Harrison Abbott is a Gamilaroi writer and poet working from the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people in Naarm. Harrison studies a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne. You can read his work in Voiceworks and Cordite. He writes and edits the student paper of the University of Melbourne, Farrago.

Kultar Ahluwalia is a Southern Adelaide hip-hop artist of Punjabi and Irish descent. Inspired by revolutionary artists while navigating his identity, he has performed for two decades, recently creating works under his birth name.

Through the 2023 Nexus Arts Interplay Program, Kultar created “The Mixed-Race Tape” EP and stage show, touring it successfully at major platforms such as OzAsia, Darwin Festival and Riverside Theatres.

Kultar combines his arts, community engagement and health experience in his role at Nexus Arts and as an independent workshop facilitator for organisations such as City of Onkaparinga, ActNow Theatre and Spoken Word SA.

Munira Tabassum Ahmed’s work has been published in Pleiades, The Adroit Journal, Meanjin, Best of Australian Poems, Liminal, Cordite, and elsewhere. She was the 2022 Kat Muscat Fellow. ‘The Clinging Thing’ (Penguin, 2026) is her first novel.

Miles Allinson is the author of two novels; Fever of Animals, and In Moonland.

Chris Ames is a writer from California. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s, HEAT, The Big Issue, The Saturday Paper, New Australian Fiction, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a Hot Desk Fellowship, the Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Award, and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. His debut collection of fiction, I MADE THIS JUST FOR YOU, is out now from Ultimo Press. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and children.

Jasmyn Ameti is a writer and editor based in Naarm. She is the co-editor of Hate Mail zine. She is a VCA drop-out who works in a glorified chicken shop. Her work is interested in performance, delusion and the mutable self.

Amanda Anastasi is a Melbourne poet published both locally and internationally, including in Best Australian Science Writing and Best of Australian Poems. Amanda was Resident Poet for three years at the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub. She is a recipient of a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship and a Neilma Sidney Travel Grant to write poetry at the Great Barrier Reef. In 2025, Amanda was commissioned to write a poem for COP30 Brazil by DFAT’s Climate Change Diplomacy Branch. She is the author of ‘Taking Apart the Bird Trap’ (Recent Work Press, 2024) and ‘The Inheritors’ (Black Pepper, 2021).

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, editor and researcher.

Romy Ash is a critically acclaimed, award winning novelist. Her new novel is a speculative work, Mantle. Her first novel Floundering was shortlisted for The Miles Franklin Award, The Prime Minister’s Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, amongst others. Her children’s picture book As Bright as a Rainbow was published in 2024. Her essays and journalism have been published in The Saturday Paper, The Guardian, Meanjin, The Griffith Review and others.

Leah Manaema Avene (she/them) is a mother, musician, therapist, broadcaster, facilitator, researcher and educator.

Ismat Awan is an Australian-born Pakistani culinary creative whose work sits at the intersection of food, culture and storytelling.

Hannah Bambra is a writer, peer support worker and reproductive health advocate.

She has been published in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Monthly, Melbourne Review, Spineless Wonders and more.

Hannah has a special interest in sexual reproductive health, fertility and storytelling as a form of healing.

Anthea Bariamis is a publisher at Simon & Schuster Australia, where she has worked since 2018. Anthea publishes across a range of genres, with a focus on commercial and book-club fiction. She was shortlisted for the ABIA Commissioning Editor/Publisher of the Year in 2024 and 2025. In 2025, Anthea launched Atria Books Australia, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Luke Beesley is a writer, artist and singer-songwriter. His latest book In the Photograph was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. His poetry has been published widely in Australia and internationally and has been translated into several languages. Luke performs under the moniker Cornflake Sunset. His debut album Double Portrait was released in late 2024. He lives and works on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land, Naarm/Melbourne

Shannon Benton is a regional NSW writer whose work explores memory, landscape and the interior lives of women. She was one of five shortlisted for the Newcastle Writers Festival Fresh Ink Prize and named in The Best Australian Yarn (Top 50). Her work has appeared in Mona Magazine. She is the recipient of the 2026 ASAL Creative Writing Fellowship and is currently developing her debut novel, Fragmented.

Jarni Blakkarly is an award-winning investigative journalist and writer. His journalism work has appeared in outlets such as Al Jazeera English, BBC, ABC, SBS News and CHOICE, where he now works. His creative writing explores issues and complexities of race, identity and living with bipolar disorder and has been published in the Griffith Review, Kill Your Darlings and Overland.

Mitchell (@mitch.writes) is an emerging Meanjin-based writer and photographer. He is focused on short fleeting moments of nostalgia and tenderness, prioritising the human experience while backgrounded by larger socio-political movements. His works often considers nature as home for all of us, the ultimate healer, and uses nature as a way to explore the delicate moments of life and to show how interconnected systems of oppression are. He dedicates his work to queerness, nostalgia and passion.

Tahlia Bowen-Guise (she/her) is a writer of Papua New Guinean and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.

Yazmin Bradley is a writer of the weird and the strange from Western Sydney on unceded Dharug Land. As well as recently completing a Master of Creative Writing at Macquarie University, Yazmin has worked across Australian feature films, events and festivals, public libraries, and tertiary administration. Her work engages with mental and chronic illness, class, the absurd, and the macabre, with bylines in The Suburban Review and in Living with Illness and Disability: Poised on The Pointe of Pain, an anthology produced in collaboration with WestWords and Macquarie University.

Hi! My name’s Ash Brom, a bestselling author in several dimensions but not yet in this one.

I’m a writer, editor, reviewer, publisher, and English as an Additional Language teacher. In the past I’ve been maaaaaany other things.

I spent eight and a half years in China, and self-published my memoirs of this in 2019. I’ve had stories, poems, reviews, interviews and feature articles printed in Australia, China and Timor-Leste.

In this dimension I’m a bipedal, endothermic vertebrate, and a slave to oxygen, gravity and sustenance. I’m currently a mammal, but hope one day to be an octopod.

Paula Campos is a writer, bookseller and student, in her last year studying English and Creative Writing at UNSW. She loves to read and write experimental stories with unlikable female narrator/s, Western Sydney settings and language that disrupt the English canon. Her first short story, “Palm trees, piercings, and a more lowkey, chill place to live,” was published in Voiceworks and won the inaugural Kat Muscat award. She is currently undertaking the Open Book internship with Giramondo Publishing and Hardie Grant (Ultimo Press and Pantera Press).

Award-winning author, JJ Carpenter, celebrates our personal stories and unearths our hidden histories through thrilling, terrifying tales.

She writes gothic and psychological fiction rooted in Australian history. Her work explores trauma, memory, and survival, often set within haunted places where the past presses uncomfortably into the present.

Grace Chan is an award-winning speculative fiction writer. She writes about brains, minds, and space.

Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Every Version of You, is about staying in love after mind-uploading into virtual reality. It won the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards People’s Choice Award, and was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year and longlisted for the Climate Fiction Prize, the Stella Prize and the Indie Book Awards.

Her short fiction has been published widely, translated into multiple languages, and appeared in The Best Science Fiction of the Year.

Currently based in the most majestic Gimuy, Mo is a wannabe sea farer working on the Great Barrier Reef as a marine guide/outdoor educator/part time tattooist. Floundering as the fish they fiercely love, with deep admiration for their pelagic friends they hope to share their aquatic compassion with others to relish in the uniqueness and sacredness of our infinite marine and tropical ecosystems. Hoping to further orient their energy in marine and environmental conservation, acknowledging the interconnectedness of social justice movements, class solidarity and Indigenous sovereignty to create true reciprocal land and people sustainability.

Christine Chanty is a lifelong memoirist whose childhood diaries inspired her to study a Bachelor of Creative Writing. When writing, she loves to highlight her Lao heritage and perspective as an Asian woman in Australia. She also loves to interview and profile fellow creatives, and is working on her parents’ memoir – she truly believes everyone’s story deserves to be told! When not writing, you’ll find her at an indie cinema, thrift shopping, baking, or singing karaoke.

Melanie Cheng is a writer based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her short story collection, Australia Day, won the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript and the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction. Her novels, Room for a Stranger and The Burrow, were both longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. The Burrow was also shortlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize. Her short stories and non fiction have been published widely in Australia and overseas.

A lifelong love of music and writing consolidated when Bryget Chrisfield started penning live reviews for Inpress (now TheMusic) while studying Professional Writing & Editing at RMIT. After graduating, Bryget was initially employed as full-time staff writer before being promoted to Victorian editor of this national street press publication – now website – where she remained for over ten years. She is currently a freelance journalist – her byline appearing in publications including STACK, The Big Issue, The Music and Beat – and it is through interviewing musical geniuses that Bryget finds true happiness.

Suzanne Claridge is a writer, historian, and artist. Her work explores themes of memory, identity, counter-archives, ancestral recovery, absence and presenc-ing. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales Art & Design.

Madeleine Cleary’s debut novel, The Butterfly Women (2025, Affirm Press), was shortlisted for 2025 Dymocks Book of the Year and the 2026 Indie Book Awards. Her writing has been shortlisted for The Australian Fiction Prize and featured in The Australian Weekend Magazine. Madeleine is the co-host of The Book Deal Podcast, a popular podcast where she interviews writers about their pathway to publication. Before she became a published author, Madeleine was a bookseller and served as an Australian diplomat in China. Madeleine is from Melbourne/Narrm and lives at the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges.

I’m Whitney, Formerly incarcerated Transgender artist and photographer, writer with a passion for storytelling through my words & lens. My journey hasn’t been conventional, I take pride in the unique perspectives I bring to my work and life. I am currently studying a Bachelor of Art with a double major in Sociology & Public Relations. As I continue to build a new future for myself, I remain committed to using my art and experiences to uplift those around me. I’m excited to see where this journey takes me next, lets celebrate the beauty of transformation through creativity.

Lisa D’Onofrio is a creative projects facilitator, occasional poet, filmmaker, podcast creator, creative producer and festival director. She is constantly curious and this drives her eclectic practice. She embraces the domestic, “ordinary”, lost and recovered, through the spoken and written word.
Lisa has decades of experience in community and literature development and facilitation, as well as festival programming and curating. Long term passions include women’s social history, mapping and walking, and the connections between creativity and well-being.

Bahaa is a refugee from Syria now residing in Melbourne. At the most recent Melbourne Comedy Festival, Bahaa was selected to be part of the “Comedy Zone” program, one of the festival’s key industry development programmes where they promote the next generation of comedy superstars. Throughout 2026, he is touring with the Comedy Festival’s Road Show around regional Victoria.

Bahaa is also the creator of Refugee Thoughts, a digital initiative that uses humour, articles, and podcasts to challenge public narratives about refugees. His comedy show A Lucky Refuge? is premiering in Melbourne Fringe Festival this October 2026

Eartha Davis is a woman of Ngāpuhi and Celtic heritage living on Wurundjeri land. She is the winner of the 2024 AAWP/Express Media Sudden Writing Prize and a 2026 Poetry In Action Ambassador. Her debut poetry collection, màthair beinn, is out now with Vagabond Press.

Katherine Day is a Senior Lecturer in publishing studies at the University of Melbourne and a former trade editor for some of Australia’s most respected publishing houses, including Penguin Random House, Allen & Unwin, Thames and Hudson and the University of Queensland Press. She has been a mentor for Writers Victoria and runs workshops specialising in navigating and negotiation publishing contracts.

Phil Day has collaborated with authors over the past thirty years. Sometimes as a an editor, publisher, printer, book designer, typesetter, book binder, and illustrator. He is currently the book designer and poetry editor for Life Before Man (Gazebo books).

Dinithi is a queer, Sri Lankan artist, Gardner and herbalist in training. Their work is an exploration of sacred object and ritual with a focus on nurturing practices of devotion to the more than human world. Using plants as conduit, Dinithi’s work is an exploration of our inner landscapes and the embodied strength and wisdom contained within them.

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.

Jean Claire Dy is a Filipino-Chinese writer, filmmaker, and media artist based in Melbourne. After a decade away from creative writing, she returned with a speculative fiction story published in Evolve last year. She writes poetry and literary nonfiction, with a poetry collection forthcoming in 2027 and a memoir-in-progress tracing her travels across China and beyond. Her work draws on a life lived across the world. She is completing a PhD in documentary filmmaking at the VCA, University of Melbourne. Her documentary A House in Pieces won the Golden Hercules Award at Kasseler Dokfest and screened at 50 international festivals.

Astrid Edwards is a bibliophile, literary judge and critic. At Future Women, she works towards equity in the workplace, and as a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne, she explores the moral responsibility of the book publishing industry during the climate breakdown.

Lana Eileen is a multidisciplinary visual artist, musician and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, performed around the world, and taken part in artist residencies in both Iceland and Sweden. In 2026, she was a writer-in-residence with Lighthouse Arts for the Hunter Writers’ Centre. Her poetry has been published in Mensicus, The Marrow, Sextet and Lamplit, and she is undertaking a Master of Writing and Publishing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Brandon Fairley is an actor, writer, singer, producer, spokesperson, and proud Indigenous Australian with an invisible disability. He’s spent more than eight years in community theatre, film, and screen. His theatre credits include Bonnie and Clyde: The Musical, Cannibal! The Musical. His screen work includes roles as a Stand-In for Josh Gad for Spaceballs 2 and Prefer not to Say screening at the ACMI on May 30th in which he starred, wrote and produced. Brandon was a panelist at the First Nations & Disability Driving Change Employment Summit and proudly serves as the Bus Stop Films Program Ambassador for Wollongong.

Michael Farrell is a poet from Bombala, NSW, now living in Melbourne. Previous book publications include: The Victoria Principle (stories), Googlecholia (poems), A Lyrebird (U.S. selected poems), Writing Australian Unsettlement (literary history), and Ashbery Mode (as editor). Michael edits The Chalamet Review, and is also poetry editor of Westerly. Artwork can viewed @limechax on instagram. Videos @flashcove1695 on youtube.

Jocelyn belongs to the Notsi language group from Niu Ailan province, Papua Niugini with Anglo-Celtic lineages. Currently based in Magandjin, she is a curator, arts writer, and is currently Assistant Curator at UQ Art Museum.

She has previously held positions in the Asian and Pacific Art team at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, as well as in commercial, institutional, and community art spaces in programming, education, and collection management roles.

Her texts have been published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, Museum International, Runway Journal, among commissioned exhibition essays and reviews.

Laura (she/her) works as an editor at Melbourne-based publishing house Affirm Press. She has a Master’s in Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing from the University of Melbourne and has been working as an editor in commercial publishing for four years. Some of the notable titles she’s edited include The German Ward by Pip Williams, The Ledge by Christian White, The Butterfly Women by Madeleine Cleary and Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy.

Madeleine Gerber is a book publicist based in Naarm. She spends her days at Simon & Schuster Australia, working with wonderful authors to get their books into the hands of readers. Maddy’s also a musician, a bit of a history geek and is obsessed with literary fiction (though partial to a dragon or two). She also messes around on Substack and Instagram @bookishnooks.

If anyone can silence a room, it’s Joburg-born, Beechworth-based songwriter and poet Ruby Gill, whose arresting lyricism and wit have garnered millions of streams, awards and airplay from triple j to BBC and KCRW. Fresh off tours in AUS, South Africa, NZ and UK/EU, the artist’s “lyrical wizardry” has earned the reputation of unmissable, with her 2025 record ‘Some Kind Of Control’ shortlisted for an Australian Music Prize. Ruby’s debut poetry book ‘I’m not exaggerating when I say’ sold out two print runs in launch month. Her writing has appeared in The Saturday Paper, Harvard Advocate, Griffith Review and more.

Mindy Gill is an award-winning poet, editor and critic, and recipient of the Queensland Premier’s Young Writers and Publishers Award. Mindy has received fellowships from the CMI Arts Initiative in Chennai and the Australian Poetry/NAHR Poetry Fellowship in the Val Taleggio, amongst others. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Australian Book Review, Griffith Review, and The Penguin Book of Indian Poets. She is Australian Book Review’s fifth Rising Star, and has written essays and criticism for Griffith Review, Sydney Review

Uncle Barry Gilson .
A kirrit barreet / gordon based poet/ storyteller and musician . Opens up some festivals . Makes some good cheer. Environmentalist who had changed mental landscapes and adapted his ancestors knowledge into daily life . Sharing it to the younger generations or whoever wants to listen . I’m a postie in Ballarat / Balla Arat for the past 25 years . I Come from a strong family of artists and performers . I love two minute noodles . I’m a weeb . I visit Japan regularly. I don’t know what else to say .

Huich Goh is a freewheeling, genre-defying violinist who thrives on improvisational playing. Her projects include psychedelic improvisation free jazz collectives like the Paul Kidney Experience and Star/Time, the metal group She Weaves Grotesqueries, and her own improvisation group, Sahul Sakti. Some notable artists she has played with are the Booker prize nominee Jeet Thayil (India), graphic artist Ari Jayaprakash’s Kuru Circus and Orchestra (India), and Yusupha Nghum (Gambia). Huich is often seen accompanying poets at Vibe Union’s poetry events.

Oliver Gough is an emerging playwright, PhD Candidate and university tutor based in Magandjin/Brisbane and at the University of Queensland, researching climate change theatre. Oliver’s plays have been produced by Observatory Theatre, Underground Theatre Company, Anywhere Festival and La Boite Theatre through its ‘Assembly’ program. Other writing has appeared in Australasian Drama Studies, ABC Religion and Ethics, ‘Science Write Now’, ‘Jacaranda’ and through ‘Yeah Nah Theatre’. Oliver is currently under commission by Playlab Theatre for a new co-written play, Theft, and has spoken at national and international conferences on absurdist theatre and ecology.

Stacy is an illustrator, radio presenter and Eisner Award–nominated cartoonist whose work has appeared in publications like The Washington Post, Fantagraphics NOW and VICE. They are currently working on their debut graphic novel, Bivouac, which will be published by Fantagraphics.

I am a Gooreng Gooreng Storyteller with interests in poetry, theatre and film practices with kinship ties spanning from Guugu Yimithirr Warra to Jawoyn Nations. Currently living, learning and working on Arrernte Country.

Jaala Hallett is a Dunghutti and Gumbaynggirr poet and arts producer. Every now and then, she manages to form stanzas to relay her observations of the intimacies of life, and considers relationships with people, place, body and communities, as well as her Aboriginal identity and culture.

Ryan (he/they) is an award-winning fat/queer critic, producer, and theatremaker based in Narrm (Melbourne).

Ryan is a fierce advocate & critic for the indie theatre sector, doing theatre criticism on social media, organising theatre excursions with No Drama Drama Club, and seeing 150+ shows a year as a theatre judge.

Ryan’s criticism gets at the personal through the political, asking ‘how can theatre be a force for good in the world, working through me as an audience member?’

His work has toured the country, and he’s won awards at Melbourne Fringe, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and Fringe World Perth.

Sophie Hamley is an editor, former literary agent, bookseller and content producer who has worked at Hachette Australia since 2014, publishing non-fiction including the ABIA-nominated Love & Pain by Ben Gillies & Chris Joannou, Model Minority Gone Rogue by Qin Qin (nominated for the Age Book of the Year and ACT Book of the Year), and bestsellers How to Have an Epic Retirement by Bec Wilson and The New Rules by Margarita Nazarenko. Since 2025 she has also been publishing romance fiction, including the debut trilogy by Tierney Page. As Sophie Green she has released seven bestselling novels.

Emma Hardy is an Australian writer based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her writing has been published in Guernica, The Monthly, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Lifted Brow, Voiceworks and Going Down Swinging. Emma lives with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which is the topic of her debut book, Periodic Bitch. She often writes about women, animals, madness and the lines between.

Fiona Hardy is a writer, bookseller, reviewer and general word-put-together-er from Melbourne. Among her published works include three middle fiction books, including the CBCA Notable How to Make a Movie in 12 Days, and two adult crime books, including Unbury the Dead, which was shortlisted for the 2025 Ned Kelly Awards.

J.S.Harman is a new voice in the world of accessible Science Fiction. A finalist in the 2025 Aurealis Awards for Best Science Fiction Novel, Harman specialises in tales of survival, adventure and existentialism, melding classic science fiction tropes with explorations of the universal human experience. J.S.Harman’s accolades also include First Place in the 2026 Spring Bookfest Awards, second in the 2025 Geelong Writers Competition, and a finalist place in the 2025 Verandah E40 Journal. When not writing daily, Harman spends his time playing video games, sport, puzzles and lego, while wishing he lived somewhere by a lake.

Based in Queensland, Australia, Ashleigh Hartley is a Publishing Consultant at Tellwell Publishing, a leading team that helps independent authors professionally publish and market their work. She supports independent authors on their self-publishing journey by providing practical industry strategies to help shape a book’s success in the marketplace. At the heart of her work is a deep curiosity about how language shapes and influences our world.

Natasha is a Chinese-Indonesian writer, public speaker, and educator based in Naarm. Her work can be found on Kill Your Darlings, ABC, Australian Multilingual Project, Archer & more. Her short stories are part of the anthologies ‘Everything All At Once’ (Ultimo Press, 2021), ‘New Australian Fiction 2023’ (Kill Your Darlings, 2023), and ‘Bodies of Land’ (Sinister Wisdom, 2026). She is currently writing her debut novel, a historical fantasy YA, while teaching at Story Studios Australia.

Kim Ho is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter based on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Through a subversive approach to genre, Kim’s work often explores themes of cross-cultural encounter, our relationship to landscape, and the weight of history in the present. Their play MIRROR’S EDGE won Sydney Theatre Company’s Patrick White Playwright’s Award, and their satire THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN PLAY enjoyed seasons at Theatre Works and the Old Fitz. Kim has also developed plays under commission for STC and Malthouse. For screen, Kim has written on NCIS: SYDNEY and the International Emmy-nominated series THE NEWSREADER, and developed an eco-horror for SBS.

Elena Hogan is an emerging writer and multidisciplinary creative working on unceded Wurundjeri land. Elena completed her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne (Creative Writing and English) in 2022 and her Diploma of Graphic Design in 2025 at RMIT. Since 2021, Elena has focused her practice on her debut novel, Everything Before Gia—a family saga, queer mystery and social commentary on transgender rights. She has worked with Regional Arts Australia, the Emerging Writers Festival and was featured in The Next Big Thing and the National Writers Conference in 2024.

Luke Horton is a writer and musician from Naarm/Melbourne. He is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Fogging (2020) and Time Together (2025), and his work has appeared in various publications, including Overland, The Guardian, and Meanjin. The former editor of The Lifted Brow Review of Books, he currently teaches creative writing at RMIT and the Faber Writing Academy, and is a member of acclaimed indie-rock band Love of Diagrams.

Simmone Howell is a Naarm Melbourne-based award-winning author of books for young adults. She teaches creative writing at RMIT. Her non-fiction on memory, cultural objects, houses & haunts is regularly published in the Age/SMH.

Patrick Hunn is a writer from New Zealand who lives in Melbourne. His collection of short stories, Either Way You Lose, is published by Sick Leave Press.

Troy Hunter is a bestselling crime writer, living in Melbourne/Naarm.

His debut YA novel Gus and the Missing Boy was published in March 2024 and was shortlisted for both the Ned Kelly Award and the BAD Sydney Danger Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction. The sequel Gus and the Burning Stones came out in August 2025. A third and final Gus novel Gus and the Climate Killer is due in March 2027.

Troy is passionate about getting boys into reading books, runs YA and crime writing workshops, and hosts the Queer Writes Sessions podcast.

Harriet Hurley is a researcher and facilitator working across disciplines to disrupt exploitative forms of space exploration. With a background in anthropology, Harriet integrates scholarship, storytelling, and creative practice to uncover and re-negotiate ways we connect, understand and relate to Space.

Harriet is the Co-Founder of (Un)Common Cosmos, an initiative challenging the contemporary status quo of space exploration. Through experimental and collaborative approaches, (Un)Common Cosmos fosters ecological and cultural awareness and invites communities to build relationships with the night Sky and shape collective space futures.

Monique Hurley (she/her) is a human rights lawyer and writer. Based on Wadawurrung Country, Monique is committed to working alongside people with lived experience of incarceration to hold governments to account for the mistreatment of people behind bars. She is widely published, with her written work including law reform submissions, reports, academic articles and opinion pieces. She has worked as a lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, WEstjustice and the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, and as a lecturer at Melbourne Law School.

I am Apyang Imiq, a Truku writer and novelist raised in the Cyakang community in Taiwan. Grounded in my village, my creative practice deeply intertwines literature with Truku culture, plant knowledge, and place-based writing. As the author of I Grow in the Open Tree Hollow and Thigh Mountain, I explore the complex dialogues between tradition and contemporary life. Through my writing and community work, I actively map the emotional geography and ecology of my people, searching for the continuous threads that connect ancestors, our land, and the modern Indigenous experience.

Soaliha Iqbal is the social media editor for Ette Media. She has worked in Australian media for seven years and was nominated for Young Writer of the Year at the 2023 Mumbrella Publish Awards. She’s written for SBS, Missing Perspectives, PEDESTRIAN.TV, Junkee, and others. She’s also appeared as a guest on BBC Radio, ABC Sydney Radio, Triple J, FBi Radio and more. You also might’ve heard her on the Book Smart podcast, the Big Small Talk podcast, Flex Mami’s Semi Factual History Lessons podcast, Abbie Chatfield’s It’s A Lot podcast, and her own podcast Here’s The Thing, Tho.

Antoun Issa is a Lebanese-Australian journalist and co-founder of Deepcut News.

Often found sipping french earl grey tea, Alina Ivanova is a freelance journalist, fiction writer, and critic. She is living in Naarm (Melbourne) and has written for the independent journals and news outlets Loiter Magazine, Monash’s Mojo news, Esperanto and Lot’s Wife. She is currently writing a new weird short story anthology about existential crises and the natural world.

Nalini is a 2026 Hot Desk fellow and a participant in the Abbotsford Convent writing residency. She is currently working on a campus novel in which an eccentric philosophy professor brings a series of ethical dilemmas to real life.

Danii Jasmine is a poet and writer who explores the depths of the human condition through the lens of surreal nostalgia, dark humour, and confessional fragments that make the familiar feel alien.

She had her poem “Brandy Melville” featured in ACE III: Arresting Contemporary Stories By Emerging Writers published by Recent Work Press in 2022. In 2024, she independently published her debut poetry collection HOMEMADE SHRINE, a mix between a collection and an interactive reader experience.

In 2025 she was selected as a member of the WestWords Academy Cohort. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing from Macquarie University.

Thirangie is a Sri Lankan creative writer and editor. She writes fiction, poetry and feature articles that address colonisation, ethnicity, gender, liminality, nostalgia and culture. Published in Meanjin, Cordite, Jacaranda, and Postscript Journal amongst others, Thirangie has appeared at Emerging Writers Festival, National Young Writers Festival, and The Next Big Thing. Thirangie was a 2025 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow, Tempo flash fiction finalist, and an UMSU Writer-in-Residence. She has taught creative writing, media and communications at the University of Melbourne and RMIT. Thirangie also curates events for Editors Victoria on topics aligned on Inclusion and Accessibility.

Kerry Jewell is a writer and nuclear medicine physician. She is from Wodonga in North East Victoria. Kerry is an accomplished public speaker and regularly presents at local and international conferences, along with fulfilling session chair and emcee duties. Outside of medicine, her short fiction has appeared in local and international literary journals and anthologies, including Island, The Saturday Paper, May Magazine (NZ) and the Bath Short Story Award Anthology (UK). In 2020 she was shortlisted for the Richell Prize for emerging writers. Her debut novel A Little Unwell was published with Hachette in April 2026.

Mia is a writer and researcher, and the recipient of the 2025 Mick Dark Flagship Fellowship for Outstanding Environmental Writing by Varuna National Writers’ House. Her writing has been highly commended for the Peter Blazey Fellowship for auto/biographical writing, and listed for the Desperate Literature Prize, the Rachel Funari Prize, the Overland VU Short Story Prize, and the Richell Prize by Hachette Australia.

Toni Jordan is the author of eight novels including the international bestseller Addition, which was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and adapted into a feature film. Her novel Nine Days was awarded the Indie award for Best Fiction and Our Tiny, Useless Hearts was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Her latest novel, Tenderfoot, has been shortlisted for the Indie Award for best fiction, and the ABIA award for Literary Fiction Book of the Year. Toni holds a Bachelor of Science in physiology and a PhD in Creative Arts and lives in Melbourne.

Neha Kale is a widely-published writer of criticism, journalism, essay and nonfiction. Her first book, Foreign Return: On Art and Inhabitation is out with NewSouth.

Kale’s writing, which focuses on art, culture and society, has featured in many Australian and international publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Sydney Morning Herald, SBS, ArtReview, Vogue, ABC and more.
She was part of a team nominated for a midyear Walkley, has been recognised twice in the Ann Moyal Fellowship for Nonfiction and has won a Faber Scholarship. She is the former editor of VAULT and current editor-at-large at Art Guide.

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.

Saanjana Kapoor is an emerging writer, editor and dancer whose creative practice explores the entanglement of girlhood, culture and memory. Her writing has been published in Island, Cordite, The Suburban Review, Meanjin and more. She edits for Voiceworks.

Charlotte is an emerging writer, vocalist and theatre performer originally from the South Coast of NSW, now based in Naarm. Her work explores gaps in memory, dreams, femininity, estrangement, and is often written in response to sonic environments. With an educational background in English Language and Linguistics, she is about to undertake a Master of Speech-Language Pathology.

Elodie Khan is a 21-year-old emerging writer, illustrator, and comic-maker based in Naarm. She is the creator of Safeword, a self-published comic series, co-founder of Sinister Graphics, an independent comics anthology, and a proud asthmatic.

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.

Jes is a Narrm based author, illustrator, and the current Emerging Writers’ Festival Executive Director and co-CEO.

Jacinta Le Plastrier is a poet, writer and channel. Her current poetry book, ‘these memories require’ (Puncher & Wattmann, 2025), was a finalist in the Dame Mary Gilmore Award 2026.

Cass Li is an emerging writer with a creative documentary practice from Western Sydney. Her essayistic work, often drawing on her Chinese Timorese-Indonesian heritage, explores the moving boundaries of insider/outsider across time, place, and memory.

In 2024, she initiated research for a personal documentary project in an Accessible Arts and CreateNSW funded artist residency in Portugal. She has developed work as a CuriousWorks’ Future Culture artist in residence, WritingNSW Cultivate mentee and was part of National Young Writer’s Festival in 2025. This year, she looks forward to exhibiting at photoaccess and Pari.

Lian Low (they/she) is a Naarm based Peranakan-Chinese-Malaysian multidisciplinary writer with work across spoken word, poetry, arts journalism, creative non-fiction and speculative fiction. They are interested in interrogating colonial mindsets, racism and queerphobia in relationships with swimming, water safety and waterways. Having learned to swim as an adult they’re a passionate advocate for lifelong learning in swimming and physical activity. Their short memoir on learning to swim, ‘Adult Swimmer’ can be found in Kill Your Darlings. Their research in drowning prevention can be found in the Health Promotion Journal of Australia. Previously, they edited Peril. Find them at: lianlow.weebly.com

Roman Lytollis is a Samoan and Palangi Writer, born in Te Whanganui a Tara | Wellington, Aotearoa | New Zealand. He has published art reviews in several art magazines and journals, including ArtNews Aotearoa and Marinade: Aotearoa Journal of Moana Art. His focus is on Pasifika and Indigenous art, often exploring themes of identity, colonisation and diaspora, grounded in a historical approach.

Jamila Main is a queer, disabled playwright and theatremaker telling stories for the stage, screen, and livestream. Jamila’s work engages with idiosyncratic humour that crafts joy amidst despair, gathers community, and reflects the nuances of queerness and disability. They tell stories where ferocity meets love and candor finds joy.

Jamila is known for their plays Pillow Talk (Warehouse Residency Arts House); Benched (Darlinghurst Theatre Company, Midsumma Festival, Carclew, Ramble Arts, published by Playlab Theatre); Butterfly Kicks (RUMPUS Theatre, published by Australian Plays Transform); How Long Can This Last? (Adhocracy Vitalstatistix); and How to Eat Rabbit (La Mama, The Mill).

Chloe Mayne is a Tasmanian poet and researcher of Trawlwoolway descent. Her work has been published widely, and she was a recipient of the Marten Bequest for Poetry.

Bria McCarthy creates art for theatre, literature, film and education, specialising in experimental puppetry. She created the ‘Shadow House’, a textile sculpture shown at the Art Gallery of NSW and the National Museum of Australia. Her solo show ‘Dragon Hearts’ won the 2023 Sydney Fringe Award for Best Emerging Artist and her debut manuscript was shortlisted for the 2022 Text Prize. She is an autistic artist with Wiradjuri and Irish heritage. Her work is characterised by an emphasis on multispecies storytelling, neurodivergent imagination, and it is always a little magical.

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.

Hannah McElhinney is the author of Wormhole, a non-fiction exploration of alternative medicine, misinformation, medical misogyny and conspiracy therorys. She is also the author and creator of Rainbow History Class, a globally recognised book and social media channel that shares the queer and trans history we so rarely have the opportunity to learn. She wrote and directed the Webby-nominated docuseries TransAthletica, for which she won an Australian Directors’ Guild award, as well as its sequel, HOOPS. Hannah is the co-founder and chief creator of Snack Drawer, a social-first creative agency. She lives and writes on Wurundjeri land.

Michaela McGuire is a literary agent with a4 Literary. She represents Romy Ash, Jordan Prosser, Emma Hardy, Sami Shah and Lisa Nan Joo, as well as many future debut authors you haven’t heard of yet. Michaela was previously artistic director of Melbourne Writers Festival, Sydney Writers’ Festival and Emerging Writers’ Festival. She spent most of her 30s programming some of the world’s most highly regarded writers festival programs, using her discerning taste to connect and introduce Australian readers to their favourite authors.

Brendon McLeod is an award-winning emerging writer of fiction, poetry, and drama. He is a PhD candidate in creative writing at The University of Sydney, and was awarded the Arthur Macquarie Travelling Scholarship. He won Indiana Review’s 2025 Fiction Award. In 2023 he was awarded a fellowship to Varuna The National Writers’ House. He was shortlisted for the 2023 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. His poems and short stories have been published or are forthcoming in Rabbit Poetry, Overland, Australian Poetry Journal, and Indiana Review, among others. He lives and works on Wiradyuri/Wiradjuri country in regional New South Wales.

Rose Michael’s first novel, The Asking Game, was a runner-up for the Vogel and received an Aurealis honourable mention. An early extract from her second, The Art of Navigation, was shortlisted for a Conjure award and published in Review of Aus Fiction. She has published spec fic in Island, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Best Australian Stories and spec crit in The Conversation, Sydney Review of Books, Reading Like an Australian Writer. Experiments towards her new novel, Else, have been published in international journals Antipodes and Speculative Nonfiction.

Kate Miller is a sound designer, composer and music producer based in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. Working across games, film and contemporary electronic music, she creates immersive sonic worlds shaped by texture, rhythm and atmosphere. After a decade in Berlin as a touring DJ and event curator, Kate developed a distinctive approach to sound rooted in movement and emotional depth. She holds a Master of Sound Studies and Sonic Arts from Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Her recent works include music for The Guardian of Nature, her debut EP on Butter Sessions and sound design for RISING Festival.

It’s Ash! 31 this year, Singaporean born and raised to a Chinese mum, Dad is Eurasian (German/Portuguese/Irish etc). I have family all over Australia and it was only a matter of time I found myself here as I always felt a special connection to Melbourne.

I created @ttttp as my way of immersing myself in the community when I first moved here almost 3 years ago now, and it’s so heartwarming to see how it’s grown and continue to grow within this safe space. We’re so excited to see what else the universe (or my brain) has in store!

moirra. (he/him/hir; xe/xer/xers) is a Yorta Yorta, Boon Wurrung, and Jewish transsexual poet, writer and artist living on Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Country. Xer work explores Blak Queerness and Queer Blakness, disability and madness, and relationality to Country, our Ancestors, and community.

Gareth Morgan is the author of When A Punk Becomes A Spunk and Dear Eileen and co-director of Sick Leave.

Zali Morgan is a Noongar woman with ancestral connections to Whadjuk, Balladong, Wilman Boodja, born and raised near Wooditchup on Wardandi Boodja, now based near Walyalup. As an artist, curator, and writer, Zali has a deep passion for working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, particularly uplifting Noongar artistic practices.

Zali has curated several exhibitions at various institutions in Western Australia, including Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Walyalup|Fremantle Arts Centre, John Curtin Gallery, Edith Cowan University Gallery, and Bunbury Regional Art Gallery, and the National Art School in Sydney, NSW and internationally at the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Lisa’s first novel THE MOTHER OF ALL CALAMITIES was published March 2026, with Allen and Unwin.
In 2023 Lisa won second prize in (ASSF), Emerging Writers’ Short Story Prize. She was shortlisted for the Peter Carey Award with Newton’s Cradle and shortlisted for Stringybark Short Story Award for Highly Flammable. In 2022, she won second prize in the Furphy Literary award for The Game she was a finalist in Newcastle Short Story Award with The Roundabout. In 2020 she published her first short story Estelle for the anthology Ordinary People .
She currently co-hosts 3CR’s Published or Not.

Laura lives and works on Wurundjeri land and is co-founder of the zine, Hate Mail. She writes like she has an itch she can’t scratch – a wonderment to her curiosity. Her words are like a stream of consciousness – much the same as getting a peak into her diary entries. She’s interested in the grandiose spectacle of modern life, relationships and how the internet always has an opinion on everything…and well, she does too.

Henry Neilsen is a speculative fiction author, musician, and recovering tech enthusiast based in Melbourne, Australia. His story “Life in the Dirt” was a finalist for the 2024 Aurealis award for best science fiction short story, and he has published two novels. He is a staunch advocate of human-created art, and is the Vice President of Meridian Australis, a speculative fiction writing community.

Valerie Ng is a writer and critic. Her first novel, Driver Driver, was published on 9 June.

Her short stories have been published in Meanjin and Island Magazine, and her arts criticism has found homes in the Australian Book Review, ABC, Time Out, The Guardian, and The Big Issue. Elsewhere, she is a lawyer.

Bridie Noonan is a writer, actor, and dramaturg, living and working on unceded Wurundjeri country. Her work largely concerns the eerie and the bodily, exploring themes of desire, illness, and magic. Bridie has provided dramaturgy across both contemporary dance and theatre productions, and has been published in Voiceworks Magazine and The Suburban Review. She is interested in using small things to talk about big things.

Matias Nuñez is a Latinx, Australian writer, theatre-maker, and actor. Nuñez is drawn to works that explore human experiences shaped by family, culture, and queer identity. As a writer, he’s written a variety of plays exploring different forms and genres such as ‘Aliens Are Real!’, ‘Between My Legs’ and “Oh my god!’ for MUSE Festival and ‘Hello Stranger’ and ‘The Girl on the Moon’ for Anywhere Theatre Festival. ‘Hello Stranger’ was recognised and awarded the Brisbane Council Audience Vote and Queensland Theatre Emerging Theatre Makers.

Ruby O’Sullivan-Belfrage is the founding editor of audio journal Deco Radio, a project that plays with audience experience of conceptual authenticity in merging writing and sonic art.
Ruby’s practice as a film editor informs her tender approach toward shaping voices in multidisciplinary storytelling. Her screen work has been featured in Iceland’s RVK Feminist Film Festival, CinefestOZ Film Festival and Fantastic Film Festival. Her writing has been published in The Curb and MWFF online. She works and plays on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people.

Xanthea O’Connor is the Wheeler Centre’s Senior Program and Special Projects Producer.

Xanthea has collaborated on projects as a writer, musician, producer and performer. These collaborations include sound design for Vidya Rajan’s Respawn (Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 2022) and co-creating the metafictional theatre project The Lizard is Present (Melbourne Fringe, 2019).

Xanthea is a graduate of RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing program, a Melbourne Recital Centre Writer in Residence (2019) and a Glenfern Fellow (2019). She wrote an essay about her cockatiels in the inaugural edition of Loom Literary Journal and is very proud of it.

Helena Pantsis (she/they) is a writer and artist born and raised in Naarm, Australia, with a focus on the strange, the surreal, and the genre-bending. She is the author of poetry collection ‘CAPTCHA’ and short story collection, ‘Mother Salad’. More can be found at hlnpnts.com.

Sebastian Pasinetti is a chef, writer and community builder working at the intersection of food, culture and care. A proud Queer man of Italian and West African heritage, shaped by a layered family migration story spanning post-war Italy, Ghana and Australia. His work is grounded in a deep attentiveness to people – how they live, work and connect. Through his writing, including contributions to Broadsheet and his Substack Without Permission, he explores labour, identity and hospitality with honesty and nuance. Sebastian is committed to building more inclusive creative industries that value lived experience and reflect the complexity of contemporary Australia.

Simran Pasricha is a Melbourne-based senior news writer and producer at PEDESTRIAN.TV, aiming to make politics, pop culture and social issues accessible for Gen Z and millennial audiences. An Indian-Malaysian queer journalist, she is also the co-founder and host of the podcast Broadly Relevant.

Megan is a writer, dancer and arts worker living on Wurundjeri land. They studied Dance at the VCA and Writing and Editing at RMIT, and previously worked as operations manager at the Emerging Writers’ Festival. Their choreographic practice includes the ongoing collaborative radio project Land Swimming with Oonagh Slater, exploring how writing, fiction and voice are felt in the body. Megan writes fiction exploring how characters come to understand and embody supernatural, shapeshifting, queer and trans identities.

Hiếu Phùng is a healing-centred facilitator and writer who loves to daydream of playful futures. He started Pandan Dreaming as a communal archive to re/member and embody ancestral practices of collective care and interconnectedness.

Playte are a gastro-architect duo who use local food as a tool for collective healing. Their work is rooted in community—creating site-specific experiences that explore the intersection between art, architecture, and the politics of food.

Founded by Niyanta Sharma, an artist and architectural designer with Indian heritage, and Wesley Hauler-Winterford, a nutritionist and cook with Māori heritage. Together, Playte explores the joy of gastronomy.

Lily-rose Pouget is an emerging writer currently learning on unceded Wurundjeri Lands.

Ernest Price is transgender man living and writing on Bunurong land. His debut novel The Pyramid of Needs was published by Affirm Press in 2024. It is a dark, wry and deeply illuminating examination of family dynamics in a world full of division and misinformation. His creative nonfiction has been published by Overland and Queerstories. By day, he teaches high school English.

Leo Bagus Purnomo is a Naarm/Melbourne–based artist and researcher, born in Central
Java, Indonesia. Working across multiple mediums—including painting, performance, and
lukisan—his practice examines epistemic structures and the ways they shape our understanding of ourselves and the world. Leo holds an MFA from the VCA and is currently a PhD candidate at MADA, exploring how animist, mystic, and occult epistemic frameworks present in Javanese Kejawen can be incorporated into contemporary art.

Mereani Qalovakawasa is a multidisciplinary Fijian artist based in Naarm, Melbourne. Her experiences of living with lupus have inspired her storytelling – with her hands, sewing and quilting and with her voice, singing with the Pasefika Vitoria Choir.

Parth is the Associate Producer at Emerging Writers Festival, performance poet and writer from Pune, currently based in Naarm.

Their work has appeared at BBC’s Contains Strong Language, Kolkata Literary Meet, Vogue India, Melbourne International Film Festival and more.

They believe in the ability of words to mobilise, energise and interrogate – that poetry isn’t just art, but a magical sustenance of sorts.

Natasha Rai is a writer, somatic counsellor, writing mentor and workshop facilitator. She is also the co-host of the Book Deal podcast, exploring writers’ publication journeys. Her debut novel, AN ONSLAUGHT OF LIGHT, published by Pantera Press, was longlisted for the 2017 Richell Prize, 2018 KYD Unpublished Manuscript award, and highly commended for the 2022 Ultimo Press/Westwords Prize. Her second novel will be published in 2027. Natasha’s short nonfiction and fiction appear in various journals and publications, including Mascara Literary Review and Overland.

Daniel lives between Naarm and Queanbeyan. His writing has been published in Meanjin, Griffith Review, Short Fiction, The Big Issue Fiction Edition, Island, Overland, Westerly, Voiceworks, Going Down Swinging, and elsewhere. He is currently working on his debut novel, Cusp, about adolescent grief and desire, supported by a Create NSW Grant and Roderick Centre Fellowship. A novel excerpt was recently shortlisted for the 2026 Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing. Daniel is a PhD candidate at La Trobe University, researching queerness, affect and literary style.

Dr Nicola Redhouse is the author of Unlike the Heart, which was listed among the best books of 2019 in The Australian and ABR. Her fiction has appeared in places including Best Australian Stories 2014 and 2015, The Big Issue Fiction Edition, Meanjin and Kill Your Darlings. She is also published in the Guardian, The Age, The Australian, Griffith Review and The Conversation, and her poetry appears in Cordite, The Writing Mind (Prendergast et al) and Slow Canoe Live Journal. She researches applications of psychoanalysis to creative practice and is lecturer in the Publishing program at the University of Melbourne.

Prudence Rees-Lee is a Melbourne-based composer, performer and spatial sound artist whose work draws on sounds from across the spectrum of popular and obscure music to conjure and dissolve utopic sonic worlds. A multi-instrumentalist, she works across songwriting, multichannel composition, experimental performance, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Raeden Richardson is the author of The Degenerates (Text Publishing) which was nominated for the Miles Franklin Award. His writing has appeared in Griffith Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin and New Australian Fiction. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received support from Creative Australia and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust.

Elizabeth Robinson-Griffith is an editor on the adult list with Simon and Schuster. She loves collaborating with authors to craft the best version of their manuscripts. She started her career in editing because she truly believes that books have the power to change lives for the better.

Charles Roper is a writer and artist whose work focuses on mixed forms and clashes. He works predominantly with non-fiction comics and as a punk musician. He believes in goblins that run around and take treasure from bad children.

Hunter Rose is a First Nations artist, writer and poet currently studying and working on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. Having completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in creative writing, literature and media industries, they are now a returning student with the Moondani Toombadool Centre at Swinburne University of Technology. Their work comprises themes of greif, loss, love, longing, nature and the political/economic landscape. They are a proud descendant of Mannalargenna/Manalakina and grew up in Nipaluna/Hobart before moving to Naarm/Melbourne for their studies.

Sarah Rosse is an author, speaker, journal coach, and mental health advocate from Gippsland, Victoria. Drawing on her lived experience supporting her son through a mental health crisis, Sarah is passionate about creating spaces where honest conversations can lead to healing, hope, and connection. She is the author of So, Who Are You Anyway? and volunteers with Kintsugi Heroes, facilitating community workshops that encourage storytelling and belonging. Through her writing, speaking, and 100 Conversations initiative, Sarah inspires others to embrace the power of sharing their stories and reminding people they are never alone.

Ella Benore Rowe is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, community hairdresser, cultural leader, podcaster and educator, business owner and solo Mum.

Kieran Ruffles produces music, sound art, podcasts, installation and radiophonic work.

A finalist in 2018’s Prix d’Italia Radio Documentary Category for “Sunday Sway”, a creative non-fiction piece produced for ABC Radio National, he also created “Story Globe” for SBS, a bi-lingual podcast of 8 children’s and folk tales from around the world, as executive producer, sound designer and composer.

He co-created and curates Naarm/Melbourne’s monthly live ambient event, Signals, and his live performance practice across ambient, dub and house music has taken him to Osaka, Helsinki, Hobart, Bristol, Sydney, Manila, Melbourne, Yogyakarta, Brisbane, Bellingen, Bandung , Adelaide, and Cipta Gelar.

Maddy Ruskin is a disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent writer and editor. She has worked in the screen industry for many years and recently hosted ‘No Spoons to Give’, a podcast celebrating the vibrant disability community. Maddy was awarded Varuna’s The Writer’s Space Online Fellowship and and the Victorian Screen Development Internship in 2022. She was shortlisted for the Lesley Hall Arts and Disability Scholarship in 2025 and 2022, and longlisted for the Australian Writer’s Guild and Audible ‘On Air Audio Originals Writing Competition’ in 2020.

Penni Russon is the author of several award-winning and critically acclaimed novels for young people. She’s taught creative writing at universities in Melbourne and Sydney since 2007. In July 2026 she will commence a three year ARC DECRA research fellowship on slow narrative and the ecology of attention in children’s literature written by adults and children’s own creative practice. She is cultivating her own ‘slow’ methods for writing, an approach that values relational and durational composition, playing with the boundaries of poetry and prose, myth and history, self-making and place-making, and human and more-than-human in form and content.

Gavin is a trade union educator and, occasionally, an aspiring writer who lives in Melbourne on the lands of the Bunurong People. He has had his work published in Overland Literary Journal and New Matilda, and in 2018 he won the Questions Writing Prize for writers under 30.

Taonga is a poet and multimedia storyteller whose work explores memory, inheritance, and the space between page and stage.

Before becoming the deadly sistergirl the fascists fear, Samara-Jade was born out in rural Australia. She then had a heart attack before discovering dresses with pockets. Now, she is a freelance writer and narrative designer for video games. She still does MMA on the side, in between delivering talks and writing gothic fiction.

Preeshita Shah is a journalist and digital producer whose work centres on diaspora communities, migration and community institutions. She is a Cadet Journalist at The Citizen, produced by the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. She is Communications Coordinator for PEN Melbourne and the Asia-Pacific Regional Representative for PEN International’s Young Writers Committee, where she advocates for writers’ rights across the region.

Xiaoran Shi is a writer and critic living on the unceded Lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation.

Henry is a writer raised in Meanjin/Brisbane and currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. Graduating from the Victorian College of Arts with a Master’s of Screenwriting in 2026, he loves to write stories that are as funny as they are surreal, and has dreams of writing the next generation’s Napoleon Dynamite. Not really, but that would be awesome. Someone else should do that.

Storyteller. Content creator. Changemaker. Zoe Simmons is an award-winning journalist, speaker, author and fierce disability advocate who uses the raw power of storytelling and lived experience to smash stigma and create change. She’s been published hundreds of times around the globe, and candidly shares her experience as a chronically ill, multiply disabled, autistic LGBTQIA+ person.

Zoe has been published in 10 books as a poet and author, and works regularly in media, now co-hosting her second season of Laneway: CTV News. Zoe is also working on her first solo TV show, which will launch at the end of 2026/beginning of 2027.

Hollen Singleton is a writer and editor. They are a teacher at the University of Melbourne in the Masters of Publishing and Communications and the former editor of Going Down Swinging. Their first novel, Moss House, is coming out in 2027 with Affirm Press.

Prerana Sinha is an Indian-Australian fire dragon who weaves a tapestry of words born of darkness and light. Her powerful performances have been featured at events like Radio Laria, Brown Women Poetry and Seven Sisters Festival. She performed in the sell out season of Reverse Confessional at the 2025 Melbourne Fringe Festival. Passionate about cultural and linguistic diversity, Prerana sits on the board of Mother Tongue Poetry and serves on the Sonic Poetry Festival committee, advocating for accessible poetry. Her reflective and confessional work resonates deeply with audiences. Prerana aims to inspire others to share their stories courageously.

Ella Skilbeck-Porter is the author of These are Different Waters (Vagabond Press 2023), a collection of poetry and visual poetry that was was highly commended in the Anne Elder Award and shortlisted for the Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest and the Mary Gilmore Award. Her work has been widely published in journals and anthologies including Best of Australian Poems 2024, Living Systems: Poetry from Asia Pacific, HEAT, Otoliths, Rabbit and Cordite Poetry Review. Her second collection Crescentcrescent is forthcoming with Vagabond. She lives in Naarm on unceded Wurundjeri land.

Oonagh is an artist living and working on Gadigal land. Her practice marries the poetics of the mundane with the expansive imagery of fiction. Rooted in the body, her work explores memory, lineage, landscape, and intimacy. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) from the Victorian College of the Arts and has worked with choreographers including Phoebe Robinson, Sandra Parker, Judith Walton, Alice Heyward, and Oisín Ó Manacháin. Most recently, she was a contributing artist for Temporary Position’s Streaming Surrounds at Cement Fondu (2023). Her choreographic writing practice includes the ongoing collaborative project Land Swimming with Megan Payne.

Pip Smith is the author of the novels Half Wild, and The Pull of the Moon, the poetry collection Too Close for Comfort and the children’s picture books Theodore the Unsure and To Greenland! She teaches Writing a Novel (Sydney) for the Faber Writing Academy where she also works as manager.

Danny Silva Soberano is a poet. His writing appears in Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, Meanjin Quarterly, and elsewhere. He has previously served as a poetry editor for Voiceworks Magazine and associate editor for LIMINAL Magazine. He was a recipient of a Hot Desk Fellowship from The Wheeler Centre in 2020.

Aziz Sohail is a Pakistan-passport holding curator and writer whose work builds interdisciplinary connections between art, history, archives, literature, theory, and biography and supports new cultural and pedagogical infrastructures. Their research and resultant projects honour and recognise the power of queer and feminist collectivity, sociability, joy, and wayward encounter and unfold through slowness, collaboration, and tentacularity.

Lilly is an emerging writer from Naarm. She likes to write short stories about female friendships and mundane happenings and other things that make her feel alive.

Anita Solak is a poet, editor and electronic literature artist living on unceded Wurundjeri land. Her writing can be found in Cordite, Going Down Swinging, and The Suburban Review, among others. She was a 2023 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow, shortlisted for the 2023 Judith Wright Poetry Prize, and studied at the School for Poetic Computation in 2024. She is the Richell Prize Project Coordinator. Her practice is informed by her love of details, collective memory, and the failures of language.

Neqou Soqluman is an Indigenous Bunun writer, novelist, and literary committee member from Taiwan. His literary works deeply explore tribal genealogy, hunting traditions, and ancient seafaring lore, reflecting a profound connection to ancestral heritage. He has served as a final review committee member for prestigious honors, including the Taiwan Literature Award. Integrating cultural roots with contemporary narrative forms, Neqou’s storytelling bridges ancestral wisdom and modern literature. Beyond writing, he is dedicated to indigenous vocal traditions, including eight-part harmony, and community cultural preservation, bringing unique, vital Indigenous perspectives to the global literary landscape.

Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor and broadcaster. His most recent book is Somewhere Here the Future’s Hid: The Extraordinary Life of Lesbia Harford. He works at the Centre for Advancing Journalism.

Tyrone Speziale is the co-founder and Managing Director of Heart Media, a Melbourne creative agency specialising in food and hospitality. What started as a 14-year-old’s first job in hospo turned into a 13-year love affair with the industry. Today, Tyrone and his team work alongside some of Melbourne’s most exciting food and drink venues, helping them tell their stories and grow. When he’s not behind a brand strategy, he’s co-hosting the Heart Media Podcast with business partner Billy, or behind the decks DJing.

Katerina is a violinist, artist, trained death doula and teacher. She performs as a freelance violinist around Melbourne and is a member of Anatreptix and Nea Skoupa, performing the Rebetika, music of the Greek underground and the music of the Hellenic traditions of Asia Minor and of the refugee composers who continued those traditions in Greece.
She has performed alongside spoken word and poetry performances as a musician.

Tina Strachan is a children’s author whose debut middle-grade book, ‘Neeka and the Missing Key’, was published by HarperCollins Publishers in January 2025. It’s the first book of the Wilder Zoo series which now includes ‘Neeka and the Storm’ and ‘Neeka and the Great Search’. The series was inspired by her career in wildlife conservation.

Tina is also the co-host of The Book Deal podcast, where she interviews authors and industry professionals about writing craft, author tips and publication journeys.

Tina lives on the Gold Coast in Queensland, with her husband, two kids and loudly-snoring cavoodle.

Mohamed Sudi is a Somali refugee, poet and calligrapher traveller. A member of the Calligraphy Society of Victoria and Melbourne Poets Union, he fuses spoken word with Arabic storytelling to create powerful visual poetry performances. Rooted in Somali oral traditions, his work explores migration, resilience, and identity; from childhood in Mogadishu to survival in Kenyan refugee camps. Through his unique blend of poetry and art, Mo reclaims the refugee narrative, transforming displacement into tribal language stories of hope, humor and cultural pride.

Claire Sullivan is a writer, award-winning comedian, copywriter and Tasmanian living in Naarm. They’ve written journalism, creative non-fiction and poetry for The Big Issue, VICE, Kill Your Darlings, Cordite Poetry Review, Astray, Moss Piglet (USA), Hobart Pulp (USA) and more. Her first book, which is a true crime nonfiction book about a ninja cult, is being published by Pan Macmillan in September. Sullivan has a cat called Chicken, and loves a good pub.

Joel Supple has built a career championing bold, inclusive, and sound rich storytelling. Her work spans podcast commissioning and production, creative development, and partnerships that amplify under-represented voices across the Australian audio landscape. In her current role at SBS she drives the creation of original audio content that reflects Australia’s cultural and linguistic diversity. Her broader creative practice brings together field recording, sound art, and a deep curiosity about how we listen.

Josh Sutton’s writing draws on an eclectic mixture of literary styles to think about and evoke uncertainty and inexpressibility. He lives on Gadigal country and is a postgraduate student of creative writing and literature at Western Sydney University. He also works in a bookshop, which he regularly abandons to go on long backpacking trips. He loves most things absurd and metafictional. His first published short story, ‘Canal Line’, appeared in Written Off earlier this year.

Dominic Symes lives quietly in naarm/Melbourne. He writes poems, some of which have, over the last few years, been published in Australian journals and anthologies—including Overland, Cordite and Best of Australian Poems. His debut collection ‘I saw the best memes of my generation’ (Recent Work Press) was highly commended in the 2024 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards—Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. In 2025 he was shortlisted for the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize and in 2026 longlisted for the Peter Porter Poetry Prize. His second book ‘Songs of Love & Hate Speech’ is out now through the Rabbit Poets Series.

Maria Takolander is a Finnish-Australian writer of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. She won the inaugural Australian Book Review Elizabeth Jolley Prize, was shortlisted in the inaugural Australian Book Review Peter Porter Poetry Prize, and came second in the 2026 Australian Book Review Calibre Essay Prize. Her last book of poetry, Trigger Warning (UQP 2021), won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Her debut novel, The End of Romance (Text 2026), is available now. Her words can also be found on bronze plaques in the Geelong CBD and at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

Penny Tangey is a librarian and mother living in East Melbourne. Penny has worked as a researcher for TV quiz shows Hard Quiz and The Chase, but she’s still terrible at trivia. She’s published a number of children’s books with UQP, one of which, As Fast As I Can (2020), won a Queensland Literary Award and the Readings Children’s Book Prize. Her latest middle-grade book, Music Camp, was published in June 2025. What Rhymes with Murder? is Penny’s first novel for adults.

I am a Murramarang person of the Dhurrga language group. I am living in Nowra on Wandra Wandian and I speak dharrawal language. Im am a poet and a self-published author and am wanting to expand my writing discipline and produce more books.
My main job is teaching Dharrawal language across the NSW South coast and mentoring our youth through culture.

D G Tejada is an emerging critic based in Naarm.

Mia Thomson is an emerging writer of creative non-fiction and poetry, living and working on Wurundjeri Country. She is an Honours student in the Creative Writing program at The University of Melbourne where she is researching and writing about the sticky intersections between sex and plastic. Her work is generally interested in Queer theory, hybrid forms and fragmentation. Her writing has previously been published in Verge and Slush Mag.

Elise Thornthwaite is a Gamilaraay woman, emerging writer, and mother originally from New South Wales who now lives in Milikapiti on the Tiwi Islands. She writes poetry, young adult fiction, and maintains a blog alongside her creative practice. Her work explores themes of home, identity, motherhood, and belonging, and is shaped by place, community, and storytelling. Balancing writing with life as a stay-at-home mum, she can often be found working on poems, essays, and manuscripts during naptimes and in the quiet moments between family life.

Jamie Tram is an award-winning critic and editor. Her work has appeared in ABC News, Guardian, and Spectrum. She is the former Small Screens Editor of The Big Issue Australia and a past Hot Desk Fellow. She is a co-writer of the animated short film Graveyard Shift, which premiered at Melbourne Queer Film Festival in 2022. She is the Program Coordinator for the Brunswick Underground Film Festival.

Eve Tramacchi O’Keeffe writes and works with plants on unceded Wurundjeri Woiwurrung country. They edit fiction for Voiceworks.

Ngọc Trần is a second generation Vietnamese chef cooking on Wurundjeri country. Inspired by the accumulated knowledge of her kin, cooking allows her to connect with both lineage and community. Currently, she is learning how to rest and set boundaries in an industry that often prioritises grind culture.

Alistair Trapnell has worked in marketing at Affirm Press, and now Simon and Schuster Australia, for four years. In that time, he has worked on numerous campaigns including the ABIA award-winning campaign for The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams. In 2021, Alistair completed a Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing at The University of Melbourne. As a singer, songwriter, actor and writer himself, Alistair is passionate about storytelling in all its forms and loves playing a small role in helping aspiring and emerging authors realise their dreams.

Nikki Viveca’s poetry has won numerous prizes including the Liquid Amber Emerging Poets Prize, third place in the Melbourne Poetry Union’s International Poetry Competition and first place in the Midsumma Poetry Slam.
She is a prolific performer in poetry, standup comedy, theatre and improv. Her past shows include poetry cabaret The Femme Commandments, solo comedy shows Wasp Movie, The Lazy Show, and Asexual Healing, variety night ACEtravaganza and the play Back Pocket, a theatrical exploration of queer joy.
By day she leads walking tours, where she tells people about the amazing women who have shaped Melbourne’s history.

Carl lives and writes on Wurundjeri land. He’s obsessed with Japanese novels, stone circles, Roman ruins, castles, 70s prog, 80s pop, new wave, twee, shoegaze and a bit of punk. He’ll also talk for hours about coffee and microbrewed beers. Did he mention he has ADHD? Carl’s work has appeared in StylusLit, Meanjin, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Southerly and anthologies including 100 Poets (Flying Islands), Oystercatcher One and Two (5 Islands Press) and Under the Same Moon: Fourth Australian Haiku Anthology (Forty South). His first book, Tarp Green Light, was published in the 2024 series of Flying Islands Pocket Poets.

Lili ward is an artist, writer and student currently practicing on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri peoples. Lili is currently studying her Masters of Applied Linguistics at The University of Melbourne. Her writing practice is interested in the intimate humour of everyday detail, her debut collection of poetry ‘Easily Enlightened’ was published by local press No More Poetry in 2025 and in 2026 was shortlisted for the Mary Gilmore award by The Association for the Study of Australian literature. Lili founded Roundtable Readings in 2024, a recurring event across Naarm that showcases emerging writers, through readings and publications.

Freddy Weir is a writer, comedian, and Furby collector. Their fiction writing focuses on trans and queer experiences of love and nostalgia, with a focus on creating joyful, hopeful narratives. They live in Naarm, Melbourne, with their partner Kevin, two enormous tabby cats, and forty or so Furbys.

Koteka Lali Kuragan Wenda is a young West Papuan activist, cultural performer and digital storyteller. As international spokesperson for the Free West Papua campaign, she speaks passionately about her people’s ongoing struggle for independence from Indonesian colonial rule. Her advocacy across Indigenous rights, climate justice, and decolonisation is grounded in her lived experience of displacement and colonial violence – having spent her early years in a refugee settlement on the border of West Papua and Papua New Guinea and later raised in the United Kingdom after her family sought political asylum.

Lauren is the author of crime thriller, ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ and has a second on the way for next year. Before turning to fiction, Lauren worked as a lawyer, diplomat, actor, arts journalist, and museum communications manager (not all at once).

Michael Winkler is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. His latest novel, Griefdogg, is about a Mildura water scientist who wants to live as the family pet, but discovers this gives him unwanted insights into secret grief. His previous novel Grimmish, shortlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award, was published in the UK, North America and Spain (in translation). Michael won the Calibre Prize for his essay ‘The Great Red Whale’. His journalism, reviews, short fiction and essays have been widely published and anthologised.

The Wren (any pronouns) is a Gen-Z author and poet based in Naarm. Their writing explores identity, memory, and survival through a deeply haunting and emotional lens, and has recently appeared in Roman’s Magazine, been selected for Co-Culture’s Play in Residence, and been shortlisted for the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing. Additionally, they have shared poems of theirs at events like Slamtidote, Vibe Union, and on social media.

Lucy Fan Xu 徐帆 (she/her) is a writer based in Naarm, Melbourne. Her works, which have previously been published in Voiceworks, HOISZN and Red Pocket Press, orbit around themes of identity, community and embodied writing. She is currently studying a Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing at the University of Melbourne.

Zarah Yakubu (They/She) is an emerging writer and poet of Trawlwoolway/Palawa and Mwaghavul/Sura (Nigerian) heritage from the reputationally mysterious but tangibly quaint and monotonous north of lutruwita/trouwunna/Tasmania. They live and work on the Wurundjeri Country and are undertaking a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing at RMIT. She has been published in Mascara Literary Review, Splinter, Island and others.

Cat is a writer of memoir. She is interested in unearthing the complexity of gendered and working-class experiences of everyday life, especially those of people of colour. She was the winner of the SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition in 2021, a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow in 2024 and an inaugural Abbotsford Convent Writer Resident in 2026. Proudly the daughter of factory and retail workers with no creative credentials, she is a data analyst for her day job.

Jessica Zhan Mei Yu is a writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Melbourne. Her debut novel, But the Girl was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year Award, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Readings New Australian Fiction Prize. Her essay collection, All the Stain is Tender, is set to follow.

Jess Zanoni is a writer, musician and the Artistic Director and Co-CEO of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. She has worked, edited and written for various arts, music and literary publications and organisations for over a decade. She is the frontwoman of alt-rock band Arbes, and her debut solo record ‘Heartdrag’ was released in May 2025, under her alias Za Noon. She is currently working on her first novel.

Ally Zlatar is an artist, scholar and activist. She is the founder of The Starving Artist; an artist initiative that utilizes creative voices as a way to create advocacy and systemic reform. She also founded The Starving Artist Publishing Studio to platform marginalized writers and The Starving Artist Scholarship Fund which helps people access inpatient mental health treatment. Her “This Body of Mine” campaign explores migrant experiences through creative voices and has helped support individuals and artists from refugee-seeking backgrounds.
Zlatar has received Forbes 30 Under 30 for Social Impact(Asia, 2025), Commonwealth Innovation Awards (2023), UNWomen 30 for 2030 (2024).