Participating Writers
Alex Adsett
Alex Adsett is a consultant offering publishing contract and negotiating advice to authors, publishers and booksellers. She has fifteen years experience working in the publishing and bookselling industry, as well as a background in legal research and contract drafting. She is often to be found on twitter at @alexadsett or via her website alexadsett.com
Michael Mohammed Ahmad
I am chief editor of Westside Publications. I am also currently completing an Honours Degree at UWS and a JUMP Mentorship with Professor Ivor Indyk. I have produced twelve anthologies and over 30 literary events across Western Sydney, including performances, readings and book launches. Most recently I produced and performed in the 2012 Sydney Writers’ Festival event, Moving People.
Wajahat Ali
Playwright, Attorney, Commentator, Blogger, Humorist, Researcher & Writer for Center for American Progress
Jessica Alice
Jessica Alice resides in Brunswick in a brown and orange 70s palace. She hosts Spoken Word on 3CR 855AM and is the Poetry Editor for Voiceworks. She is currently writing her Honours thesis on the work of contemporary American poet Johanna Drucker. Her most beloved possessions are her bookcase and her Buffy boxset..
Ali Alizadeh
I am a writer of poetry, fiction, non-fiction and drama. My books include Ashes in the Air (UQP, 2011) and Iran: My Grandfather (Transit Lounge, 2010). I’ve been praised and criticised for being an unapologetically political writer. I’m also interested in philosophy and history. I teach creative writing at Monash University.
Karen Andrews
Karen Andrews is an award-winning writer, author, small publisher at Miscellaneous Press and better known to some as blogger ‘Miscellaneous Mum’ miscmum.com. If that weren’t enough, she’s also Program Manager at the Emerging Writers’ Festival. Twitter handle is @miscmum.
Philip Ardagh
Author, reviewer, beard-owner, and supplier of @ardaghtips, @miserymemoir & @AlmostWiki. (The ‘Philip Ardagh’ @pardagh ain’t me.)
Asphyxia
Asphyxia is a Deaf puppeteer and author who handcrafted the Grimstones family and miniature furnishings from household junk. She tours nationally and internationally with the acclaimed theatre show: The Grimstones, which has now been turned into a delightful children’s book series.
Brendan Bailey
Brendan Bailey used to write poems. Hey, it was the 90s. He also had multicoloured dreadlocks and wore overalls in those heady times. Then he used to write a zine. Then he used to write about punk rock. Now he writes about bikes and cycling, has a sensible haircut and button-down shirts. Sometimes he types so hard that his fingers hurt.
John Bailey
John Bailey has been a journalist and critic for more than ten years, acting as arts writer for the Sunday Age and appearing regularly in various publications throughout Australia. He also presents fortnightly on radio station RRR, lectures at the University of Melbourne and coordinates The Signal Express, an online culture magazine written entirely by Melbourne teenagers.
Peter Ball
Peter Ball is an SF writer from Brisbane. His work include the faerie-noir novellas Horn and Bleed from Twelfth Planet Press, and his short fiction has appeared in publications such as Daily SF, Apex Magazine, and Eclipse 4. Peter is also the Digital Content & Community manager at Queensland Writers Centre. Find him online at petermball.com and on twitter @petermball.
Anna Barnes
Anna Barnes is a Melbourne writer, playwright, LOLcat fancier and researcher. She has had her plays and monologues performed around Australia. Her YA nonfiction book for girls: Girl! The Ultimate Guide To Being You is being published by Penguin in July 2012.
Myke Bartlett
I grew up in Perth, Western Australia, and spent 20 years looking for an escape route. To keep myself busy, I started writing novels. My first book was read aloud to my year five class. My most recent book won the 2011 Text Prize. I also journalise for magazines and newspapers.
Alan Baxter
Alan Baxter writes dark fantasy, sci-fi and horror fiction, plus reviews, feature articles and opinion. His novels, RealmShift and MageSign, are out through Gryphonwood Press, and his short fiction has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies in Australia, the US, the UK and France. Learn more at alanbaxteronline.com
Chantelle Bayes
Chantelle Bayes is undertaking a PhD in creative writing at Griffith University. She has read her work at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival and is a member of the Small Room Writers Collective. Her work has been published in Unreal Estate and she was shortlisted for the World Nomads Travel Writing Scholarship 2011.
Sophie Benjamin
Newsreader by morning, zinester by afternoon and musician by night; Sophie Benjamin spends most of her waking hours writing.
Her writing on music and regional areas has appeared in Triple J Magazine and Australian Hysteria Magazine, and her zine “I Am Very Busy & Important” has sold hundreds of copies and landed a nomination for a Golden Stapler award.
Donica Bettanin
Donica Bettanin has over ten years’ publishing experience, including working in-house at Text Publishing and with the literary agency Jenny Darling & Associates. She is currently the Programming Coordinator at The Wheeler Centre.
Tony Birch
Tony Birch is a Melbourne-based writer. His books include Shadowboxing (2006), Father’s Day (2009) and Blood (2011). He teaches in the writing program in the School of Culture and Communication at Melbourne University.
Sophie Black
Sophie Black is the big cheese at Crikey (ie: editor.) which has been variously described by its critics as an e-zine, a smear sheet, a random electronic gossip site, a dicky little news sheet and “that thing on the internet.” Luckily, most smart, discerning, good looking folk adore the publication (which is, innocently enough, the largest independent news website in the country).
Matt Blackwood
Matt Blackwood is an award winning writer of almost-readable novels and short stories, scripts and operettas, and has designed several bespoke Locative Literature projects, including MyStory, 4Stories and 6Stories.
Bethanie Blanchard
Bethanie Blanchard is the new literary blogger for crikey.com.au with Liticism. She is a Melbourne writer and literature PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. Her writing has appeared in Kill Your Darlings, The Lifted Brow, Crikey and Spike.
David Blumenstein
David Blumenstein is a cartoonist, animator, story artist, parma eater. Currently writing a cartoon cop choose-your-own-adventure story called ‘The Precinct: Die Trying’. Draws weekly comic strip ‘The Bret Braddock Adventures’, about a shitty boss. Founding member of Squishface Studio, Australia’s first open comics studio.
Amaranth Borsuk
A poet and scholar, Amaranth Borsuk’s work focuses on textual materiality—from the surface of the page to the surface of language. Based at MIT, Amaranth is one creative force behind the augmented reality poetry collection “Between Page and Screen”.
Benjamin Brown
Benjamin Brown is a creative writing student at Griffith University. He has previously read at the Sydney Writer’s Festival Pitch Competition, Small Room Writer’s Collective events, Friends of the Library Griffith University and the Somerset College ‘So You Think You Can Write’ literary battle royale at the Somerset Festival of Literature.
Luke Buckmaster
Luke Buckmaster is a Melbourne based writer, editor, journalist, blogger and social media boffin. He is currently Website Editor of crikey.com.au
Megan Burke
Megan Burke is a Melbourne-based writer. She has appeared on television, in print and at literary festivals talking about books, blogging and reviewing. Megan has been the official blogger for various literary events, and presently is a part of Planet EWF. She is currently editing her first YA novel. Megan blogs at meganburke.com.au.
Mirranda Burton
Mirranda Burton is a multimedia artist specialising in printmaking drawing, animation and creating autobiographical comic strip stories. Her first book Hidden was published in 2011 by Black Pepper.
Dale Campisi
Dale Campisi is a writer of food and travel books, publisher at Arcade Publications and Editor of Tasmania’s literary journal, Island. He has worked in the publishing for ten years and taught at the University of Melbourne and Deakin University.
Lachlann Carter
As Operations Manager for Pigeons, a not-for-profit organisation that offers writing programs to disadvantaged children in Melbourne’s west, I work with kids a lot. They’re generally pretty honest, so I’m just going to use something one of them said about me as my bio: ‘Dude, you’re a really bad dancer.’
Jo Case
Jo Case is senior writer/editor at the Wheeler Centre. Her previous roles have included books editor of The Big Issue, associate editor of Kill Your Darlings and deputy editor of Australian Book Review. She is working on a memoir about parenting a child with Asperger’s Syndrome; it will be published by Hardie Grant in 2013.
Ehon Chan
Ehon Chan has been known as a social entrepreneur, innovator, “digital branding professional” (news.com.au), “Top 100 Most Influential People in Melbourne” (The Age) and one of the “world’s most inspiring young achiever and innovator under 30” (Sandbox Network).
Sofia Chapman
Sofia Chapman is a playwright and poet, currently Cafe Poet at Open Studio, Northcote, through Australian Poetry. Her poems have been published in Prelude and Inscribe, and her plays include The Anorexic Chef and the Accidental Death of an Accordionist. Her epic ‘The Four Accordionists of the Apocalypse’ will run at Carlton Courthouse this Fringe Festival.
Rick Chen
Rick is an entrepreneur and a social change maker with a strong focus on new media design. He has a keen interested in web based technology, user interface design and innovative ideas that change people’s behaviour. Rick cofounded Australia’s first and biggest crowdfunding platform Pozible in 2010.
Jules Clancy
Jules Clancy loves food especially veggies. She has a degree in Food Science and is the author of 5 ingredients 10 minutes. She has been earning a living from her blog thestonesoup.com since she quit her job designing chocolate biscuits for Arnotts in January 2010.
Paul Collins
Paul Collins has written over 140 books and over a 100 short stories. He is best known for The Quentaris Chronicles, The Jelindel Chronicles, The Earthborn Wars and The Maximus Black Files. Paul has been short-listed for many awards and won the Aurealis, William Atheling, the inaugural Peter McNamara and the A. Bertram Chandler Award for lifetime achievement in SF. He is the publisher at Ford Street Publishing.
Stephanie Convery
Stephanie Honor Convery is a Melbourne-based writer of fiction, non-fiction, criticism and commentary. Her work has appeared in Overland, Meanjin, and on the ABC Drum, among others. She has just completed her first novel. She blogs at gingerandhoney.com and La Fille Mal Gardée: overland.org.au/blogs/lfmg/. On Twitter she is @gingerandhoney.
Sam Cooney
Sam Cooney has published fiction, creative nonfiction and journalism in a variety of places, both in Australia and overseas. He has also commissioned and edited writing for a few Australian journals, and is currently the editor and publisher of the Lifted Brow. He tweets as @samuelcooney and webs at thejumbuckisalmostextinct.com
Alison Croggan
Alison Croggon is a Melbourne writer whose work includes prize winning poetry, criticism, novels and theatre. She is the author of the fantasy quartet The Books of Pellinor and her new novel, Black Spring, is due late 2012. She was awarded the 2009 Geraldine Pascall Critic of the Year for her theatre criticism.
Nathan Curnow
Nathan Curnow is an award-winning poet and past editor of Going Down Swinging. His latest book The Ghost Poetry Project is based upon his stays at ten haunted sites around the country. His new collection, RADAR, a joint book with poet Kevin Brophy, is forthcoming in 2012 with Walleah Press.
Zoe Dattner
Zoe has worked in the publishing industry for over 10 years. She is a founder and general manager of SPUNC.
Tom Dawkins
For over 15 years Tom Dawkins has been exploring how technology and culture can be harnessed as tools to create a more democratic and participatory society. His latest project is StartSomeGood.com, crowd funding for social enterprise.
Sonja Dechian
Sonja Dechian’s short fiction has appeared in The Best Australian Stories, New Australian Stories, The Sleepers Almanac, and others. She’s the co-editor of two books of young people’s writing about the Australian refugee experience, Dark Dreams and No Place Like Home. Sonja worked for some time as a television producer for the ABC in Adelaide and now freelances in Melbourne. She’s written for television, museum, radio and documentary and is currently working on a collection of short stories.
Lisa Dempster
Lisa Dempster is the Director of the Emerging Writers’ Festival and author of Neon Pilgrim. Find her at lisadempster.com.au or @lisadempster.
Christy Dena
I’m a writer, designer and director who loves inventing platforms to have to create with. I’m currently working on a hybrid of audio drama and internet play, and have previously worked on alternate reality games, theatre, independent films, and many other areas. I toggle my time between being an educator on transmedia, and inventing things to make new playful stories with.
Ken Denmead
Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He’s the publisher and editor of GeekDad, the parenting blog for Wired magazine’s online presence, and publisher of the companion blog, GeekMom, where along with a group of other dedicated, geeky parents he posts projects, book and movie reviews, weekly podcasts, and more about being a parent and being a geek.
Daniel Donahoo
Daniel works with words. He is one of the festival’s Geeks-in-Residence. His words have appeared in books, blogs, speeches, poems and lego.
Daniel Ducrou
Daniel Ducrou’s first novel, The Byron Journals (Text Publishing, 2010), was shortlisted for the Australian Vogel Literary Award and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. He has published short stories in Sleepers Almanac and the Review of Australian Fiction, and is currently working on a second novel. danielducrou.com
Monica Dux
Monica Dux is a Melbourne writer and social commentator. She has published widely on women’s issues and in 2008 she co-authored the book The Great Feminist Denial. She is currently writing a book on pregnancy and motherhood, which will be published by Melbourne University Press in 2013.
Rachel Edwards
Rachel started her life 2.0 at Island as Emerging Editor of Islet and is now both managing editor and fiction editor of the magazine. Rachel is also Events Manager at Fullers Bookshop in Hobart and host of The Book Show on Edge Radio. She endeavors to maintain her blog: www.paigelovesbooks.blogspot.com
Tom Elliott
Tom is a director of both Beulah Capital Pty Ltd (an independent wealth management firm) and MM&E Capital Pty Ltd (a Melbourne based hedge fund). Tom currently hosts the Weekend Break show on Melbourne radio station 3AW, and appears regularly on both the ABC’s Inside Business programme and Network Ten’s The Project. Tom holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne and a Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) from Oxford University (UK).
Ben Eltham
Ben Eltham is New Matilda‘s National Affairs Correspondent, Crikey‘s arts columnist and a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development.
Amy Espeseth
Born in rural Wisconsin, Amy Espeseth immigrated to Australia in the late 1990s. As publisher at Vignette Press, she will continue their acclaimed sub-cultural journal series with Geek Mook and Fat Mook. Both of her novels, Sufficient Grace and Trouble Telling the Weather, will be published by Scribe.
Ali Fareed
iBlog @AskAliFareed but mostly tweet nonsense here. Cancerian Bahraini knowitall kinda geek with a sarcastic sense of humor. Tweet about Tech/Movies/Series/Food.
Paul Fearne
Dr Paul Fearne is a Melbourne writer and poet. His first book, Diary of a Schizophrenic, was launched at the 2010 Melbourne Writers Festival. His second book, A Schizophrenic on Artaud, has just been released. Dr Fearne holds a PhD from LaTrobe University, and an MA from Melbourne University.
Andrew Finegan
Andrew Finegan is a reader and writer of poetry, music and cabaret. He has recently returned to Melbourne after spending the last nine months travelling in Japan. The temples were pretty, but got boring after a while.
Timothy Fitzgerald
Timothy Fitzgerald is a creative writing and digital communications major at Griffith University. His personal essay ‘Just talk diamonds’ will be published in Talent Implied 2012. He regularly performs as part of the Small Room Writers Collective. In 2011, he was selected to be apart of Griffith’s expedition to the Ubud Writer’s and Reader’s festival in Bali.
Adam Ford
Adam Ford lives in Chewton, with his wife, their two daughters, a cat and the ghosts of a number of chickens. He writes digital things like a twitter novel, curates monkey punch dinosaur and is the author of a novel called Man Bites Dog, a collection of poems called Not Quite the Man for the Job, a zine called Jutchy Ya Ya
Clementine Ford
Clementine Ford is a rabblerousing, troublemaking, mouthy banshee who lives in the starving middle class artists’ enclave known as ‘North Fitzroy’. By day, she writes polemical screeds about feminism, politics and sociology. By night, she watches Game of Thrones and feels funny in her downthere.
Zoe Fraser
Zoe Fraser is an Honours student in Creative Writing. Her fiction appears in the forthcoming Talent Implied anthology. In 2011 she participated in Griffith University’s Writing Retreat with Frank Moorhouse, the Oxford Creative Writing Summer School, and the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. She is a member of Small Room Writer’s Collective.
Alia Gabres
Alia Gabres is a co-director of The Centre for Poetics and Justice, a not-for-profit organisation focused on using poetry as a form of literary education, self expression and social engagement for marginalised peoples. She was recently a part of the Global Poetics Tour 2011 and is Cafe Poet at the Melbourne City Library.
Kelly Gardiner
Kelly Gardiner is an author, journalist, blogger and editor with many years’ experience in print and digital media. Her books include last year’s YA novel, Act of Faith, the ‘Swashbuckler’ adventure trilogy for young readers, and a picture book, Billabong Bill’s Bushfire Christmas.
Dan Giovannoni
Dan Giovannoni writes plays for adults and young people. Most recently he wrote Two by Two and Cut Snake, and worked on No Show’s Shotgun Wedding for Next Wave. He is currently working as a guest artist with Back to Back’s Theatre of SPEED, is a writer-in-residence at Red Stitch, and in June will be artist-in-residence at Leonora High School in remote WA. His new play Wrecking opens at the Old Fitz in September.
Kerryn Goldsworthy
Kerryn Goldsworthy is a writer and literary critic who lives and works in Adelaide. She is a regular weekly reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald and is the author of three books, the most recent of which is Adelaide in the Cities Series being published by NewSouth Books.
Simon J. Green
Simon J. Green writes for websites, video production and screen. He just so happens to be marvellous at producing those very same things. He’s equally at home in a spreadsheet as he is in Celtx. His latest work is BULLET: A Superhero Comedy, a radio play performed live on stage at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.
Nicki Greenberg
Nicki Greenberg is a writer and illustrator with a special interest in sequential art narrative. Nicki’s first books, The Digits series, were published when she was fifteen years old, and sold more than 380,000 copies. Since then, she has devoted most of her ink to comics, but has also written and illustrated fiction and non-fiction books for children. At seventeen, Nicki fell in love with The Great Gatsby. Almost ten years later, she set out to pay tribute to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel by interpreting it in comic art form. It took more than six years to complete this enormous labour of love. This mad undertaking was followed by three years’ passionate work on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which was finally staged on the page in 2010. Nicki lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her family, their poodle and two bad cats. In her spare time she works as a lawyer.
Nicholas Guest
Nicholas Guest is an undergraduate writing student at Griffith University on the Gold Coast and a member of the Small Room Writers Collective. He completed an internship at the 2011 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival and his novella The Ferry Master will be published in the upcoming anthology Talent Implied 2012: New Writing from Griffith.
Eyal Halamish
Activist, consultant, and storyteller from Chicago living in Melbourne, Australia shaking up the political-media system by putting citizens in the driver seat.
Leanne Hall
Leanne Hall writes novels and short stories that sit somewhere between reality and fantasy. She works as a children’s and YA specialist at an independent bookstore, and is a compulsive recommender of books.
Tully Hansen
Tully Hansen is a 26-year-old wordsmith, performer and internet flâneur based in Melbourne. His literary and intellectual meanderings of late have led him into a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. He tweets at @tullyhansen and webs at tullyhansen.com
Andrew Harper
I write, spin yarns, tell jokes and make art. I am a performer that indulges in stand up, I make performance art and I collect and tell stories. I am interested in what a story is, and the place and purpose of sharing them in the modern age.
Fiona Harris
Fiona Harris is an actor/writer whose TV writing and performing credits include sketch comedy series’, Skithouse, Flipside, Comedy Inc. and ABC3’s kids show Prank Patrol. She has written numerous comedy festival shows, including the award-winning Footy Chicks, and Plus One, which had its successful debut at the MICF this year.
Narrelle Harris
Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Her latest book is Showtime, a short story collection, released in March 2012 by Twelfth Planet Press. The sequel to The Opposite of Life, a vampire novel set in Melbourne, will be published in mid-2012 by Clan Destine Press. Narrelle also writes in the business sector. She created the Melbourne Literary iPhone app in association with Sutro Media in 2010. Her second app in partnership with Sutro, Melbourne Peculiar, is due out in April 2012. Her website is narrellemharris.com and her blog, mortalwords.com
Susan Hawthorne
Susan Hawthorne co-founder Spinifex Press with Renate Klein 21 years ago. Spinifex has published more than 200 titles and embarked on eBook publishing in 2006. She’s a member of the APA’s Independent Publishers Committee. She is the author of ten books and is Adjunct Professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University, Townsville.
Rachel Hills
Journalist, blogger, social researcher. Interested in the intersection of the personal, the political and the cultural. London via Sydney. rachelhills.tumblr.com
Belinda Hilton
Belinda Hilton is a PhD student at Griffith University Gold Coast. She was the featured poet for the Poetry in Film Festival 2011 and her work has appeared in Talent Implied. Belinda has been the director of Small Room Writers Collective since late 2009 and has a performance background.
Emmyrose Hobbs
Emmyrose Hobbs is co-managing editor of Offset, Victoria University’s creative arts journal. She has interned for Express Media, Emerging Writers’ Festival and was on the editorial committee for Inscribe magazine. She sometimes writes reviews for Artshub. She’ll never be caught without red lipstick on.
Courteney Hocking
Courteney Hocking is a hard-working writer & comedian. She’s worked as the only ladywriter for Good News Week (Ten), founded Australia’s only political comedy room, Political Asylum and written for the Age and Crikey, as well as co-hosting radio with Daniel Kitson. She’s “whip smart… shrewd & funny” (the Age)
Rebecca Howden
Rebecca Howden is a fiction and nonfiction writer whose work has appeared in publications such as Kill Your Darlings, Voiceworks, Page Seventeen and more. She is currently assistant editor of Monument magazine and writes about books, gender, fashion et cetera at rebeccahowden.com.au.
Sarah Howell
Sarah is known as a producer of comics related events and projects, including as Co-Director of the 2009-10 National Young Writers’ Festival. Sarah’s illustrations have appeared in the Emerging Writers’ Festival Reader, The Lifted Brow, and the 2011 Melbourne Writers’ Festival comic anthology Drawn from Life.
Matt Huynh
Matt Huynh is a Sydney born, New York based, illustrator and comic creator. Creative Sydney Festival named him one of the most innovative contributors to Sydney’s culture for his graphic novel CAB, documenting true stories from his childhood suburban migrant community, Cabramatta. In 2009, Matt worked with leading illustrators and publishers worldwide under the Design NSW Travelling Scholarship. From 2010-2011, Matt undertook a yearlong commitment to create new exhibitions with every season, culminating in the exhibition of a nine meter charcoal scroll and paintings in the Australian Museum. Matt documented a Chinatown martial arts troupe in a reportorial comic launched at the Sydney Opera House for the 2011 Graphic Festival. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone and Bloomberg Business Week. More of his work can be found at matthuynh.com
Eliza Hull
Eliza Hull is a poet, lyricist and singer. She currently works at Australian Poetry and her debut EP Dawn is out in May.
Nazeem Hussain
Nazeem Hussain is one of Australia’s most incisive and daring comedians. He is one half of the award winning comedy duo ‘Fear of a Brown Planet’ and co-created and starred on the cult-hit comedy ‘Salam Café’ on SBS, as well as on Balls of Steel Australia on the Comedy Channel.
JOMAD
A homemade podcast about reading, writing and friendship. With Johannes Jakob, former Voiceworks Editor and Pokemon aficionado and Madeleine Crofts, primary-teacher-to-be and general loudmouth.
Toni Jordan
Toni Jordan can’t stop writing, reading, teaching and thinking about novels.
Dione Joseph
Dione Joseph is a prolific writer with extensive experience as a theatre director and community cultural arts worker. Dione has worked for Fairfax Media in New Zealand and is the former editor of Melbourne City Newspaper. She is now working as editor-in-chief of new online lifestyle publication thebearbrass.com
Varia Karipoff
Varia Karipoff is a Melbourne based freelance arts and culture writer, poet, and occasional copywriter. She likes the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva, Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Neruda, Nabokov, Eugenides, fig trees, seaside towns, drawing with ink, and is hoping to get better at driving. Her favourite novel of all time is The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
Victor Keegan
Writer/poet, virtual painter, LONDaddict, ex Guardian journo, app publisher, AFC Wimbledon groupie, exploring creative uses of new technology.
Elmo Keep
Writer, gun for hire, pedant. My philosophy is simple, like a bean.
Kate Kendall
Kate Kendall is a digital thinker and doer who’s been working in the social web space since 2007. She’s writes, speaks and consults on marketing, community engagement, content strategy, product development and communications. Kate is cofounder of @socialmelb, creator of The Fetch – a what’s happening guide to your city’s business, digital and creative communities and has just been appointed to work with the founders of YouTube on their new publishing venture Zeen.com in SF.
Katie Keys
Katie Keys / tinylittlepoems is a thirty-something non-Indig Aussie Brit and Café Poet at Melbourne’s Rue Bebelons. A poet, writer, reviewer and arts manager, her writing has been published in anthologies, magazines and online in Australia and beyond.She tweets one tiny little poem each day @tinylittlepoems
Octavio Kulesz
Octavio Kulesz has a degree in Philosophy from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has been a professor in Ancient Philosophy at the same university. He is a digital publisher and a leading thinker on digital publishing.
Phil Lees
Phil Lees is a Melbourne-based writer and social media manager for Tourism Victoria. He writes at lastappetite.com, covers global food issues each week for SBS’s World Food Blog and occasionally in the offline media at Wall Street Journal, Chili Pepper Magazine and others. Lonely Planet once called him “the unofficial pimp of Cambodian cuisine”.
Sarah L’Estrange
Sarah L’Estrange is a producer on Books and Arts Daily, ABC Radio National.
Lawrence Leung
TV writer, comedian and director. He created two ABC1 telly shows, ‘Lawrence Leung’s Unbelievable’ and the AFI-nominated ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’. He also wrote pranks for ‘The Chaser’s War On Everything’ and toured his award-winning stand up shows nationally and overseas. He once solved a Rubik’s Cube whilst skydiving.
Julien Leyre
Manic multi-tasker. Julien speaks Mandarin with a French accent and Italian body language. He writes fiction, non-fiction and film – some of it with a gay focus – some of it on exotic places. He’s bringing Chinese writing to the West – online, with others. And it’s his second year at the EWF.
Emily Maguire
I’m the author of three novels and two non-fiction books, and my essays and articles on feminism, sex, culture and travel have been published widely. When I’m not writing, I work as a mentor for new and emerging writers, and run creative writing workshops for kids.
Kirstyn McDermott
Kirstyn McDermott is a Melbourne author whose work has been published in various journals, magazines and anthologies, including Aurealis, Southerly, GUD, Southern Blood and Island. She has received various awards for both her short fiction and her debut novel, Madigan Mine. Her second novel, Perfections, will be published in 2012
Erin McGinley
Erin McGinley is a Bachelor of Communications student at Griffith University Gold Coast. She is a member of the Small Room Writers Collective.
Fiona McGregor
Sydney writer and performance artist. She has published five books, the most recent Indelible Ink winning The Age Book of the Year. Showed Water Series – performances inspired by water – at Artspace and MOP in 2011. fionamcgregor.com
Jess McGuire
Jess McGuire is a writer & broadcaster. She can be heard every morning between 6am & 9am on Triple R as a member of the Breakfasters. She was the editor of pop culture website Defamer Australia for four years, and has written for various publications including The Daily Life, The Vine, The Sunday Age, The Drum, and jmag amongst others.
Ben McKenzie
Ben McKenzie is an actor (The Bazura Project, Woodley), scientician (The Peer Revue), comedian (Museum Comedy), feminist, improviser (Dungeon Crawl), geek, presenter (Planet Nerd), gameguy (Pop Up Playground), voiceover artist, nerd, writer (Geek Mook) and ginger (real life). Find him at labcoatman.com.au or follow @labcoatman. His favourite dinosaur is Stegosaurus.
Andrew McClelland
Andrew McClelland is a comedian, writer and DJ. Modesty prevents him from saying how good he is at those things, but not from implying it through the medium of this sentence.
Fatima Measham
Fatima Measham is a Melbourne writer whose work has appeared in ABC The Drum, Fairfax National Times, Eureka Street, Australian Catholics, and The King’s Tribune. She hopes to make a career out of being the Token Brown Female Asian at festival panels.
Angela Meyer
Angela Meyer’s short stories and reviews have been published widely. She is a former acting editor of Bookseller+Publisher and runs a popular literary blog, LiteraryMinded. She is working on a novel as part of a Doctor of Creative Arts through the University of Western Sydney. literaryminded.com.au
Hayley Mills
Currently studying Certificate 4 of Writing and Editing at Holmesglen, whilst doing some freelance review writing for weekendnotes.com and working on my first young adult, fantasy novel. My plans for the future include; teaching the art of writing to others, hitting the bestseller list and writing for as long as I humanly can.
Benjamin Grant Mitchell
Benjamin Grant Mitchell is a Melbourne based writer who travels the world as B_G_Mitchell on Twitter. His first novel, The Last Great Day (“A compelling tale of faith and family” INPRESS) was published independently in 2011 and he is currently finishing his second novel, a roadtrip/romance set along Route 66. When not novel-ing he’s bloggle-ing at Indie Thinkin’ (www.bgmitchell.com) and Year of Living Sober (www.yearoflivingsober.com). His old school website is at: www.benjamingrantmitchell.com
Penny Modra
Penny Modra is the editor of The Thousands Melbourne, and the editorial director of the Thousands City Guides. She has written weekly visual arts columns for the Age and the Sunday Age; edited books including Nobody Told Me There’d Be Days Like These (Amanda Maxwell, 2008); and recently proof read Wooooo Magazine issue #7, Arts Victoria’s Cheap Arts guide and four PhDs – although she will never, ever do this again.
Meg Mundell
Meg Mundell has published short stories and journalism in Best Australian Stories, New Australian Stories, Australian Book Review, Meanjin, Sleepers Almanac, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Monthly. Her first novel Black Glass was highly commended in the 2012 Barbara Jefferis Award, and is a finalist in the 2011 Aurealis Awards. She’s now writing a PhD and trying to keep her rumbunctious cat Gizmo off the damn keyboard. Argh! Geddoff! Website: www.megmundell.com
Ruby J Murray
Ruby J Murray is a writer, researcher, and sometime foot-stomper currently based in Melbourne, Australia. She writes political opinion and creative non-fiction for both on-line and print publications and is a regular contributor to Dumbo Feather Pass it On. Her debut novel Running Dogs, set in Jakarta, Indonesia, is out through Scribe.
Omar Musa
Omar Musa is a rapper and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He has won the Australian Poetry Slam and the Indian Ocean Poetry Slam. He has released a book of poetry, three hip-hop albums recorded in the USA and has toured throughout Asia, Europe and Australia, doing writers festivals and hip-hop shows, including tour support for Gil Scott-Heron in Germany.
Jason Nahrung
Jason Nahrung grew up on a Queensland cattle property and now lives in Melbourne with his wife, the writer Kirstyn McDermott. He works as an editor and journalist to support his travel addiction. His fiction is invariably darkly themed, perhaps reflecting his passion for classic B-grade horror films and ’80s goth rock. The co-author of the novel The Darkness Within (Hachette Australia), his most recent long fiction title, the Gothic tale Salvage (Twelfth Planet Press), is to be published in June. He lurks online at www.jasonnahrung.com.
Andrew Nette
I am a Melbourne-based writer and one of the editors at Crime Factory Publications, a recently established small press specialising in crime fiction. My first novel will be released mid-2102 by Snubnose Press. My blog, Pulp Curry, focuses on crime fiction and film, particularly from Asia and Australia. www.pulpcurry.com
Patrick O’Duffy
Patrick O’Duffy publishes textbooks by day and writes by night. Well, on weekends anyway. Previously working in the roleplaying games industry as a writer and designer, these days he focuses on writing and publishing short-form ebooks, blogging about writing and slowly completing his first novel.
Paddy O’Reilly
I’m an odd-jobbing writer, back living in my home town Melbourne. I’ve published three and a quarter books and many short stories in magazines and anthologies. My latest book is The Fine Colour of Rust.
Lucy Parakhina
Lucy Parakhina is a photographer and creative producer living in Sydney. As part of the team putting on monthly live reading event Penguin Plays Rough, she has project managed the publication of a book and a multi-media iPhone app. As a core member of performance collective Fetish Frequency, she participated in Underbelly Arts Festival 2011. As a photographer, she has worked for Performance Space, PACT Centre for Emerging Artists, Oxfam and FBi Radio amongst others, and has had her photos published in Ampersand magazine. In 2012, she is a co-curator of Open Source, a new program of interdisciplinary performance creative developments supported by the Australia Council.
Bruce Pascoe
Writes a lot. Plays a bit of cricket. Swims, fishes, knocks about in the bush. Secretary of Bidwell-Maap Nation. Bunurong-Tasmanian heritage.
Bede Payne
Bede Payne is a union official working for the Media, entertainment and arts alliance. As a campaign coordinator he has worked with Journalists from across the country on improving pay, conditions, journalistic quality and copyright protection in a fast changing media landscape. With degrees in creative writing and industrial relations he sees the creative industries both as a creator and an activist.
Tim Pegler
As a journo, Tim Pegler used to see himself as a professional sceptic. But sometimes events can’t be easily explained away… Tim’s second YA novel, Five Parts Dead, draws on spooky tales told to him. Now it’s time to share them with you.
Hoa Pham
Hoa Pham is the co-founder of Peril, an online asian-australian arts and culture magazine at peril.com.au. She has also published four books and a play along with short stories. Her work can be checked out at hoapham.net.
Karen Pickering
Karen Pickering is the incumbent editor of the EWF book: The Emerging Writer. She is the creator and host of Cherchez la Femme, a monthly digest of pop culture and current affairs from a feminist perspective. Her writing has appeared in Overland, Crikey and The Drum, and she presents a radio segment on feminist classics, called The Women’s Room, for Aural Text on RRR. In her spare time, she organises SlutWalk Melbourne and moonlights as a comedian, host and MC.
Marisa Pintado
Marisa Pintado is a commissioning editor of children’s and YA fiction at Hardie Grant Egmont in Melbourne. In 2011 she launched the Ampersand Project, a search for YA manuscripts by unpublished writers. She has half-baked plans to begin a blog about apples, but otherwise lacks any serious writing credits.
Patrick Pittman
Patrick Pittman has been a freelance writer, editor, radio broadcaster, playwright, academic, activist, company director, community builder, and nightshift carer of a supercomputer. He is the editor of Dumbo Feather, a Melbourne-based quarterly magazine featuring conversations with extraordinary people.
Fee Plumley
Is unsure whether she is allowed to own the title “artist”, but is taking it anyway. Previously known for encouraging people to be creative with the technology they carry in their pockets via the-phone-book Limited. Recently attempted to promote digital literacy and strategic innovation through the digital program at the Australia Council. Currently crowdfunding for a bus to drive around Australia on a reallybigroadtrip, crowdsourcing her life for the sake of creative digital culture. Can mainly be found (online and off) spreading the word of geek around creative types. @feesable
Ben Pobjie
Ben is a writer, comedian and raconteur who has for years explored the nature of truth through humour, satire and jokes about sweaty people on MasterChef. He can be found in newspapers and websites absolutely everywhere.
Bhakthi Puvanenthiran
Bhakthi Puvanenthiran is a journalist, editor, programmer and broadcaster from Melbourne. She co-edits Going Down Swinging, works at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, and tweets @bhakthi.
Andrew Ramadge
Andrew Ramadge knows how to get a bajillion hits. From 2007 to 2011 he was the national technology reporter for news.com.au. He has also written widely about pop music and is currently learning how to garden.
Francesca Rendle-Short
Francesca Rendle-Short grew up in Queensland. She is the author of Bite Your Tongue (a novel/memoir), Imago (a novel) both by Spinifex Press, and Big Sister (Redress Novellas). She has also published many short fictions, photo-essays, exhibition text and poetry. She is the Program Director of Creative Writing at RMIT.
John Richards
John Richards is an award-winning writer and broadcaster, best known for presenting the Boxcutters podcast and co-creating and writing the ABC1 comedy series Outland. He has also created material for Radio National, 6UVSFM, RTR, JJJ and Channel 10, hosted shows on RRR and Joy 94.9 and written for many publications.
Leigh Rigozzi
Leigh Rigozzi is a Sydney-based artist and writer. He is best known for his self-published zines and comics. Leigh was a co-founder of the Blood & Thunder publishing concern, and has been heavily involved in the Rizzeria printmaking co-operative. He studied his Masters at Sydney College of the Arts, and now exhibits his drawings and paintings at Ray Hughes gallery in Sydney. His latest publication is entitled Pubs of the Inner West. You can see examples of Leigh’s work at leighrigozzi.com.
Clare Robertson
Clare lives on a little island in the Pacific North West – sometimes drawing and writing. She has been blogging forever at loobylu.com and is no longer allowed to enter the Bloggies because her blog has won too many times.
Aden Rolfe
Aden Rolfe is a writer and editor whose work includes poetry, radioplays, collage and criticism. His writing has appeared in Best Australian Poems 2011, Overland and Best Australian Poetry 2009, and has been broadcast on Radio National. He works as a freelance copywriter, and edited Volume 2 of The Reader.
Cam Rogers
Author of The Music of Razors, screen and videogame writer, journalist and photographer. ‘Passionate’ or ‘unhinged’, you decide.
Josephine Rowe
Writer of stories, most of them very short. Repairer of typewriters. Translator of cats. Last year I spent a Midwestern fall in an Iowa City hotel room, staring out at the river and finishing a new short story collection, Tarcutta Wake, which is due out in July through UQP.
Penni Russon
Penni Russon is fascinated by adolescence and the intersection that exists in that period of life between language, bodies, reality, imagination, poetry, sexuality, and ideas, which is why she mostly writes literary fiction for teenagers. She sometimes writes for boring grownups too, now that she is one.
Jackie Ryan
Jackie writes, directs and designs Burger Force comics. You can read them if you take a trip to burgerforce.com. If you wander over to jackieryan.net you can also inspect Jackie’s film work. The nerd highlight of Jackie’s career to date is designing a poster for Stan Lee’s Comikaze Expo.
Luke Ryan
Freelance writer, comedian and man about town. I write short-form non-fiction with a comic edge and am currently working on my debut book, I Guess You’re Only as Sick as You Feel, a comedy memoir about having had cancer a couple of times due for release through Scribe Publications in early 2013. Work has appeared in The Vine, Smith Journal, Crikey, The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings, Time Out and many others.
Carla Sammut
Carla Sammut writes the vegan food blog easy as vegan pie. She is also a theatre critic having written for Milkbar Magazine, Theatre Alive and Broadsheet.
Zora Sanders
Zora Sanders is the Deputy Editor of Meanjin and former editor of Farrago. She is grateful for the opportunity to discuss 17th century Australian maritime history with a captive audience. She doesn’t often get the chance.
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott has published work in Heat, The Big Issue, and The Believer, and he’s the comics and graphic novels critic for ABC Radio National. In 2007, he founded The Lifted Brow, a freeform arts, culture, and fiction magazine.
Tim Scott
Tim Scott is national music editor of The Thousands and contributes to a number of publications including Mess + Noise and Vice. He is an announcer on Triple R program Teenage Hate and works in band booking and management. He also dabbles in the short story format influenced as much by Raymond Carver as Black Flag.
Jeff Sparrow
Jeff Sparrow is the editor of Overland literary journal. His books include Radical Melbourne: A Secret History and Radical Melbourne 2: The Enemy Within (cowritten with sister Jill), Communism: A Love Story and Killing: Misadventures in Violence. He is the co-editor with Antony Loewenstein of Left Turn, a collection of political essays. His book on neoliberalism, pornograpy and censorship will be out later this year.
Anita Sethi
Anita Sethi is an award-winning writer, journalist and broadcaster. She is recipient of a Penguin/decibel Prize, Arts Council Writing Award, and Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship. She is International Writer-in-Residence and Ambassador at the Emerging Writers’ Festival, Melbourne 2012. Website: anitasethi.co.uk. Twitter: @anitasethi
Rebecca Starford
Rebecca Starford is associate publisher at Affirm Press and editor and co-founder of Kill Your Darlings literary journal. She is a former deputy editor at Australian Book Review. Rebecca regularly publishes in the Age and the Australian.
Erin Stewart
Erin is based in Sydney via Canberra and Melbourne. She is a student who writes, reads, takes photographs, and gets angry at the TV. Her written work has appeared in publications such as The Age, lip magazine, and The Scavenger. She is currently the Online Coordinator of Vibewire.
Emmett Stintson
Emmett Stinson is the author of the short story collection Known Unknowns, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Steele Rudd Award in the Queensland Premiers Awards. He has received the Age Short Story Award and a Lannan Poetry Fellowship, and is a Lecturer in Publishing at the University of Melbourne.
Fregmonto Stokes
In 2008, Fregmonto co- wrote ‘Melbourne Model: The Musical’, a satire on the reforms then being introduced at Melbourne University. In 2010, he co-devised the ‘Four Friends’ Project in Bhutan, and completed an Honours thesis on the project in 2011. Currently he is writing ’1938′, a musical about an Aboriginal protest that occurred in that year.
Estelle Tang
Estelle Tang is an editor at Oxford University Press and Online Editor at Kill Your Darlings. Her writing has appeared in Australian Book Review, The Lifted Brow, The Big Issue and on Radio National. She also sits on the editorial advisory committee of Paper Radio and the SPUNC board.
Nicola Themistes
Nicola Themistes is an allegorist, belletrist, Milton devotee and occasional conceited hack. Her first novel, Spectacle City, is critical and satirical rendering of cultural identity in the city of Melbourne. She is publishing it independently as a limited print edition and as an e-book in May 2012.
Philip Thiel
Philip Thiel gave flowers, imitated saints, followed people, used lemons, kissed people, flipped coins, stopped.
Jon Tjhia
Jon Tjhia is a multimedia dork and corn fancier raised and renting in Melbourne. When not snipping, writing, designing and publishing content as the Wheeler Centre’s Online Content Manager, he’s co-executive producer and lead sound designer of trans-Tasman non-and-fiction literary podcast Paper Radio, a musician, internet troublemaker and occasional writer.
Kate Toon
A writer and poet living on the Central Coast, NSW. I’ve had over 30 short plays performed across Australia, in the US, Europe, Singapore and the UK. A member of Australian Poetry Society, represented by literary agents Curtis Brown, self-publishing a volume of poetry, ‘Gone Dotty’, and raising funds with Pozible.
Garry Trinh
Garry Trinh is a Sydney-based photographer, artist, and storyteller who believes in the power of publishing. His work has been published in Monster Children, Runway, Empty, and ANP Quarterly. As community evangelist for Blurb Australia, he works tirelessly to inspire writers and artists to publish their work. A dedicated bookmaker himself, he has made over ten books with Blurb so far, and is working on more.
Sam Twyford-Moore
Sam Twyford-Moore is a writer of fiction and non fiction, writing having appeared in Meanjin, Overland and elsewhere. He is host of The Rereaders podcast. He is currently conspiring with the editors Seizure/Xoum on The Five Obstructions, which will be released as an e-book in 2012.
Owen Vandenberg
Owen Vandenberg is a Melbourne writer and maker of too many dad jokes. He has two disparate tertiary qualifications, which he hopes to reconcile into some kind of grotesque academic chimera. He is also the creator of TweetFilm, a monthly film screening where audience members interact via Twitter.
van Zweden Sam
Sam van Zweden is a freelance writer based in Melbourne. Her work has appeared in various online and print publications, including The Big Issue, Voiceworks, Verity La and Liticism. She blogs at littlegirlwithabigpen.wordpress.com
Ashleigh Watson
Ashleigh Watson is in her final year of undergraduate study with Griffith University and is a member of the Small Room Writers Collective. She writes for a tourism magazine on the Gold Coast and last year completed a photography internship in Bali at the Ubud Writers and Readers festival.
Tessa Waters
Tessa Waters is a Melbourne based comedian, actor and producer known for creating physical comedies with heart and soul. She was voted as one of the Top 10 Emerging Australian comedians by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age in 2011 and has toured her critically acclaimed physical comedies (How to be a Lady, Sexytime and Standing up/Falling Down) and film work throughout Australia as well as the United States.
Richard Watts
Richard Watts is a writer, broadcaster and critic and the founder of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. He hosts the weekly program SmartArts on 3RRR FM, and works as the National Reviews Editor at artshub.com.au
John Weldon
John Weldon is interested in the intersection of social media and narrative. What happens when you use interactive tech to break down the barriers between readers and writers? What happens to control, to authority, to the writing itself? He also grows marrows.
David Witteveen
I’m a writer living in Melbourne. Mostly I write ghost stories and urban fantasy. I co-curated the online storytelling project Melbourne By Dusk as part of the Emerging Writers’ Festival in 2011.
Tyson Wray
Tyson Wray is an editor, writer and general all-rounder. He specialises in electronic and ambient music alongside the arts. Based in Melbourne, he is the arts and associate music editor of Beat Magazine, editor of 100% Magazine and the online managing editor of their affiliated website. He contributes to Resident Advisor, triple j mag, The Big Issue, Fashion Journal, mX and numerous other websites, record labels and publications.
Writers' Web
writers’ web allows emerging Australian writers to become authors by connecting them directly with readers rather than waiting to be traditionally published. Created by Emma Mactaggart and Janet Kieseker, www.writersweb.com.au allows the reader to be to be the judge and is a way to “get spotted” by mainstream publishers through reader reviews.
Stella Young
Stella Young is a writer, comedian and activist who spends most of her spare time knitting and drinking tea. She is the editor of ABC Ramp Up, an online space for discussion of disability issues in Australia.
Trevor Young
I’m a ‘PR Warrior’ on the front line of the communications revolution. As an ex-journalist schooled in the traditional ways of PR, I spend much of my time these days helping businesses, nonprofits and individuals to leverage social media and content marketing strategies to build awareness of, and trust in, their brand. I blog, speak, train, consult, strategise and cajole (as well as create heaps of content for myself and others). I’m partial to ’60s hard bop jazz, dramatic film scores, Melbourne’s laneway culture and the Geelong Cats.
Lee Zachariah
Lee is a Melbourne-based writer and critic. He is the co-host of ABC2’s The Bazura Project, and the film podcast Hell Is For Hyphenates. He is the writer of FEC Comics’ Shakespeare-themed Great Works, and is currently developing other projects due for publication in the next year.
Maria Zajkowski
Maria Zajkowski is a Melbourne based poet. Previously shortlisted for the Alec Bolten Award, the Bridport Prize (UK) and the Newcastle Poetry Prize, she was the winner of the 2011 Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize. Her work has been funded by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council for the Arts.
