NWC – A Writers’ Livelihood

Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn is a Tasmanian-based writer with a particular interest in books, music, mental illness and environmental issues. Her recent work can be found in The Big Issue, Meanjin, and Best Australian Science Writing of 2025. In previous years, her writing has won the Scribe Nonfiction Prize, the Ultimo Prize for Young Writers, and been studied for high school exams. She is a 2024 Emerging Critic with the Sydney Review of Books and the previous editor of Voiceworks. In her day job she sells flowers, and can usually be found snipping gum leaves on the side of a highway somewhere.

Ruth Larner is an Australian multi-disciplinary writer. In 2023, she was selected for the WestWords Academy program; the following year, she received the WestWords Varuna Emerging Writers’ Residency. In 2025, her short film “Mama Bird” won the Screen Illawarra x Creative Wollongong Short Film Competition. In 2026, Ruth was invited to read poetry at the Manly Writers’ Festival. Her work has appeared in the Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite, WestWords’ Living Stories anthologies, and The Suburban Review. After living in London and Berlin, she now resides in Dharawal Country.

Meg McDermott is an emerging YA author with a deep love for stories in all their wondrous forms. Still a teenager at heart, she is drawn to the tender, transformative moments of coming of age, which often lie at the centre of her writing. Her debut novel The Big Things will be released in 2027 with MidnightSun Publishing. In 2017, she published a poetry collection Roses, Wine & 2 Minute Noodles. She holds a Bachelor of Communication/Laws. Meg lives on the NSW Central Coast with her three kids, a Spoodle and the surfer dude she met when she was seventeen.

My name is Ado Kaliting Pacidal, and I come from the Pangcah, an indigenous people in eastern Taiwan.

I am a director, producer, music creator, actor, and writer. I hope to convey the subjectivity and cultural context of indigenous peoples through different media.