Flight of the Bats

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 Madden’s debut novel, Laughing River, was shortlisted for the Unpublished Manuscript Award at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2024.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.