancaster is an essayist, author and critic. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Pitchfork, Bon Appetit, Vogue and The Age, among others. She was the founding editor of the feminist film zine Filmme Fatales. Brodie co-hosts the weekly podcast See Also, and is the author of the 2017 memoir No Way! Okay, Fine.
Sophie Lane
Sophie Lane is a Sydney based artist and illustrator working on Gadigal and Wangal land. In taking a fragmented approach to personal narratives, her drawing and painting practice considers the intimate subjectivity of autobiographical storytelling. Landscapes of connection, solitude, mundanity, chronic illness, desire and gendered experience are broken up with visual and anecdotal negative space into which other possible understandings can be imagined. This process of disrupting traditional narrative structures allows the artist to offer up an introspective body of work; the hesitant vulnerability of a story only partially told.
Jamie Marina Lau
Jamie Marina Lau is a novelist and the author of ‘Pink Mountain on Locust Island’ and ‘Gunk Baby’. She was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Readings Residency Award and Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelist. In 2022 Lau was selected to be a Fall resident and the Australian representative at the Iowa International Writers Program.
Jeanine Leanne
Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri writer, poet and teacher from the Murrumbidgee River in south west NSW. She currently works at the University of Melbourne.
Mackenzie Lee
Mackenzie Lee is a queer First Nations poet. With Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman, and Karajarri ancestry, mixed with Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and Anglo-Australian heritage, they are a creative whose ties to culture, country, and saltwater connects them to their storyteller ancestors. Lee writes a variety of poems in response and reaction to the world around them.
Carissa Lee
Dr Carissa Lee is a Noongar actor and writer born on Wemba-Wemba country.
Carissa’s writing has featured in The Guardian, Witness Performance, Australasian Drama Studies, Red Room Poetry, The Saturday Paper, Junkee, and The Conversation. Carissa is currently a commissioning editor at IndigenousX, while completing an Indigenous Research fellowship at Swinburne University.
Deborah Lee-Talbot
Deborah Lee-Talbot is a professional historian. She is fascinated with places like archives and libraries. Her time in these historic places locates and illuminates stories about a wide range of women. After this research time Deborah seeks opportunities for community engagement, be it by creating presentations or digital content. In 2023 she completed research at the State Library of New South Wales as CH Currey Fellow. The project was ‘Archives of the Archivist: Phyllis Mander-Jones and the Keeping of Australian-Pacific records, 1896-1957’. She received a National Library of Australia Summer Scholarship in 2022 to analyse the Australian Joint Copying Project.
Quinton Li
Quinton Li (they/them) is an award-winning non-binary author of spiritual, queer, and evocative narratives that represent underrepresented identities. They are the author of Tell Me How It Ends, and Chrysalis and Requiem, and the editor and curator of Devout: An Anthology of Angels. Their poetry can be found with Panorame Press, Messy Misfits Club and Iris Youth Magazine.
Kiara Lindsay
kiara lindsay is a poet living and working on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people. her debut collection ‘a portrait of me running as fast as the plant is growing’ is out now through no more poetry.
Frank Lord
Frank Lord is a writer, poet, artist, and editor living at the bottom of the world. They have had three books of poetry published—Seventy-Seven Tales From Urban Psychosis (2016), A Day in the Life (2017), and SCHLOCK!!! (2024)—and they are a regular contributor to the experimental magazine Unusual Work by Collective Effort Press. Their artwork and concrete poetry have been shortlisted and exhibited across Australia in dive bars, expensive galleries and holy holy government buildings. They have seen the future and they are afraid.
Lychee Lui
Lychee Lui is a writer, editor, and occasional award-winning interviewer who works in Sydney. Their work has appeared in Tharunka, Blitz, Newsworthy, and Plinky Plonky. They currently coordinate UNSWeetened, a student literary journal, at UNSW.
Phoebe Lupton
Phoebe Lupton is an Anglo-Celtic/Sinhalese writer, arts worker and access consultant, based in Canberra/Ngunnawal and Ngambri lands.
Lux
Lux is a poet and a catastrophic-musician who writes poetry, improvises music, creates performance art and leads writing workshops. They are based in Quebec city, but are originally form Abitibi, Quebec. They cofounded the RAMEN Collective of which they are a member since 2015. They also perform unpublished poetry, often improvised. Performance art, poetry and improvisation are woven throughout their daily life.
Anke MacLean
If you are not sure how to say Anke’s name, it rhymes with the German word for thank you – ‘Danke’. Anke was born in Germany and illustrates stories, poems, and events, using sand and an ‘old-school’ overhead projector. Her sand-work has been seen at spoken word poetry events including at Trades Hall and Federation Square. She currently co-runs monthly poetry events in Dandenong (Perc.U.lations) and Northcote (RadioLaria) and writes poetry and lyrics. Anke has previously worked across Australia as a performer, facilitator and artist, with Theatro Oneiron and Crossroad Arts. She regularly performs in the neo-folk duo ‘Awkward Strangers’.
N. J. Madden
N. J. Madden is a Naarm/Melbourne-based author and teacher. Madden worked a countless string of odd jobs from house-painting to retail to bookselling, before studying literature, history and education at university. His literary studies focused on eco-criticism, which heavily influences his writing. Madden’s debut novel, Laughing River, was shortlisted for the Unpublished Manuscript Award at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2024.
Haneen Mahmood Martin
Haneen Mahmood Martin is a Kuala Lumpur -born, Malay-Saudi multi-arts programmer, producer, writer, and artist based in Narrm/Melbourne. She creates and seeks art that highlights the everyday rituals that make life meaningful, the precarity of memory as a means of holding knowledge, and the connection and understanding that sharing food can bring – creating a space for our ordinary stories in the archives.
Seth Malacari
Seth Malacari is an LGBTQIA+ author and editor. His first book, An Unexpected Party (Fremantle Press, 2023), was shortlisted for the 2023 Aurealis Award for best anthology. Their work has appeared in Emergence: SBS Emerging Writers Anthology, Ourselves: 100 Micro Memoirs, and Underdog: LoveOzYA Short Stories. He is one of the judges for the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award.
Victoria Manifold
Victoria Manifold is a writer and trade union worker from County Durham, now living on Gadigal land.
She has been shortlisted for The White Review Short Story Prize twice, was a runner up in the 2019 Berlin Writing Prize, shortlisted for the 2021 Desperate Literature Prize and a runner-up in the 2022 Mslexia Short Story Prize. Her novel-in-progress, The Election of the Mayor, was shortlisted for the 2023 Richell Prize and longlisted for the 2023 Mslexia Novel Prize. In 2024 Wendy Erskine and Yan Ge selected her as the winner of the Short Fiction International Short Story Prize.
Dorcas Maphakela
Dorcas Maphakela is a multidisciplinary creative combining writing, visual arts and holistic well-being advocacy in her practice. She is a South African-born Mopedi woman. She studied Fine Arts at the University of Johannesburg and holds a Master of Arts in Writing from Swinburne University of Technology. Dorcas is also a TV presenter, public speaker and founder and producer of the Antenna Award-winning OZ AFRICAN TV (OATV). She is the co-founder of Yo CiTY, a platform that champions the culturally diverse experience through Art & music. Her work was acknowledged with a Media Award from the Victorian Multicultural Commission.
Kirk Marshall
Kirk Marshall is a Brisbane-born writer, teacher, fundraiser, and hellraiser living in Melbourne, Australia. He has written for more than eighty publications, both in Australia and overseas, including “Award-Winning Australian Writing”, “Island”, “Wet Ink”, “Going Down Swinging”, “Voiceworks”, “Verandah”, “visible ink”, “fourW”, and “The Grapple Annual”. Most recently, a chapter from his hillbilly apocalypse novel secured a nomination for The Pushcart Prize. Kirk’s date with fame and defamation arose when he authored the “Stranger Things” / “Round the Twist” mashup meme in 2016, before it was subsequently cannibalised by Netflix. He writes for dollars and dinosaurs at Museums Victoria.
Chloe Mayne
Chloe Mayne is a poet whose work moves in the realms of mothering, decoloniality and ecology. She is writing a creative doctorate at the University of the Sunshine Coast, and is a current recipient of the Marten Bequest for poetry. As a descendant of the Trawlwoolway people of north-east Tasmania, connection to place and exploration of identity are important roots of her expression.
Hannah McKittrick
Hannah McKittrick is a Naarm/Melbourne based musician. Her songs flicker between the hyper-specific and the universal, delivered with a graceful solemnity. Equipped with a voice that instantly hushes a room, Hannah honours atmosphere, intimacy and truth. Hannah also hosts cult Sunday night community radio program ‘Soak’ on PBS.
Laura McPhee-Browne
Laura McPhee-Browne writes on Wurundjeri land, and has published two novels, CHERRY BEACH and LITTLE PLUM, with a third, LACEY, on the way.
Josephine Mead
Josephine Mead is a settler visual artist/writer/curator living and working on Wurundjeri Country. Her multidisciplinary practice investigates personal notions of support. Her recent work has considered sound and language, queer-love and the body as a site of discursive practice.
Drey Mendez
Drey is a latinx creative whose work has featured in literary magazines and exhibitions like Overland, EWF’19, Yo Soy, the Australian Multilingual Writers Project and Blak Dot Gallery (ISTHMUS, Dr Tania Canas).
Ari Mills
Ari is a proud Kuku Yalanji and Nangu multidisciplinary artist with a strong focus in poetry and fashion design. The subject matter they focus on is the ways Love Studies coincide with Country, exploring these relationships in the experiences of Black Queer Peoples.
Selina Moir-Wilson
Selina Moir-Wilson is a writer, editor and comics artist. They are the editor of Voiceworks and a co-editor of Layabout. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Voiceworks, The Big Issue, Going Down Swinging and others. They are a 2023 SEVENTH Gallery emerging writer in residence and were a 2022 Toolkits: Graphic Narratives participant.
moirra.
moirra. is a Yorta Yorta, Boon Wurrung and Jewish transsexual artist, writer and poet living on Wurundjeri Country. Xer work focuses on Blak Queerness and Queer Blakness.
Elijah Money
Elijah Money is a Wiradjuri queer brotherboy who was raised on Kulin Nations where he continues to reside.
Nicole Moore
Nicole Jia Moore is a writer living in Naarm (Melbourne) and completing her masters of clinical psychology. Her poetry and non-fic has appeared in Meanjin, Rabbit, Cordite Poetry review, and Best of Australian Poems 2022 among others.
John Morrissey
John Morrissey is a Kalkadoon writer living in Melbourne. His debut collection of stories, Firelight, was published in 2023.
Cienan Muir
Cienan Muir is a big time nerd, bigger time advocate for creating Blak spaces. He plays Leo in the All-Indigenous D&D group, the Gammin Guild.
Olivia Muscat
Olivia Muscat has written for ABC Everyday, Arts Hub, Kill Your darlings and The Saturday Paper, among others, and for several notable anthologies. She is currently writing for theatre, recently completing a development through Darebin Arts Speakeasy, and her show ‘Is Anyone Even Watching’ has been awarded a place in the Arts House Develops program and a spot in the 2025 season. She was awarded fellowships by The Wheeler Centre and Varuna to work on her middle grade novel, which was shortlisted for the Text Prize 2024, and her first picture book is set for publication with Scribble in 2025.
Naavikaran
Previously awarded the 30 Under 30 LGBTIQ+ Leaders in Australia, Goddess Naavikaran is a Naarm based change maker and storyteller, community workshop facilitator, futurist Pop musician and DJ, stage and production manager, and theatre producer. Naavikaran’s debut EP, CHIQ DISCOTHEQ is now out on all streaming platforms and is an ode to trans joy.
Imelda Naomi
Born and raised in Jakarta, Imelda Naomi graduated in food technology from Bogor Agricultural University and food industry management from Université de Bourgogne, France. Had been fond of music and writing since childhood, and after pursuing a career in the food industry, Naomi was inspired to write for children. She has then written children’s short stories and published 10 picture books. In 2021, she won 4th place in the children’s short story competition for her script entitled The Thief and the Bewitched Jakarta Bay and was selected as one of Melbourne Virtual Writers in Residence in 2022. In 2024, Naomi was selected as one of the speakers in the discussion panel on the rising trend of biography picture books at the Asian Festival of Children Content in Singapore.
Joan Nestle
Joan Nestle is an 84 year old fem lesbian, co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, NY, (1974-) author and editor of ten books on lesbian, queer culture and literature. She is also a board member of Sinister Wisdom.
Mia Nie
Mia Nie is a Chinese-Australian comic artist, essayist, illustrator, zine-maker, award-nominated ex-poet and resident arts industry party girl based in Naarm (Melbourne). She was recently published in the anthology Avast! Pirate Stories from Transgender Authors from Fremantle Press, and works as creative producer at Express Media.
Gemma Nisbet
Gemma Nisbet is a writer and academic from Western Australia, living and working on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Western Australia, and teaches Literary Studies and Creative Writing at universities. Her work has appeared in publications including Australian Book Review, Axon, Life Writing, Text, Westerly and The West Australian, and her first book, The Things We Live With: Essays on Uncertainty (Upswell, 2023), was shortlisted for the 2024 WA Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Writer.
Karlie Noon
Karlie Alinta Noon is an astronomer, science communicator and award winning author from the Kamilaroi Nation. Karlie uses her extensive experience in science communication and media to advocate for the importance of Indigenous stewerdship in astronomy and space practices.
Genevieve Novak
Genevieve Novak is a writer from Naarm/Melbourne. She writes contemporary fiction, columns for The Age, and just-okay author biographies. She loves croissants. She hates being called Gen. Her novels, No Hard Feelings (2022) and Crushing (2023) are published by HarperCollins.
Ava Nunan
Ava Nunan (she/her) lives and writes on unceded Wurundjeri land. She is completing her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne, where she double-majors in creative writing and cultural studies. Ava’s previous work can be found in Voiceworks, Born Writers Award, Verve, Demure, and others.
Emma Osborne
Emma Osborne is a queer writer and poet from Naarm. Their writing has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Apex Magazine, Pseudopod, PodCastle, the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror, WASTELANDS III edited by John Joseph Adams and HOMETOWN HAUNTS, edited by Poppy Nwosu. Emma is a graduate of the 2016 Clarion West Writers Workshop. They are an Aurealis Award and Australian Shadows award finalist. Their novella THE BEAST YOU’VE MADE OF ME is forthcoming at Interstellar Flight Press. Emma lives in Narrm with their girlfriend and many cats.
Renée Otmar
Renée Otmar (Distinguished Editor – IPEd, PhD) is a professional editor living on Wadawarrung country. Her experiences spans fiction and creative non-fiction genres, including biography and life writing. Renée writes and produces life stories, teaches, coaches and mentors writers and editors.
Renée’s publications include a family memoir, In Cold Blood: The murder of baby Jordan (New Africa Books, 2007), Editing for Sensitivity, Diversity and Inclusion: A guide for professional editors (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and 2 forthcoming guides on writing/editing trauma narratives (August 2024). Her paper, “Trauma in Publishing” was released in June 2024 in Publishing Research Quarterly.
Mariwakiterangi Paekau
Mariwakiterangi Paekau (She/They) (Tainui, Waikato, Maniapoto, Kahungunu ki Heretaunga) is a multidisciplinary artist.
She is currently halfway through her Te Reo Māori me ōna tikanga degree at Te Wānanga o Raukawa. Her primary work is poetry, one of her poems was displayed in Auckland for Pride (2022). She has been on the Rangatahi panel for Verb Writers Festival (2022, 2023) and was one of the Micro residents for Verb (2023). You can find her poetry on her Instagram @mariwakiterangi
Roumina Parsa
Roumina Parsa is an Iranian Australian writer based in Melbourne (Naarm). She was shortlisted for the 2022 Catalyse Nonfiction Prize and her work has previously featured in Liminal and Farrago. She recently self-published a zine of personal essays, Here I Am.
Audrey Payne
Audrey Payne is the Melbourne food and drink editor for Broadsheet. She previously worked in the editorial team at Cherry Bombe, a New York-based media company celebrating women in and around the food world, where she remains an editor-at-large. Prior to Cherry Bombe Audrey worked in audience development at Lorne Michaels’ online digital comedy publication and production arm Above Average. She has contributed to Hetty Liu McKinnon’s Peddler Journal and wine publication Veraison. Audrey holds a Bachelor of Science from New York University, where she majored in business with concentrations in finance and econometrics.
Jasper Peach
Jasper Peach (they/them) is a trans, non-binary and disabled writer, speaker and parent. They are passionate about equitable access and inclusion, focused on the dismantling of misplaced shame via storytelling.
Connor Phipps
Connor Phipps (they/them) is studying a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Creative Writing at UNSW Sydney. Their interests include short story form, narrative theory and postcolonial literature. They are passionate about storytelling, particularly those we tell ourselves and each other about who we are.
Ruby-Rose Pivet-Marsh
Ruby-Rose Pivet-Marsh is a writer, producer and arts worker living and creating on unceded Wurundjeri land. Ruby is currently the Artistic Director and co-CEO of Emerging Writers’ Festival and is a co-founder of the Latinx arts collective, Yo Soy.
Shannon May Powell
Shannon May Powell is a poet and artist whose work poses gestures of longing towards new possibilities of gender, sexuality and identity. Their work featured at the EWF, Berlin Feminist Film Festival and NY Art Book Fair. They’re a hot desk fellow at the Wheeler Centre and art director at Blindside gallery. In 2022 they published their poetry book, ‘Can we rest tonight in the amnesia of pleasure,’ with No More Poetry. Much of their work was developed at VARDA residency, California and Pocoapocco residency,Mexico where their poetry practice began mutating into ephemeral mediums of performance art.
Stephanie Powell
Stephanie Powell is a poet based in Naarm / Melbourne. Her forthcoming collection, Small Acts, will be published in late 2024 by Liquid Amber Press. Her book, Gentle Creatures, was published by Vagabond Press in 2023. Her poetry has been translated into Braille and published widely. She is the winner of the 2024 Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize.
Pia Prezelj
Pia Prezelj (1995) is a writer, translator and journalist for the cultural section of Delo, Slovenia’s largest and central daily newspaper. In 2022, she was awarded the Young Journalist of the Year Watchdog Award by the Slovenian Journalists’ Association. Her translation of Lucia Berlin’s short story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women was published in 2018 by Cankarjeva založba. Her debut novel Heavy Water (Goga, 2023), which tells the story of an elderly woman in a remote rural village, won the Debut of the Year Award and was nominated for the Cankar Award, the Kresnik – Best Novel of the Year Award and the Critics’ Sieve Award.
Jordan Prosser
Jordan Prosser is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker from Victoria. His short story ‘Eleuterio Cabrera’s Beautiful Game’ won the Peter Carey Short Story Award in 2022 and was published in Meanjin. ‘Big Time’ is his first novel.
Ale Prunotto
Ale Prunotto is a white, trans and autistic writer living on unceded Wurundjeri land. They mostly write creative nonfiction that explores embodiment, movement, urban landscapes, gender, play and risk. Their current work-in-progress is a book about experiences of women and gender minorities who do parkour.
Anna Quercia-Thomas
Anna Quercia-Thomas is a queer Hispanic American writer and academic currently based in Western Australia. She writes poetry and speculative fiction about found family, queer romance, and connection in dark times. Her work is featured in New Words Press, SWAMP Journal, Overland, and an upcoming edition of Westerly. She is the third place winner of the 2023 International Proverse Poetry Prize
Madeleine Rebbechi
Madeleine Rebbechi is a writer based in Naarm/Melbourne. She has written music and arts reviews, radio scripts and media kits, but her true love is fiction. In 2022 she was highly commended in the Moth Short Story Prize, and in 2023 her story ‘Dip’ was published in the Kill Your Darlings anthology New Australian Fiction. She was awarded runner up in the 2023 Overland Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize, and is the 2024 recipient of the ASA/Varuna Ray Koppe Fellowship for Young Writers. She is currently working on a short story collection.
Martyn Reyes
Martyn Reyes is a writer and artist from Sydney. His creative non-fiction, fiction and criticism can be found in the Liminal Review of Books, the Sydney Review of Books, Debris Magazine and more. He is currently working on his first book-length project.
Raeden Richardson
Raeden Richardson was raised in Melbourne and graduated the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His work has been supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, the Ian Potter Cultural Trust and the American Australian Association. He has been an artist-in-residence at La Napoule Art Foundation and Yaddo. His writing has appeared in Griffith Review, Kill Your Darlings, The Age, Strangely Enough and New Australian Fiction. His debut novel, The Degenerates, is forthcoming in September 2024.
Izzy Roberts-Orr
Izzy Roberts-Orr is a poet and arts worker based on Wurundjeri Country in regional Victoria. Her debut collection, Raw Salt (Vagabond, 2024) was the recipient of a Marten Bequest Scholarship, Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship and longlisted for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. She is Creative Producer for Red Room Poetry.
Baran Rostamian
Baran Rostamian is a writer and law student living on unceded Whadjuk Noongar Boodja. She is fascinated, dumbfounded and disgusted by the way and the why of things. Aside from her debut poetry collection Woven Frays published by Red River in partnership with Centre for Stories, Baran’s writing can be found in The Tiger Moth Review, Singapore Review of Books, SBS Voices, at WA’s Raine Square Short Story Dispenser, Pulch Mag, Limina journal, Books+Publishing magazine, Australian Poetry Anthology Vol. 9 and various Centre for Stories’ anthologies.
Autumn Royal
Autumn Royal creates drama, poetry and criticism on unceded Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land. Autumn is an arts worker, sessional academic and the interviews editor at Cordite Poetry Review. Her poetry collection The Drama Student was shortlisted for the 2023 Queensland Premier’s Judith Wright Calanthe Award.
Samah Sabawi
Dr Samah Sabawi a Palestinian Australian playwright, author and poet. She received Green Room Award for Best Writing for her critically acclaimed play THEM and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premiere Literary Awards and the Nick Enright Prize. Sabawi’s Tales of a City by the Sea was staged over 100 times around the world winning two Drama Victoria Awards for Best Production and Best Publication. Sabawi co-edited Double Exposure winner of the Patrick O’Neill Award and co-authored I remember my name, winner of the Palestine Book Award. Sabawi’s debut novel Cactus Pear for My Beloved will be published September 2024.
Sara Saleh
Sara M. Saleh is a writer, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of Palestinian, Lebanese and Egyptian migrants. Her writing has been published widely in English and Arabic. In 2021, Sara made history as the first poet to win both the Peter Porter and Judith Wright Poetry Prizes. Sara’s debut novel, Songs for the Dead and the Living (Affirm Press, 2023) was shortlisted for a NSW Premier’s Literary Award. Her debut poetry collection, The Flirtation of Girls (UQP, 2023), was shortlisted for the 2024 ALS Gold Medal, the ALS Mary Gilmore Award and won the 2023 Anne Elder Award.
Melanie Saward
Melanie Saward is a proud Bigambul and Wakka Wakka woman. She is a writer, editor, and academic based in Tulmur (Ipswich), Queensland. Her debut novel Burn was published by Affirm Press in 2023 and her first romantic comedy novel, Love Unleashed, will be published by Penguin Random House in August 2024.
Kurnia Gusti Sawiji
Kurnia Gusti Sawiji, hailing from Bojong Nangka, Tangerang, Banten, describes himself as a writer, teacher and perpetual learner. He spends his time writing novels, short stories, formulas, teaching modules, exam questions, and many other things. Some of his essays and short stories have found their way into both print and online platforms such as Mojok, Suara Merdeka, and Kompas.
Rachel Schenberg
Rachel Schenberg is an artist and writer based on Gadigal land. She frequently collaborates with Jordi Infeld on time-based poetry projects. Their book of middle-of-the-night writing, ‘Certainly (certainly)’, was published last year by no more poetry, and they are currently working on a collection of poems written over the course of 24 hours.
Saman Shad
Saman Shad is a writer, editor, journalist and teller of stories. Her writing credits span mediums, including radio scriptwriting for the BBC in the UK and the ABC in Australia, and playwriting, with works commissioned by theatres in London and Sydney. She is a regular writer for several publications, including The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald and SBS. She has also worked on screen projects. Her debut novel The Matchmaker is out now published through Penguin Australia.
Tamala Shelton
Tamala Shelton is a Bundjalung (northern New South Wales) and Lama Lama (far north Queensland) First Nations actor, audiobook narrator, writer and spoken word artist based in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia)
Elnaz Sheshgelani
Elnaz Sheshgelani is a dancer, dance researcher, storyteller, director, puppeteer, and educator.
Levin Shillam
When you hear the words Levin Shillam you might think of great sprawling deserts and tumbleweeds drifting past. But in actual fact, Levin Shillam is one of those writing people… or an aspiring one. He likes to write comedy and absurdism, in the forms of audio drama, poetry, short fiction and the occasional stage play. In 2023, he was part of Regional Arts Australia’s writing program, Regional Scribes, and was published in their book, You Together. As of today, he studies at the University of Newcastle and is working on an audio drama miniseries.
Orlando Silver
Orlando Silver (he/they) is a nonbinary transmasc writer exploring queer embodiment and desire. He is the author of the plays “Soft Daddy” (2024) and “Escape Velocity” (2003). He has two self published books, “Soft Fruit” (2022) and “Relent” (2023), both of which explore trans masc erotica. He is the editor of the kink anthology “I Write the Body” (published by Kith Books). His new anthology “Take it Outside” is due for publication in November 2024. Orlando lives and works on Dharug and Gundungurra countries.
Hollen Singleton
Hollen Singleton is a writer and editor, and teaches at RMIT and the University of Melbourne. They live in Sunshine, Naarm. You can find the first chapter of their novel manuscript in Meanjin Winter 2024.
Mx Sly
2024 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST
Mx. Sly (they/them) is a non-binary writer, performer, arts producer, and flight attendant. Originally from Tiohtià:ke (Montreal, Canada) and now based in Naarm, they pursue contentment through incessant meal planning, doing Yoga with Adriene, making love like a beast, and making out in Melbourne’s laneways. Their first memoir, TRANSLAND: Consent, Kink & Pleasure, is a finalist for a 2024 Lambda Literary Award in the Transgender Non-Fiction category. When Sly isn’t in the sky, they run the arts collective Tender Container, which is developing Canada’s first all–trans and non-binary performance anthology for Playwrights Canada Press.
Aisling Smith
Aisling Smith is a Naarm/Melbourne-based writer. She won the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers in 2020. Her debut novel, After the Rain, was published by Hachette Australia in 2023 and was longlisted for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal.
Aurelia St Clair
Aurelia St Clair is a Naarm-based comedian, writer, podcaster and content creator. You might have seen them on your TikTok FYP, your local Savers or on stage at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Aurelia received a fellowship at the Wheeler Centre in 2021 and won a silver award in the 2022 Australian Podcast Awards as a co-host of PopGays.
Em Starr
Em Starr (she/her) is an Australian horror writer, whose work has appeared or is forthcoming, in numerous publications, including Midnight Echo Vol 18, Fear of Clowns: A Horror Anthology, and Spawn 2: More Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies. She lives in Melbourne, on Boon Wurrung land, with one husband and two naughty dogs, Nikko and Franco (aka Dick-Dack and Fron Bon Jovi). She is currently writing her debut novel, a surf horror set in 1990s Australia. Em is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association, and Australasian Horror Writers Association.
Harry Steedman
Harry Steedman is an aspiring cinematographer currently looking for experience in the Film and TV industry. Harry is extremely eager to further develop skills and practice through a variety roles in the industry. Harry graduated with a Bachelor of Film and Television from JMC Academy in 2022, has a great attention to detail, flexibility and is willing to put in the hours to get the job done.
Keiran Stewart-Assheton
Keiran Stewart-Assheton is the President of the Black Peoples Union and a Traditional Owner of Wani-Wandi country in the Yuin Nation. Keiran has a background in the fields of psychology, social policy and education coupled with 15 years of experience advocating for First Nations rights and sovereignty in the areas of mental health, the justice system, education and land rights.
Rebecca Summerscales
Rebecca ‘Bep’ Summerscales is a writer, performer and activist based in Nottingham, England. Bep’s work has featured across the East Midlands, won the GOBS Poetry Slam in 2024, the Emily Dickenson award in 2021, and was long listed for the Plough Prize in the same year.
Liz Sutherland
Liz Sutherland (they/them) lives on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. They are the COO of a nonprofit organisation, the Treasurer of the Board of Overland, and is studying a Master of Arts (Writing and Literature) at Deakin University. Liz was a finalist in the Pearl Prize 2024, Frontier Poetry’s 2023 Ekphrastic Poetry Prize, and the 2023 OutStanding LGBTQIA+ Short Story Awards. Their writing has appeared in Mascara Review, StylusLit, Swamp Magazine, Left Brain Media, ScratchThat Magazine, Say It Out Loud, at Q-Lit festivals, and more.
Guntis Talers
Guntis Talers is an author of detective fiction and is representing Lativian City of Literature, Tukums, at this year’s Emerging Writers’ Festival.
Yasmin Tambiah
Yasmin Tambiah, of Sinhalese and Tamil descent, grew up in Sri Lanka. Trained as a European medievalist, she subsequently researched sexuality and law in postcolonial states, and gender and militarization. Currently working in research management in Australia, Yasmin has also lived in the USA, with stints in Trinidad, India, England and Spain. Her award-winning creative writing has appeared in ‘Nethra’, ‘Conditions’, ‘Sinister Wisdom’ and ‘ZineWest’, and in ‘The Vintage Book of International Lesbian Fiction’ (1999); ‘Celebrating Sri Lankan Women’s English Writing: 1948-2000’ (2002); and ‘Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English poetry from Sri Lanka and its diasporas’ (2023).
Cher Tan
Cher Tan is an essayist and critic. Her work has appeared in the Sydney Review of Books, Hyperallergic, Catapult, The Age, Disclaimer Journal, Cordite Poetry Review and Overland, amongst many others. She is an editor at Liminal and the reviews editor at Meanjin. Peripathetic: Notes on (Un)belonging is her debut book. She lives and works on unceded Wurundjeri land.
Samuel Te Kani
Samuel Te Kani is a queer Ngapuhi writer from New Zealand. He writes critically about art and cinema. His first short story collection Please, Call Me Jesus (2021) is mostly erotic sci fi. He recently pivoted to film, attending a Netflix funded directors intensive in 2023, mentored by Dame Jane Campion. He intends to make sexy/horrendous films from here on out. He is currently working on a novel.
Darla Tejada
Darla Tejada is a long time reader and emerging writer based in Naarm. She is currently undertaking graduate studies in English and her favourite activities include reading obscure queer fiction and taking long aimless walks. You can read her works in publications like Archer, More than Melanin and KYD.
Phoebe Thorburn
Phoebe Thorburn is an autistic emerging writer & recipe developer living on unceded Boon Wurrung Country. Their writing explores food, comfort, connection, mental health & living in a world designed for neurotypical minds and able bodies. They are a Toolkits non-fiction (2023) & fiction (2024) alumni. Their work was shortlisted for Stringybark’s Erotic Short Story Prize (2023) and has been published by Frankie Magazine & ABC Everyday.
Isabella Trimboli
Isabella Trimboli is a writer based in Melbourne. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Los Angeles Review of Books, New Left Review and HEAT.
Thabani Tshuma
Thabani Tshuma is a multi-award-winning Zimbabwean writer and performance poet. His work can be found in publications such as Dichotomi magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, CUBBY ART, and ABC ArtWorks’ SLAMMED segment. Thabani is co-curator of Thin Red Lines and his debut collection, ‘The Gospel of Unmade Creation’, released in 2023 through Recent Work Press.
Esther Tuddenham
Esther Tuddenham is a vibrant person who loves the arts. Esther’s passions are Music, Poetry and Photography.
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist is a writer and actor. He has toured Australia with his critically acclaimed shows Jali and Griot, and appeared on SBS and the ABC. As a comic, he has been chosen to open for the best national and international acts. He has been lauded as a talent both by critics and by audiences, gaining him award nominations for his work. For more writing by Oliver, visit https://substack.com/@oliveretwist
Rimas Uzgiris
Rimas Uzgiris is a Lithuanian/American poet and translator. His work has appeared in Barrow Street, Hudson Review, Rattle, Poetry Daily, The Poetry Review and elsewhere, and was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is the author of North of Paradise, and Tarp [Between] (poems translated into Lithuanian, shortlisted for best poetry book of the year), translator of eight poetry collections from Lithuanian, including Caravan Lullabies by Ilzė Butkutė (A Midsummer Night’s Press), Then What by Gintaras Grajauskas (Bloodaxe), Now I Understand by Marius Burokas (Parthian), The Moon is a Pill by Aušra Kaziliūnaitė (Parthian), Vagabond Sun by Judita Vaičiūnaitė (Shearsman), and Voices of Spring by Maironis (Maironis Museum), as well as the Venice Biennale Golden Lion winning opera Sun and Sea. He was educated at UCSD, UW-Madison, Rutgers-Newark, with a Ph.D. in philosophy and an MFA in creative writing. Recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant, a NEA Translation Fellowship, he teaches at Vilnius University in the Departent of Translation Studies and the Department of English Philology.
Sam van Zweden
Sam van Zweden runs A Plus is a safe and celebratory space for fat folks. With fashion markets running throughout the year and community events ensuring fat voices are part of the conversation, A Plus believes that fashion is for all people, and fat rights are human rights.
daniel ward
daniel ward is a poet and musician. they are the editor of ‘no more poetry’, an independent publisher of poetry books and art magazines. their second and most recent poetry collection is titled ‘eternal delight paralysis’.
Emily White
Emily White is a writer and performer from Boorloo/Perth, living in Naarm/Melbourne. Motivated by conflicting desires to make people laugh and make people horny, their work primarily straddles the realms of comedy and erotica. They are also interested in the Australian Gothic and what this genre can offer queer stories. Emily has previously won the Rachel Funari prize for fiction and is the creator of Sap – a queer erotica zine. They make zines, write stories, and perform in their queer comedy coven, The Titwitchez.
Natalie Williams
Natalie Williams is a contemporary fiction writer and filmmaker from Naarm, Melbourne.
Tex Wise
Tex Henning Wise is a Melbourne/Narram-based writer who enjoys queer fiction and horror stories. Their writing has a focus on horror and identity, with a mix of magical realism and surrealism. They have been a student at Melbourne Young Writers Studio for 6 years and are in their third year of Bachelor of Creative Writing at RMIT.
Panda Wong
Panda Wong is a poet and editor who lives and works on unceded Wurundjeri land. Her first chapbook, angel wings dumpster fire, and her first EP, salmon cannon me into the abyss, were released in mid-2022. She co-edited Best of Australian Poems 2023. She is also half of music/poetry project lotus threads with musician Hannah Wu.
Jackson Wood
Jackson Wood is the Editor-in-Chief of No Typewriters / No Talking. Frustrated with writing groups in general and typewriters in particular, Jackson started NT/NT with the help of Tempo Rubato to bring writers together in a low key way in post-pandemic Naarm / Melbourne. Born in Aotearoa New Zealand, you can now find him lurking around Brunswick and writing for publications like Webworm.
Laura Elizabeth Woollett
Laura Elizabeth Woollett is the author of a short story collection, The Love of a Bad Man (2016), and three novels, Beautiful Revolutionary (2018), The Newcomer (2021), and West Girls (2023). Her work has been shortlisted and long-listed for awards, including the 2024 Stella Prize. Laura was the City of Melbourne’s 2020 Boyd Garret writer-in-residence, a 2020-22 Marten Bequest scholar for prose, and will be a 2025 writer-in-residence at the Keesing Studio in Paris.
Karen Wyld
Karen Wyld is an author of Martu descent living on the coast south of Adelaide. They’ve written novels, children’s non-fiction, short stories, narrative non-fiction, and poetry. And co-edited The Rocks Remain: Blak Poetry and Story. Karen is the recipient of the 2024 SA Literary Fellowship (First Nations).
Anthea Yang
Anthea Yang is a writer and poet whose work has appeared in Going Down Swinging, Kill Your Darlings, Mascara Literary Review and the HEIDE+Rabbit Modern Women anthology, among others
Cassandra-Elli Yiannacou
Cassandra is an award-winning Cypriot-Australian writer. Her play Hush Hush was a finalist for the New Play Award and longlisted for Theatre 503’s International Award. She’s a winner of the Ultimo Prize, and published in Everything, All At Once by Ultimo Press. She was commissioned for Paines Plough Theatre’s Come To Where I Am: Australia. Her latest work, The 13th Month, premiered at Flight Path Theatre in Sydney this year to critical acclaim. Other staged works: The Marvellous Life of Carlo Gatti, Loose Teeth (shortlisted for Max Afford Award 2016), The Last Journalist on Earth, Limerence, 44 Degrees, Like Breathing.
Jess Zanoni
Jess Zanoni is a writer and musician, and the current Program Coordinator of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. She is the singer and bassist of alt-rock band Arbes, whose debut record Counterways is set for release on 1 November. She also makes music under her solo alias, Za Noon. Her writing has appeared in The Age, Cordite Poetry Review, Voiceworks, The Victorian Writer, Beat Magazine and sick leave.
Xiaole Zhan
Xiaole Zhan (they/them) is a Chinese-New Zealand writer and composer based in Naarm. They are the recipient of the 2024 Kat Muscat Fellowship and a 2024 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship. They were the winner of the 2023 Kill Your Darlings Non-Fiction Prize for their essay-memoir ‘Think An Empty Room, Moonly With Phoneglow’ about growing up in a Pākehā-Chinese family, as well as the winner of the 2023 Landfall Young Writers Essay Competition for their essay ‘Muscle Memory’ exploring music and the body. As a composer, Zhan was the 2024 New North Emerging Artist.
Maggie Zhou
Maggie Zhou is a 25-year-old Melbourne-based freelance writer, content creator and the co-host of the Culture Club podcast. She has written for publications such as The Guardian, ABC, The Age, ELLE and Marie Claire, and previously worked at Refinery29 and Fashion Journal.
Australian Queer Archives (Victorian Pride Centre)
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79/81 Fitzroy St, St Kilda VIC 3182
BLINDSIDE Gallery
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Nicholas Building, Level 7, Room 14, 37 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia
Emerald Hill Library & Port Phillip Heritage Centre
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195 Bank St, South Melbourne VIC 3205
Fairfield Amphitheatre
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Fairfield Park Dr, Fairfield VIC 3078, Australia
St Kilda Library (Community Room)
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150 Carlisle St, St Kilda VIC 3182
The Wheeler Centre
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Performance Space Level 2, 176 Lt Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, 3000, VIC
The Wheeler Centre
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Workshop Space Level 1, 176 Lt Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, 3000, VIC
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