Texting Images: BLINDSIDE & EWF Ekphrastic Readings

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.