EWF2011 Participating Writers

Filter:

Mathew Abbott

Mathew Abbott lives in Canberra with his wife Emilie and his dog Champion Ruby. He is an Australian Poetry Fellow and will have a chapbook published by Australian Poetry later in 2011. He currently teaches poetry and screen studies at the University of Canberra, and is completing a PhD at the University of Sydney. In 2006, he was the recipient of a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship in Poetry.

Alex Adsett

Alex Adsett is a publishing consultant with over 15 years experience in publishing and bookselling. She offers business advice to authors, publishers and booksellers, helping them review and negotiate their contracts, including print and ebook publishing agreements, film and translation. www.alexadsett.com.au

Steven Amsterdam

Steven Amsterdam has been a production assistant, graphic designer, pastry chef, and cartographer. He divides his time between palliative care nursing and writing. His first book, Things We Didn’t See Coming, was The Age Book of the Year. What The Family Needed, will be published in November by Sleepers.

Esther Anatolitis

Esther Anatolitis is CEO of Melbourne Fringe and co-curator of Architecture+Philosophy. She has held CEO-level and governance positions with several key Victorian arts organisations. Esther’s past professional roles span craft and design, literary arts, multicultural arts, publishing and broadcasting, and she has consulted with numerous small-to-medium organisations on their programming and strategic development. Her academic background is in European philosophy, and she also holds the postgraduate Zertifikat BauhausDessau for her work on the architectural “Serve City” project, for which she was awarded a DAAD Künstlerprogramm residency. Constantly writing, Esther’s work advocates, critiques, champions and creates art, and she has been published widely in Australia and overseas, most recently in the Age, Arts Hub, Artichoke and RealTime Arts. Across all such work is an abiding interest in those special spatial and cultural configurations that are responsible for the emergence of the new. Esther is a founder of the Emerging Writers’ Festival.

James Andre

Melbourne based writer, James Andre, is the creator of Milk Shadow Books. Works written and published by James include XXX Neon Sign, The Garbage Truck Failures, Monster Addict and more. Milk Shadow Books is currently the home of the underground comics anthology, Yuck! James has also published work through Paroxysm Press, Murky Depths, Blackglass Press and others.

Karen Andrews

Karen Andrews is an author, publisher at Miscellaneous Press, award-winning short story writer and poet. She was one of the co-organisers of the inaugural Aussie Bloggers Conference in 2011. She runs the successful personal blog Miscellaneous Mum – Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday (www.miscmum.com) and has spoken and taught the subject at festivals and workshops.

Jessica Au

Jessica Au lives and writes in Melbourne. Her short stories have appeared in Overland, Wet Ink and the Sleepers Almanac, as well as Meanjin Quarterly, where she worked as Deputy Editor and blogged regularly for two years at Spike. Her first novel, Cargo, will be published in 2011 by Picador.

Emilie Zoey Baker

Poet and spoken word performer Emilie Zoey Baker is the winner of the 2010 International Slam Review as part of the Berlin International Literature Festival, she also toured and performed in Paris, London and Singapore ending at the 2010 Ubud Writers festival in Bali. She toured North America in 2009 following an invitation to perform at Montréal’s Festival Voix d’Amériques. The tour included New York, Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.
The winner of the Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup and multi-Slam champion, Emilie has featured at many writers’ festivals and events. Including the Sydney and Melbourne Writers Festivals, Woodford Folk Fest, The Big Day Out and Night Words at the Sydney Opera House.
She is co-coordinator of Liner Notes, a legendary Melbourne spoken word night dedicated to interpreting a classic album now in it’s 5th year.
Along with her fellow collaborators, Emilie was part of the world premiere sell out season of Elemental, poetry at the planetarium as part of the 2009 International Arts Festival. She was a guest speaker at TEDx Melbourne , Deakin University and RMIT. She is the Victorian Corrdinater for The National Australian Poetry Slam, the National Education Officer at Australian Poetry and coordinator of Out Loud, Victoria’s first ever teen team slam. She is the current spoken word editor for the online literary journal Cordite.

Anna Barnes

Anna is a writer and playwright originating from Melbourne, Australia. She has had her plays and monologues performed around Australia and Europe. In 2007, she received the British Council’s Realise Your Dream Award for playwrighting. She went on to study writing at Royal Court Theatre in London in 2008. She is the 2011 playwright in residence for Red Stitch Actors Theatre company. Her first book, a YA nonfiction guide book for girls, will be published by Penguin Australia in February 2012.

Max Barry

Max Barry pretended to sell high-end computer systems for Hewlett-Packard while secretly writing his first novel, Syrup (1999). In fact, he still has the laptop he wrote it on because HP forgot to ask for it back, but keep that to yourself. He put an extra X in his name for Syrup because he thought it was a funny joke about marketing and failed to realize everyone would assume he was a pretentious asshole. Jennifer Government, his second novel, was published in 2003 without any superfluous Xs and sold much better.
Max’s third novel, Company, was published in 2006, and his fourth, Machine Man, is due later in 2011.
Max is also the author of the online political game NationStates, for which he is far more famous amongst high school students and political science students than his novels.
He was born March 18, 1973, and lives in Melbourne with his wife and two daughters.

Myke Bartlett

Myke Bartlett was born in Perth, Western Australia and spent his first twenty years trying to escape. Like every other young Australian, he eventually fled to London and, like most of them, didn’t stay.
In 2006, he released the podcasted novel HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY. People seemed to like it, so he released another, ELECTRICITY. Some people liked that one too. His podcasts have since notched up more than half a million downloads and sometimes break into the Top 10 US iTunes Podcast Charts. Which impresses him, if nobody else.
A trained journalist, Myke has written on politics, movies, pop culture and rock music. His work has been published in THE AGE, OVERLAND, METRO and DUMBO FEATHER. He is currently the Music, Film and TV reviewer for Melbourne’s THE WEEKLY REVIEW.

Clem Bastow

Clem Bastow is a Melbourne-based critic and cultural commentator. She is the Music Editor at The Big Issue, and writes for The Vine, Sunday Age and Inpress.

Alan Baxter

Alan Baxter is a British-Australian author living on the south coast of NSW, Australia. He writes dark fantasy, sci fi and horror, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. His contemporary dark fantasy 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 and the UK, including the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror. Alan is also a freelance writer, penning reviews, feature articles and opinion. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories at his website – www.alanbaxteronline.com – and feel free to tell him what you think. About anything.

Sophie Benjamin

Sophie Benjamin is a writer and multimedia reporter.
She’s worked for APN Digital’s Finda site in Toowoomba, covering the January floods and has also done stints as a reporter, producer and cross-media journalist for ABC Local Radio.
She’s also worked at the State Library of Queensland’s digital culture centre The Edge and interviewed dozens of musicians during stints at community radio station 4ZzZfm – all while completing a Bachelor of Journalism at the Queensland University of Technology.
Sophie is also responsible for the zine I Am Very Busy and Important and her writing on music and pop culture has appeared in Rave Magazine and Triple J Magazine.

Ben Birchall

Ben Birchall is a radio broadcaster, musician and writer. He can heard 6-9am weekdays as one of the co-hosts of the Breakfasters on 3RRR FM in Melbourne and read at a variety of outlets including thevine.com.au and on a weekly football blog –’Tangled Up In Blues’ at carltonfc.com.au.

Carmel Bird

Carmel Bird has written nearly thirty books, the latest novel being Child of the Twilight, the latest collection being Home Truth, and the latest book on how to write, Writing the Story of Your Life.

Alan Bissett

Alan Bissett is a novelist, playwright and performer who lives in Glasgow. His novels include Boyracers (2001), The Incredible Adam Spark (2005), and Death of a Ladies’ Man (2009), which was shortlisted for a Scottish Arts Council Fiction of the Year prize. His fourth novel, Pack Men, will be released in August 2011. His play Turbo Folk was shortlisted for Best New Play at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland 2010. He wrote and performed his own ‘one-woman show’, The Moira Monologues, which toured throughout 2010 to great acclaim, is now in development with the BBC, and is available as a download from Cargo Crate. The short film which he wrote and narrated, ‘The Shutdown’, has won awards at major international film festivals. In 2008, Scotland’s biggest-selling newspaper, The Daily Record, voted him the 48th Hottest Man in the country!

Sophie Black

Sophie Black is the editor of Crikey.com.au.

Matt Blackwood

Matt Blackwood is a writer whose short fiction and screenplays have won awards and been published. His locative storytelling project; MyStory, gained a 2010 City of Melbourne Laneway Commission, and he has several other digital storytelling projects in the transmedia pipeline, should the grant Gods look favourably upon him.

Bethanie Blanchard

Bethanie Blanchard is a Melbourne writer and literature PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. Her work has appeared in Kill Your Darlings and Farrago. She is currently an Associate Producer of the Emerging Writers’ Festival and Editor of antiTHESIS Journal.

David Blumenstein

David Blumenstein has been self-publishing Nakedfella Comics since 2000 and is a reluctant organiser of comics-related events around Australia. He works as an animator and storyboard artist in Melbourne. His best known film is Herman, The Legal Labrador. He’s working on getting his own animated cop show up: The Precinct.

Phoebe Bond

Phoebe Bond is an ex-journalist, part-time Aussie and writer of short fiction. Originally from New Zealand, she moved to Melbourne to become part of the writing community. She loves erotic fiction, erotic non-fiction, erotic poetry, erotic blogging, and erotic short, hard tweets – which is lucky … because she is currently organising the Emerging Writers Festival’s inaugural sex writing and erotica revue, Dirty Words.

Linda Bosnic

Linda Bosnic is a 40-something mother of two young boys. She has always been a passionate cook and advocate for organic, fresh and artificial additive-free food. She has been the director of a computer software business and is currently completing a comprehensive writing course. Her articles have been published in several magazines. These days Linda finds great joy in spending time in the garden with her children, baking and visiting local Farmers’ Markets to stock up on produce. She lives in Melbourne.

Neil Boyack

Neil was born and adopted 1967. He was married in Las Vegas in 1997 and has kids. He lives with his family on solar power in the Victorian bush and gets money from social work. His stories have been translated into French and Chinese. Previous short story collections are Black, Snakeskin-Vanilla, See through and the acclaimed collection from 2003 Transactions. Neil is the director and creator of the Newstead Short Story Tattoo.

David Brewster

David Brewster is a freelance copywriter and ghostwriter. Melbourne-based, he’s been self-employed for 10 years after 15 years working in business and management. David is the author of two books. David loves technology and enjoys nothing more than spending his procrastination time discovering new tools that will increase his productivity. He recently launched ‘The Electric Pencil’ (www.theelectricpencil.com), a blog about technology for writers. www.davidbrewster.com

Joanne Brookfield

Joanne Brookfield has combined a career as freelance journalist with stand up comedy, appearing at many festivals here and in New Zealand, and touring her last show nationally. Currently on hiatus from performing, she’s writing a romantic comedy screenplay when not filing stories for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

Allison Browning

Allison Browning is a writer living in Melbourne. Her work has been published in an assortment of journals and magazines including Best Australian Poems 2010 and Page Seventeen. Photography triggers much of her writing and she is currently working on a book project, combining stories and images, with American Photographer Tema Stauffer.

Paul Callaghan

Paul Callaghan is a freelance writer and independent game developer who has worked in the games industry since 1998 as a programmer, designer, writer, and teacher for companies as diverse as Atari, Infinite Interactive, AIE, 2K Marin, Chocolate Liberation front, the ABC, and The Project Factory.
An active member of the development and education community, Paul has presented on topics including writing for games, play, what education can learn from game development, and the fundamentals of game design at the National Screenwriters’ Conference, GCAP, VITTA, the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the State Library of Victoria, Screen Australia, ACMI, CAE, and RMIT.
Paul is also the co-director of the Freeplay Independent Games Festival, an annual event that focuses on the creative side of games and the intersection between art, games, education, and the broader digital culture. He currently sits on the board of the Game Developers Association of Australia, the advisory committee for the Australian Teachers of Media 2011 Conference Screen Futures, and the advisory panel for if:Book Australia.
Away from games, Paul has written award-winning short-stories, short films, comics, too many articles to count, and is currently working on a novel.

Marta Callizo

Marta Callizo is a story teller born on the coast of the Mediterranean. After finishing her architectural degree in Barcelona she moved to Melbourne in her search for new adventures that would broaden her horizons and spice up her imagination. Marta’s passion for travel and discovery are constantly revealing new opportunities for learning and creativity.

Mel Campbell

Mel Campbell is a freelance journalist, blogger and cultural critic. She is the founding editor of online pop-culture magazine The Enthusiast (www.theenthusiast.com.au), and the national film editor of the Thousands network of city guides (www.thethousands.com.au). She lectures in online journalism at Monash University and contributes essays, features, reviews and opinion to a variety of online and offline publications.

Dale Campisi

Dale Campisi has been a writer and editor for 10 years. He is a publisher at Arcade Publications and is published by Hardie Grant. www.arcadepublications.com

Jo Case

Jo Case is books editor of The Big Issue, associate editor of Kill Your Darlings and editor of Readings Monthly. Her reviews and opinion pieces have appeared in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and other outlets. Her first book (a memoir) will be published by Hardie Grant in 2012.

Kristin Cashore

Kristin Cashore is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Graceling and Fire. Graceling is the winner of the 2009 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature and Fire is the winner of the 2010 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. The books are world travelers, currently scheduled to be published in thirty languages. Kristin grew up in the countryside of Pennsylvania and spent her days reading and daydreaming.  At 18 she went off to college at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts — and spent a phenomenal year studying literature at Sydney University. After college, she lived in New York City, Boston, Cambridge, Austin, and even spent a short stint in London. During her stint in Boston, Kristin studied at the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College, which got her thinking and breathing YA books, and got her writing. She has now been writing full-time for 8 years, first doing educational writing for the K-6 market and now working on her novels. Kristin recently moved from Jacksonville, Florida, to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Karl Chandler

Comedian/dickhead. I also have a sweet podcast called The Little Dum Dum Club. www.karlchandler.com

Kathy Charles

Kathy Charles is the author of ‘Hollywood Ending’ from Text Publishing. She is the recipient of the FAW Di Cranston Award, Varuna Award for Manuscript Development, and was shortlisted for two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. ‘Hollywood Ending’ is currently in development as a feature film.

Eileen Chong

Eileen Chong is a Sydney poet. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Meanjin, Overland, HEAT, Island and the Australian Book Review, as well as in The Best Australian Poems 2010. Eileen won the Poets Union Youth Fellowship for 2010-2011. Her chapbook will be published by Australian Poetry at the end of 2011. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Creative Arts at the University of Western Sydney.

Shane Jesse Christmass

Shane Jesse Christmass is a Perth-born, Melbourne-based writer. In 2006 he was runner-up in The Age Short Story Competition with his entry Remaking the Image of the World which the newspaper’s literary editor, Jason Steger, called a “highly inventive story, chocked with surrealistic allusion, nightmare imagery and psychological menace” … In 2008 Paroxysm Press published an anthology of his short stories called Croak & Grist … He’s also published a number of stories including “Shut Down the Pick Up” (Waste, 2004, Paroxysm Press), “5”, (Shotgun, 2006, Paroxysm Press), “The Arvo & Early Evening of the Axe”, (10 Years that Didn’t Kill Us, 2008, Paroxysm Press), “The Charnel Stink Within”, (Mini Shots, 2008, Vignette Press) and “Cold to the Point Past Death”, (Red Cent Publishing, 2010) … Other fiction work has featured in the journals New Wave Vomit, LIES/ISLE, amphibi.us, Cordite, one-eight vulture, dotdotdash and The Diamond & the Thief, kipple, Haggard & Halloo, as well as sound poetry in the Atlanta journal, As Long As It Takes. He’s just completed his first public reading of his screenplay, Orderly, at the inaugural Lion Pie Laboratory in Sydney. He edits the journal Queen Vic Knives. He’s also a member of the band Mattress Grave. He also firmly belives that the future of the word, the novel, will be in synthetic telepathy.

Slow Clap

Slow Clap is an artistic collaboration between writer/performer Vachel Spirason and writer/producer Stephanie Brotchie. Their first show, The Hermitude of Angus, Ecstatic won Best Comedy and the Brisbane Powerhouse Award at the 2010 Melbourne Fringe, Best Comedy Performance at the 2011 Auckland Fringe and was nominated for Best Emerging Comedy and the Edinburgh Underbelly Award at Adelaide Fringe.

Maxine Clarke

Maxine Clarke is a West Indian-Australian writer and slam poetry champion. Her poetry, short stories and non fiction have been widely published including in the Age, the Big Issue, and Going Down Swinging. Her second poetry collection Gil Scott Heron is on Parole (Picaro Press) was published in 2010. Overland magazine has called her one of the most compelling voices in Australian poetry this decade. She blogs at slamup.blogspot.com.

Caroline Clements

Caroline Clements is a writer and the editor of Broadsheet Melbourne.

Stephanie Convery

Stephanie Honor Convery has worked for print and electronic media in various capacities for the past eight years. She has written for harvest, Overland, Voiceworks, and various Monash University-based literary romps. She is currently completing her first novel.

Sam Cooney

Sam is a writer and editor. Born in Melbourne and currently living in Berlin, he is as predictable as a cucumber.

Caro Cooper

Caro Cooper is an editor at Text Publishing in Melbourne. She is also a freelance writer.

Alan Cornell

Alan Cornell is a Melbourne-based writer who writes advertising copy for a living and other stuff for pleasure. Fiction. Children’s stories. Songs. Sketches. His published works include short stories for various literary journals, a musical titled Open Season and a monthly column cum sitcom called Living with the Trotts in the Warrandyte Diary.

Bryony Cosgrove

Bryony Cosgrove is director of the postgraduate Publishing and Communications Program at the University of Melbourne. She has worked in trade book publishing for over 30 years as both a publisher and an editor of fiction and non-fiction. She is the editor of Portrait of a Friendship: the Letters of Barbara Blackman and Judith Wright 1950-2000 (Miegunyah Press, 2007).

Mara Coson

Mara Coson is a young writer from the Philippines. She has just completed her Masters in Creative Media (Creative Writing) at RMIT and is currently writing her first novella. She has been published in Voiceworks twice and is a contributor to Broadsheet Melbourne and the Philippine Daily Inquirer. She also writes short fiction and makes zines where she puts her best foot for word and then puts a sock in it.

Melissa Cranenburgh

Melissa Cranenburgh is associate editor of The Big Issue and co-editor of The Big Issue’s annual fiction edition. You can hear her talk about the Australia’s favourite street magazine on Triple R’s Spoke on Tuesday mornings and follow her @thetwits2.

Alison Croggon

Alison Croggon is described by the Australian Book Review as “one of the most powerful lyric poets writing today”. She has published several collections of poetry, which have won the Anne Elder and Dame Mary Gilmore Prizes and were shortlisted for the Victorian (twice) and NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Her most recent poetry collection is THEATRE (Salt Publishing 2008). She writes in many genres: she is the author of the critically acclaimed and popular epic fantasy series THE BOOKS OF PELLINOR, the first book of which, THE GIFT, was shortlisted in two categories in the Aurealis Awards and was named a 2005 Top Ten Teen Read by amazon.com. The series has to date sold more than half a million copies worldwide. She recently completed a stand-alone speculative novel, BLACK SPRING. She writes the influential review blog THEATRE NOTES (theatrenotes.blogspot.com), for which she won the 2009 Geraldine Pascall Prize for Critic of the Year. She has written several works for theatre, including the operas THE BURROW and GAUGUIN with the composer Michael Smetanin. They are now working on a new opera, MAYAKOVSKY, which is scheduled for production in 2013.

Nathan Curnow

Nathan Curnow is a poet, playwright and recent editor of Going Down Swinging. His poetry features in Best Australian Poems 2008 and 2010 (Black Inc) and won the 2010 Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize. A recipient of two Australia Council grants his latest book The Ghost Poetry Project (Puncher and Wattmann) is based upon his stays at ten haunted sites around the country.

Chris Currie

Chris Currie ‘s fiction has appeared in anthologies and journals internationally. In 2007, his novella Dearly Departed appeared in Five Mile Press’ Love and Desire: Four Modern Australian Novellas. His first novel The Ottoman Motel was released earlier this year through Text Publishing.

Rjurik Davidson

Rjurik Davidson is an Associate Editor of Overland magazine. He is the author of the collection, The Library of Forgotten Books. His novel Unwrapped Sky will be released in 2012. The Uncertainty Principle, co-written with Ben Chessell, is currently under development by Lailaps Pictures. Sometimes he teaches writing and literature.

Matt Davies

Matt Davies is a freelance writer and editor from Melbourne. He has authored five books in the past three years, most of which were ghostwritten.
Matt also works as a marketing copywriter, edits non-fiction books and writes scripts for TV ads and corporate training films.
Matt is the Deputy Chair of the Emerging Writers’ Festival board.

Oslo Davis

Oslo Davis is an illustrator and cartoonist who draws for various newspapers, magazines and websites worldwide. Most notably, Oslo’s work has appeared in the Age, the New York Times and Meanjin. Oslo is currently editing a newspaper of cartoons for the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Lisa Dempster

Lisa Dempster is the author of Neon Pilgrim and editor of the Australian Veg Food Guide. She is also the Director of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. www.lisadempster.com.au

Christy Dena

Christy Dena is the Director of Universe Creation 101. She is a transmedia writer, experience designer, and director who has worked with film, TV, digital, gaming and brand clients around the globe. Recent projects she has worked on include the 2011 Digital Emmy-nominated alternate reality experience Conspiracy for Good with Tim Kring, Nokia and The company P; 2011 One Show Branded Entertainment award winner Cisco’s The Hunt with No Mimes Media; and ABC’s Bluebird Project. She has presented and mentored on transmedia at film, TV, digital and gaming events around the world. Previously Christy worked as a producer of digital effects for TVCs, CD-Roms and websites, as a writer, performer and director in theatre, and as an actor on TV. Christy is curator and co-organiser of Transmedia Victoria, and is currently developing an online comedy drama and entertainment technology start-up.

Jacqui Dent

Jacqui Dent has had short fiction published in a variety of anthologies and journals including Voiceworks. She has also had short fiction broadcast on ABC Radio National. Jacqui is the Program Officer at the NSW Writers’ Centre and is currently working on her first novel, which is an urban fantasy.

Luke Devenish

Luke Devenish is author of the Empress of Rome series of ‘swords, sandals, sex and sin’ novels. The first two books, Den of Wolves and Nest of Vipers, have been released in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Spain, Russia, Turkey and Serbia. Luke additionally writes for television. He was Script Producer with Neighbours from 2001 to 2007, where he oversaw 1,500 episode scripts for the soap. Previously, Luke was Script Executive on Something in the Air and, with ABC TV Drama, worked in the writing and development of SeaChange, RAW FM and others. He has also written for Home & Away. Luke started his career writing for theatre, having productions of his work staged by Playbox, the Adelaide Festival, the Sydney Festival and NIDA, among others. His most recent play was an adaptation of Dario Fo’s Elizabeth: Almost By Chance a Woman for the Malthouse Theatre in 2010. Luke teaches screenwriting for the Australian Film Television and Radio School.

Koraly Dimitriadis

Koraly Dimitriadis is a Cypriot-Australian writer of poetry, prose and non-fiction. In mid 2009 she was selected to participate in the Overland masterclass for her short story ‘The recipe’ and since then has been a regular blogger for Overland. ‘The recipe’ was longlisted for the FISH short story competition in Ireland in 2011. Koraly’s writing has been published online and in print, has also been broadcast on the radio, and was displayed on Federation square wall for the Overload poetry festival. She has performed at poetry gigs interstate and in Melbourne and has collaborated with prominent contrabassist Nick Tsiavos at La Mama Court House. Koraly presents monthly on 3CR’s Spoken Word program where she selects a poet to interview and matches them up to one piece of music by an undiscovered local band. Koraly’s first unpublished novel, Misplaced, was longlisted for the 2010 Hachette manuscript program. Koraly studied the local Melbourne rock band Trial Kennedy, incorporating their music and band dynamics into Misplaced. Her first chap book, A poet is born, was published in January 2011 and Koraly is about to launch her next chap book, Love and Fuck poems. Koraly has also been working on her first poetry collection, Love according to wogs.

Trocchio Paola Di

Paola Di Trocchio is a curator, writer and reviewer. She has curated and co-curated fashion exhibitions at the NGV including Remaking Fashion, Drape and ManStyle, contributed entries to art catalogues for major exhibitions Art Deco 1910-1939, The Naked Face and Vienna: Art & Design and frequently reviews exhibitions for publication.

Barry Divola

Barry Divola is a journalist and author from Sydney. He mainly writes for Rolling Stone, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sydney Magazine and Who. His books include Fanclub, Searching For Kingly Critter, The Secret Life Of Backpackers, M Is For Metal, Never Mind Your P’s And Q’s – Here’s The Punk Alphabet, The Country And Western Alphabet, and his latest book, Nineteen Seventysomething, a coming-of-age collection of short fiction set in the decade that style forgot. He has won the Banjo Paterson Award for fiction three times and is this year’s winner of the FAW Jennifer Burbidge Short Story Award. He leads a writing course in New York in September/October 2011 with Art Retreats International.

Tom Doig

Tom Doig is an independent writer, artist and producer.
Tom’s theatre works include: The Badness Hour (2006: Overload Poetry Festival, This is Not Art), Hitlerhoff (2008: Melbourne Fringe, Adelaide Fringe), One-Arm and Three-Arms in the Swamp (2009: Melbourne Fringe, Falls Festival, Format Festival), Selling Ice to the Remains of the Eskimos (2010: La Mama, You Are Here Festival Canberra) and numerous short works. Tom edited Voiceworks magazine from 2004 to 2006, and co-edited the Incommunicado book-map for the 2006 Next Wave Festival. He was associate director of the National Young Writers’ Festival (NYWF) in 2006 and 2007, and a Next Wave Associate Producer in 2009/10. Tom has an MA in Creative Writing and Comedy Theory at the University of Melbourne. In 2011 Tom is editing Moron2Moron – a shonky travel documentary about his 1,400km cycle from a small Mongolian town called Mörön to a smaller Mongolian town, also called Mörön. www.moron2moron.com

Daniel Donahoo

Daniel works with words. Molding, shaping and pounding away at them is his trade. He has been known to wield them in anger, in romance, in hope and in vain.
Written. Spoken. Recorded. Edited. Published. Short and long.
In stories. In books. In proposals. In policies. In poetry. With Lego.

Daniel Donahoo is a writer and digital collaborator whose work includes the successful In B Flat 2.0 YouTube collaboration. He is the author of two books of non-fiction about children and young people. He blogs for Huffington Post and Wired.com as a resident GeekDad.

Marcel Dorney

Marcel Dorney is a writer, director and performer. His work has been commissioned by Queensland Theatre Company, Merrigong Theatre Company, Griffin Theatre, Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre, Four Larks, La Boite, Brisbane Powerhouse, and the Next Wave Festival, and has been published by Playlab Press. His play Fractions won the 2010 QPD Award, and will be produced by QTC in November 2011. Marcel co-founded performance company Elbow Room, for whom he has directed There (AFT Award for Best Performance, 2008 Melbourne Fringe), and a tiny chorus (People’s Choice Award, Melbourne Fringe, 2009). Marcel has been as associate writer of Griffin Theatre and the Restaged Histories Project, as well as Melbourne’s Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre. He is currently undertaking a Masters by Research in Directing at the VCA, through which his latest work, Kassandra, was produced in May. From June this year, Elbow Room will be resident artists at Carriageworks, Sydney.

Willo Drummond

Willo Drummond manages writers’ grants for the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Over the years she has worked as an actor, photographer, singer-songwriter and arts administrator in various guises. She currently lives in a cottage in the NSW Blue Mountains and is working toward a Masters in Creative Writing.

Daniel Ducrou

Daniel Ducrou’s first novel, The Byron Journals, was shortlisted for the Australian Vogel Literary Award and The Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. He has been a guest author at the Melbourne Writers Festival, The Byron Bay Writers Festival and the Ubud Writers Festival. He works for City of Yarra in Aboriginal Partnerships.

George Dunford

George Dunford is the author of The Big Trip: Your Ultimate Guide to Gap Years and Overseas Adventures and has created content for apps including Cheap eats and The Age Good Food Guide, plus created his own apps – Essential Melbourne and Sydney Harbourside Walks. He’s currently Senior Manager – Content at RMIT.

Josh Earl

Josh Earl is a hip, sharp, loveable musical comedy star in the making. He has consistently moved through the ranks, supporting Rod Quantock and Arj Barker in his early years on stage. As a solo artist he now sports six sold out Festival shows under the belt he wears on his skinny girls jeans.
His most popular offerings have been Josh Earl is a Librarian, which toured through Adelaide and Melbourne, and Josh Earl vs. The Australian Women’s Weekly Cake Book, which toured through Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne.
Josh also writes and performs the Lime Champions sketch show on Melbourne radio Triple R and has appeared on Triple J, ABC Local Radio 774, The Melbourne Comedy Festival Allstars Gala, Stand Up Australia (comedychannel) and the Laughapalooza DVD.

Angelica East

Angelica East is best known as the soft toy artist, designer and photographer, Jellibat. She majored in Photography and minored Textiles at UTAS. Her plush art has been displayed at various galleries around Melbourne and overseas.

Amy Espeseth

Amy Espeseth was born in rural Wisconsin in 1974 and immigrated to Australia in 1998. She holds a MA in creative writing from the University of Melbourne where she is a sessional tutor and PhD student. Her fiction has appeared in various journals, and she received the Felix Meyer Award for Literature in 2007. Amy’s first novel, Sufficient Grace, was awarded the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript in 2009 and will be published by Scribe in 2012. An extract from her second novel, Trouble Telling the Weather, won the QUT Postgraduate Creative Writing Prize in 2010. Amy is the new publisher at Vignette Press. Continuing Vignette’s sub-cultural journal series including Sex Mook and Death Mook, Geek Mook is scheduled for launch in late 2011. She lives in Footscray.

Pieta Farrell

Pieta or Madam P is a solo burlesque dancer, go go dancer and cabaret singer/dancer. Recently performing with Amanda Palmer on her Down Under tour at the Sydney Opera House and Forum Theatre Melbourne, Pieta has a background in dance, musical theatre and physical theatre. Recent appearances include dancing as part of Go Girl Gadget Go Go with Mikelangelo and the Tin Star, The Toot Toot Toots, and Amanda Palmer at various venues around Melbourne including Red Bennies, East Brunswick Club, Northcote Social Club, The Tote, and the Toff in Town. As a Burlesque performer Madam P has performed at Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, Red Door Burlesque, Burlesque Bar, and Cristal Burlesque. Pieta debuted her first one woman show at Adeladie Fringe 2010 to rave reviews and continues to create and perform around Melbourne at a variety of esteemed events and venues.

Andrew Finegan

Andrew Finegan is a librarian, musician and sometimes-poet. After moving from Melbourne to Darwin for a number of years, he has returned, where he is working on a number of ongoing projects, and attempting to avoid being dragged back into the rat-race.

SJ Finn

SJ Finn’s novel ‘This Too Shall Pass’ was published in March 2011 by Sleepers Publishing. Her short fiction appears in Going Down Swinging, Sleepers Almanac and as a mini shot for Vignette Press. Her poem ‘War Through The TV’ was in The Best Australian Poems 2010.

Rebecca Fitzgibbon

Rebecca Fitzgibbon is a Hobart-based journalist, photographer and section editor for Attitude, the Mercury newspaper’s youth and pop culture section, a fashion and web culture columnist, online content creator, social media administrator, freelancer for print and online magazines in three continents, and urban culture fanatic obsessed with nail polish.

Ash Flanders

Ash Flanders is co-director of Sisters Grimm, a theatre company in Melbourne that specialises in high-camp and trashy comedies. He has co-written and starred in five shows now, most recently the critical success Little Mercy. He began writing plays in high school, where he fixed the ending to the school’s production of The Wizard of Oz. He also writes silly anecdotes for various blogs in an attempt to be as funny as his hero, David Sedaris. So far he has failed at reaching his goal.

Julian Fleetwood

Julian Fleetwood is a Canberra writer who currently runs Traverse Poetry (traversepoetry.org), an arts project responsible for The Front Gallery and Cafe’s monthly poetry slams, local zine fairs and a bunch of other interesting things. In 2006 he edited Vignette Press’s anthology of young people’s writing on sex and sexuality: The Sex Mook.

Clementine Ford

Clementine Ford is a writer, performer and feminist troublemaker. Her work has been published in newspapers, magazines and literary journals. Football ‘legend’ Graham Cornes once told her that her disapproval of his wife’s ALP candidacy was due to jealousy.

Greg Foyster

Greg Foyster is a freelance writer specialising in the environment and refugee issues. His feature articles have appeared in The Age, The Big Issue and Crikey, and he is a regular contributor to G Magazine, Australia’s largest sustainability publication.

Bart Freebairn

Bart Freebairn has been a nationally touring comedian for the last 4 years. His comedy festival shows have sold out and received critical acclaim. He regularly appears on tripleJ and the internet.

Peggy Frew

Peggy Frew is a musician and writer. Her story ‘Home Visit’ won The Age Short Story Competition in 2009, and her writing has been published in New Australian Stories 2, Kill Your Darlings and Meanjin.
House of Sticks was awarded the 2010 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer. Through the Readings Foundation Peggy was awarded a three-month fellowship at the Wheeler Centre, which she used to develop the novel.
Since she was nineteen Peggy has played in and written for award-winning Melbourne band Art of Fighting, touring Australia regularly as well as Europe and Asia. The band have been taking a break for years now, but manage to get together for drinks every now and then, and talk about getting together to play music.
Peggy has been a panelist for the popular Melbourne literary institution Women of Letters. Other than that, Peggy is a mother to three young children, partner to artist, musician, and excellent burrito-maker Mick Turner, a well-intentioned but forgetful gardener, a terrible housekeeper and a lapsed swimmer. She likes reading in the bath, reading in bed, reading while eating, and has tried reading while cooking but doesn’t recommend it.

Alice Gage

Alice Gage is the founding editor of Ampersand Magazine, a quarterly art and culture journal. She graduated with a Masters in Editing and Publishing from Melbourne University in 2008, and released the first issue of Ampersand later that year. In 2010, Alice was a recipient of the British Council’s Realise Your Dream award. In early 2011, Ampersand was signed to a publishing agreement with Art & Australia. She lives in Redfern, Sydney.

Kelly Gardiner

Kelly Gardiner is the author of the Swashbuckler pirate trilogy for children, a picture book (Billabong Bill’s Bushfire Christmas) and a new young adult novel, Act of Faith (HarperCollins, July 2011). She is a web journalist and editor whose work has appeared online, and in a wide range of publications such as Marie Claire, Next (NZ), OutRage, Southerly and Going Down Swinging. She works at the State Library of Victoria, and is undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing at La Trobe University.

Leah Gerber

Leah Gerber is a Lecturer in Translation & Interpreting Studies at Monash University. She completed her PhD at Monash University in 2008, on the topic of Australian children’s literature translated into German. Leah also directs Translated! An Interactive Festival of Literary Translation, a week-long translation summer school with internationally renowned authors and translators.

Keri Glastonbury

Keri Glastonbury is a poet and lecturer in Creative Writing at The University of Newcastle. She researches contemporary and DIY literary practices in the Emerging Writers’ community.

Pat Grant

Pat Grant is a cartoonist writer and zine maker. He’s almost finished his first graphic novel. It’s about adolescent kids growing up in a coastal town that is being inundated by strange blue skinned foreigners.

Michael Green

Michael Green is a freelance journalist who writes about environmental and community issues. He has written a weekly column about sustainable living, called Greener Homes, in the Sunday Age since early 2009. He tells the stories of people making and facing change, from climate protestors and coal workers in Meanjin, to commune-dwellers and farmers in The Big Issue.

Kerry Greenwood

Kerry Greenwood has written more than fifty novels, concentrating on the detective genre. Her first Phryne Fisher novel was published in 1989. She is also a legal aid lawyer and is unmarried and childless, but has three cats and a resident wizard, plus more than five thousand books.

Jonathan Griffiths

Jonathan Griffiths was born in New Zealand, in the shadow of Huntly’s coal-fired power station. He first came to fame as the singer of the infamous punk band Proud Scum in 1979.
He spent the ’80s and ’90s in Sydney as a playwright and taxi driver. And he’s been hiding in Melbourne since, churning out a number of short stories, and his first novel, The Road Behind.

Sisters Grimm

Simon Groth

Simon Groth is a writer and editor and the manager of if:book Australia. In the last ten years he has published in both long and short fiction and non-fiction for print and screen. He can be found at futureofthebook.org.au and simongroth.com.

Paul Haines

Paul Haines is the author of the award-winning collections Slice of Life (The Mayne Press, 2009), Doorways For The Dispossessed (Prime Books, 2006) and the recently released The Last Days of Kali Yuga (Brimstone Press, 2011). He has won the Aurealis, Ditmar, Chronos and Sir Julius Vogel Awards and made the James Tiptree Jr Honours List and the Locus Recommended Reading List for his writing. Haines is considered one of the darkest and most disturbing horror writers working in Australia today.

Leanne Hall

Leanne Hall is the author of the young adult novel This Is Shyness, which won the Text Prize in 2009, and was published by Text Publishing in 2010. She works as a children’s specialist in an independent bookstore and is currently writing her second novel.

David Halliday

David Halliday is a Melbourne-based writer. He has worked with creative studios writing scripts and developing concepts for advertisements, documentaries, short films and music videos for Universal Music. Between writing projects, he has previously worked as a university lecturer, magazine editor, secondary school English and History teacher. And notably, as an actor and stunt man in a Hollywood action film.

Charlotte Harper

Charlotte Harper is resident blogger at ebook retailer Booku.com and publisher of Mt magazine. A journalist, editor and teacher, she has worked in newspapers, magazines, books and online in Australia and overseas. Charlotte has written on developments in digital publishing and social media at ebookish.com.au since early 2010, and teaches journalism and digital communications at the University of Canberra and Canberra Institute of Technology respectively. A former literary editor of The South China Morning Post, she has also reviewed books for and contributed author profiles to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times. Charlotte has written on technology on and off for 15 years, once edited a mobile phone and gadget magazine, and is a published author, of a book about digital publishing – Weird Wild Web (Penguin Australia 1999). She’s @ebookish on Twitter.

Fiona Harris

Fiona Harris is an actor, writer and director who has worked as a co-writer and core cast member on comedy television shows such as Skithouse, Flipside and Comedy Inc., and most recently co-starred in The Librarians and Tangle. Past comedy festival shows include Halo Dolly and the award winning, Footy Chicks.

Anita Heiss

Anita Heiss is an award winning, best-selling author who has published nonfiction, historical fiction, chick lit, poetry, social commentary and travel articles. She is a regular guest at writers’ festivals and travels internationally performing her work and lecturing on Indigenous Literature. Anita lives in Sydney.

Jarad Henry

Jarad Henry has worked in the criminal justice system for the past ten years and is a currently a strategic advisor for Victoria Police. He has a degree in Criminology, is a proficient public speaker and is a regular presenter at many conferences, forums and seminars on crime trends.
Head Shot, a murder mystery inspired by Melbourne’s gangland killings, was short listed in the 2006 Ned Kelly Awards for Best First Crime Novel.

Blood Sunset is his second book and focuses on the street sex trade in St Kilda. It was short listed in the 2006 Australian Vogel Awards and in the same year won the Fellowship of Australian Writers Jim Hamilton Award. More recently it was runner up in the 2008-09 Summer Read Program.
He lives in Melbourne and is currently working on his third novel, Pink Tide, due for release in August 2011.

Warwick Holt

As well as his day-job writing jokes for “Good News Week”, Warwick Holt is currently developing “Bruce”, a black convict-based sitcom for the ABC, and several feature screenplays including the Film Victoria-funded animated musical “The Butterfly Ball”. Other TV shows he’s written for include “The Glass House”, “The Great Comedy Debate”, “The Sideshow” and “The Ministry of Truth”. He’s written, produced and directed five self-funded documentaries, most notably “The PhanDom Menace” which gained global DVD distribution, and War-On-Terror-mashup musical “New Horizons In Violence”. His diverse background includes many years of radio comedy writing and performing, and he may be the only screenwriter with both a Masters degree in Mathematics and a gold record (for the CD-RHOMB from Frenzal Rhomb’s “A Man’s Not A Camel”).

Ella Hooper

When Ella Hooper was only 13 she, along with her brother Jesse entered Triple J’s Unearthed Competition. The song they entered with was titled “Kettle”. Little did Ella and Jesse know, this song was about to launch a successful music career for the two who had grown up in the small Melbourne town known as Violet Town. Ella and Jesse later met up with Adam Pedretti and Warren Jenkin and they formed, Killing Heidi. Ella left High School halfway through Year 11 to concentrate on Killing Heidi. She states that the first time she heard her voice on the radio was on the school bus. Ella and Jesse have taken a break from the multi-platinum award-winning Killing Heidi and are now concentrating on The Verses, an acoustic duo with a focus on lyrics.

Simmone Howell

Simmone Howell is the author of YA books Notes from the Teenage Underground and Everything Beautiful. She is also runs writing workshops. Simmone likes found art, roundhouses, beatniks and the sound of scratchy vinyl. She lives in Castlemaine.

Eliza Hull

A sublime partnership of depth and accessibility is handcrafted by Eliza Hull. Her lyrics are heartfelt- the tellings of her own personal experiences, each song is like a letter written to an old love. Through years of involvement in the Melbourne music and writing scene, national touring, Triple J support, and nation wide TV coverage, Eliza has become a valued and respected performer. Eliza has had her music added to film, TV commercials. Eliza has just been awarded an ARTSTART Literature grant for her writing and song writing. She is also the cafe poet coordinator at Australian Poetry and is avid blogger.

Kirstin Innes

Kirstin Innes is a writer and arts journalist from Glasgow, Scotland. She writes for The Scotsman, The Independent and The List, amongst others. Her short fiction has been widely published and she’s currently working on her first novel, Fishnet, which is about the sex industry. Kirstin also runs Words Per Minute, a monthly spoken word/live music and film night which programmes established names alongside emergent talent and was recently mentioned in GQ magazine’s Top 100 Creative British Hotspots. Kirstin won the Allan Wright Award for Excellence in Arts Journalism in 2007 and the Scottish Book Trust’s New Writer Award in 2008.

George Ivanoff

George Ivanoff is a Melbourne based author of books for kids and teens — over 50 so far and more on the way. His teen novel, Gamers’ Quest, won a 2010 Chronos Award for speculative fiction and is on the booklists for both the Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge and the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge. The sequel, Gamers’ Challenge, will be released in September this year. Check out the Gamers website and George’s website.

Sammy J

From Melbourne to Edinburgh, Sammy J has earned a reputation as one of the most exciting and inventive comedians on the international comedy scene. Born in 1983 without incident, Sammy spent his teenage years avoiding alcohol, watching Disney films, and writing songs about his teachers. At age 15 he appeared on Hey Hey it’s Saturday performing ‘The Nerd Song’, a heartbreaking ode to life in the schoolyard. He still has several copies available on audio cassette. In 2003 Sammy formally arrived on the stand-up circuit, and within a year was invited to appear in The Comedy Zone, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s showcase of new talent, alongside appearances on ABC TV’s Stand Up. Sammy then became the youngest performer on Channel Seven’s sketch comedy show Let Loose Live, denying all responsibility when the show was axed two weeks later. Having directed and appeared in the Melbourne University Law Revue, Sammy abandoned his law degree in 2006 to pursue a full-time career in comedy. That year he took out the Best Newcomer award in Melbourne for his debut solo show, Sammy J’s 55 Minute National Tour. His next show, Cyclone, was described as ‘uncomfortably brilliant’ (The Age). Edinburgh soon beckoned, and in 2007 Sammy made his UK debut in 58 Kilograms of Pure Entertainment. A collaboration with puppeteer Heath McIvor in 2008 led to Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams, an award-winning comedy musical praised as ‘filthy, frenetic and gloriously funny’ (Chortle). The show went on to earn five-star reviews in Edinburgh and sell out in London’s West End. At the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Sammy created the ridiculously ambitious 50 Year Show, a comedy spectacular that will continue until 2058, while his dark musical comedy 1999 was described as “brilliantly unpredictable and wonderfully nostalgic” (Three Weeks). Australian television appearances on Spicks and Specks, Good News Week and Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation have given Sammy a national profile, alongside a live album (Sticky Digits) and DVD release. In 2010, Sammy reunited with Heath McIvor (aka Randy the purple puppet) to create the live sitcom Ricketts Lane, which took out the Barry Award for Most Outstanding Show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It soon debuts at the Sydney Opera House, and the two are working on a sequel for 2011. Sammy J’s new solo show – Skinny Man, Modern World – premiered at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe to critical acclaim, cementing his standing as as “an endlessly creative talent” (Time Out, London).

Linda Jaivin

Linda Jaivin is the Sydney-based author of eight books including six novels. Her first novel, the comic-erotic Eat Me was an international best-seller. Her fifth novel, The Infernal Optimist, was short-listed for the ALS Gold Medal in 2007. Her most recent book, the novel A Most Immoral Woman is based on the true story from the life of the famous Victorian China Correspondent George Morrison. She is also an essayist, cultural commentator, playwright, translator (from Chinese), a specialist writer on Chinese culture, and a Visiting Fellow at the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University College of Asia & the Pacific.

Morgan Jaffit

One of Australia’s leading game developers, Morgan has developed a number of critically and comercially successful games over his decade in the industry. He has shipped millions of units across every major platform with games that run the gamut from the casual to hardcore markets.

Morgan began his career in Australia, working with Irrational Games (now 2K Marin) before moving to North America to work with major studios such as Relic and Ubisoft before returning to Australia to work with Pandemic/EA as the Lead Designer for their Brisbane Studio.

Since early 2009 Morgan has focused on assisting traditional media companies to make the transition to devleoping their IP for game platfroms, consulting on projects that advance the possibilities of games as a narrative and educational form. Most recently he has formed Defiant Development, a Brisbane based game development studio that focuses on building cutting edge games and transmedia IP for the modern, mature gaming market.

Morgan is a regular speaker on game development process and the new opportunities interactive entertainment offers. He is on the advisory boards for several of Australias most exciting new interactive projects which merge talent from the fields of traditional media with seasoned game development professionals. icbf.com.au/

Sarah Jansen

Sarah is a writer–short fiction, blogging, business writing, funding applications, marketing materials–and has a background in business. She works in corporate writing and editing, marketing and communications, and social media for businesses and arts projects. She blogs at sarahjansen.wordpress.com.

Johannes Jakob

Johannes is the editor of Voiceworks, a magazine of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by writers under 25. He also writes fiction, sometimes.

Dion Kagan

Dion Kagan is proud to have been the editor of the very first Emerging Writers’ Festival Reader. He is a champion of young and emerging writers everywhere, an occasional writer and editor himself, and a most-of-the-time academic. He’s currently lecturing in sexuality studies at Melbourne University.

Moya Kate

Moya Kate lives in Brisbane with her husband and four kids (all under five). She writes at night with toothpicks to keep her eyes open. She wrote the Mama Couture manuscript in three months while breastfeeding her second child in one arm and writing with the other. She now runs Stiletto Ink, a new independent publisher, and splits her writing time between Mama Couture 2, The World’s Best Raising Kids blog (by the world’s worst mum) and her character Til Fisher’s blog, which delivers more business development info to readers and encourages them to join her two campaigns: to raise funds for international maternal health programs and to encourage all ASX companies to appoint a mum to their boards. She is determined to help women drive the era of sustainability.

Elmo Keep

Elmo Keep is a Sydney-based writer who writes often about pop music and who other times works as a television reporter on ABC TV’s Hungry Beast. Her writing has appeared at the Rumpus, The Awl, Meanjin and in Rock’s Back Pages.

Teri Louise Kelly

She comes from someplace else. She was once a petulant little boy. She has been a dominatrix. She has pole danced in Soho, London. She is a five book (tree) author and a six book e author. She has been described variously as a storm trooper, a femme fatale and a gutter wrestler. Her work induces vibrating polarity and she is a gender and genre crosser. Her poetry and improvised spoken word has a caustic reality and a blatant sexual depravity. She blasphemes conventionality and bridges the gaping chasm in a flawed binary system. She is the bastard progeny of a demented she wolf. She is a chemical girl and she drinks butane for kicks.

Haylee Kerans

Haylee Kerans has been with Harlequin Enterprises Australia for three years and currently holds the position as Publishing Executive, working with authors and Harlequin’s acquisition offices to bring the best of women’s and young adult fiction, as well as Series romance, to readers in Australia and New Zealand.

Katie Keys

Katie Keys is a thirty-something non-Indigenous Aussie Brit who has recently returned to Australia after 5 years living in the UK.
A poet, writer, performer and arts manager, her creative and professional work has been published in anthologies, magazines and online in Australia, Singapore, Canada and the UK. Her first book of poetry, An Apology to the Librarian, was published by Camden Council in 2010.
Katie publishes one tiny little poem each day on Twitter (www.twitter.com/tinylittlepoems) to make sure she never goes a day without writing.

Anna Krien

Anna Krien is a writer of the usual suspects – journalism, essays, fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in The Big Issue, Frankie, The Monthly, The Age newspaper, Lifted Brow, COLORS, Griffith Review and has been selected for Best Australian Essays & Best Australian Stories. Her debut book, Into the Woods, was published by Black Inc in 2010.

Matthew Lang

Matthew Lang was born in Melbourne, Australia, although his formative years were spent in Hong Kong after his father moved the family to the then British colony in 1994. Attending a British high school he found a love of the English language and an inability to write summaries to the standard expected of the GCSE English course. He was also active in the performing arts–mostly in musical theatre–and debating, including regional Model United Nations (MUN) meetings, where he raised the ire of some organisers by penning satirical song parodies about international politics. It was during one such regional MUN gathering in Malaysia that he discovered his love for writing, his host introducing him to the now defunct play by email (PBEM) freeform storytelling group Imperial Secrets.
Returning to his native Melbourne for university, he studied at the University of Melbourne while he continued to write and act in student and amateur performances. However, it was only after going through a number of jobs in arts marketing and corporate business reporting that he completed and submitted his first novel, The Secret of Talmor Manor, to ManLoveRomance (MLR) Press in 2010. In the same year, his short story Mr. Perfect, placed equal second in the Midsumma Sex Off Write Off competition, and was offered a publication opportunity in banQuet Press’ banQuet 2011 anthology. Of writing m/m fiction Matthew has stated: “I started because I’m gay and after reading through a lot of hetero-normative prose I resolved I wanted to put some stories out there for people like me who wanted to see heroes and story arcs they could relate to on a more personal level.”

Stephanie Laurens

Stephanie Laurens is a best-selling author of romance novels. She has published more than 50 historical romance novels and is a New York Times best-seller.

Benjamin Law

Benjamin Law is a Brisbane-based freelance writer. He is a senior contributor to frankie magazine and has also written for The Monthly, The Courier Mail, Qweekend, Sunday Life, Cleo, Crikey, The Big Issue, New Matilda, Kill Your Darlings, ABC Unleashed and the Australian Associated Press. His essays have been anthologised in The Best Australian Essays (2008 and 2009), Growing Up Asian in Australia and the forthcoming Voracious: New Australian Food Writing. The Family Law (2010) is his debut book, and is published by Black Inc. Books. A French edition will be published by Belfond in 2012 and the TV rights have been sold to Matchbox Pictures. He’s currently working on his second book, a collection of non-fiction looking at queer people and communities throughout Asia. It has the working title of Gaysia.

Kirsten Law

Kirsten is a writer, editor and performer based in Melbourne. Her work has appeared in the Australian Book Review, ThreeThousand, The Age and Creative Aggression magazine among other publications, as well as on community TV and radio. Kirsten performs stand-up, stories and characters regularly around Melbourne and is currently writing a one-woman show for the 2011 Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Julien Leyre

Julien Leyre migrated to Melbourne from France in December 2008 with his Australian partner. When living in Paris, Julien contributed articles to various forums on same-sex issues and published a short novel and two short stories with a gay and lesbian publishing house. He also worked as an academic, specialising in linguistics, and collaborated with musicians and film-makers on various multimedia art projects. Since arriving in Melbourne, he has written and directed a short film, Honey Pot, screening at the 2011 Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and curated Love Journeys, an exhibition on same-sex migration to Australia. He is currently working part-time for the Victorian State Government, developing film scripts, building a website to crowd-source translations from the Chinese to Western languages, and trying his hand at writing short-stories in English.

Aimee Lindorff

Aimée Lindorff is a creative industries professional and writer of speculative fiction based in Brisbane. She supports other writers as Program and Marketing Coordinator and tutor at the Queensland Writers Centre and is currently completing postgraduate study at The University of Queensland. Aimée sporadically reviews the arts at http://insomoniacscafe.blogspot.com and is working on her first novel.

Brienna Macnish

Brienna Macnish is the co-founder of theatre company Bird on Fence and has directed and produced their shows The Playroom (2008) and The Fire and Hurricane Survival Guide (2009). In 2010, Brienna directed The Dream Factory by Nic Verginis and Chris Mildren for St Martins Youth Arts Centre and was involved in Platform Youth Theatre’s mentoring program Provocateur, as part of the latter project she directed The Dog Watch by Michele Lee and was mentored by Gorkem Acaroglu. Recently Brienna worked as an assistant director on No Place Like by Chris Summers, directed by Tom Gutteridge. She is currently participating in Catapult, a year long professional development program run by St Martins. Her company is currently working on a funded creative development exploring the use of live drawing, animation and video feeds in performance.

Kerith Manderson-Galvin

Co-founder of independent Melbourne theatre company ‘Family of Strangers’ Kerith Manderson-Galvin is primarily a playwright, progressively an actor and when the moon is in the right alignment, a poet. Her plays “Sunny Side Up” (2008, Adelaide Fringe, Glitch Bar+Cinema Melbourne) and “The Hat Box” (2009, Recipient of St Martin’s Threshold Grant, Melbourne Fringe) recieved critical and audience acclaim and sold out shows. More recently her newest play “The Keep” was featured as a reading for Melbourne’s Playwright Theatre MKA’s Open Season. Her poetry has been published in online journal Verb-ate-him and she appeared in Midsumma 2011 spoken word event “Dangerous Curves Ahead”.

Joan McCarthy

For Joan McCarthy and co-author Maureen Smith, thirty years of friendship sharing the roller coaster of life, have offered at least one common thread: a passion for living life to the fullest. Although their lives took different paths, they often found themselves in similar sticky situations – from discovering crocodiles in the backyard in the Top End of the Northern Territory to eating witchetty grubs in Central Australia – and from ending scratchy relationships to starting fabulous new ones. Their book: “Sixty, Strong and Sexy: Women Share their Secrets” explodes some of the myths about a magical age that promises so much. Although there are many women in their sixties who entertain us, inspire us and hold positions of power and influence, the information about ordinary ‘bread and butter’ women is a well kept secret. To confirm their perception about these women Joan and Maureen canvassed a gamut of issues with a focus on everyday quality of life, family relationships, general happiness, health, social life, creativity, and not forgetting our all important sexuality, spiritual life and attitude to old age. For more details see website: marjobooks.com.au

Catherine McCredie

Catherine McCredie is a senior editor in the Books for Children and Young Adults department at Penguin Books, where she has worked for more than ten years with authors including Paul Jennings, Gabrielle Williams, Dave Hackett, Odo Hirsch, Archimede Fusillo, Julia Lawrinson, Allan Baillie, David McRobbie and Patricia Wrightson.

Kirstyn McDermott

Kirstyn McDermott was born on Halloween, an auspicious date which perhaps accounts for her lifelong attraction to all things dark, mysterious and bumpy-in-the-night. She has been published in various magazines and anthologies, including Aurealis, Southerly, GUD, Redsine, Southern Blood and Island. Her short fiction has won Aurealis, Ditmar and Chronos Awards and her debut novel, Madigan Mine, was published by Picador in 2010. Kirstyn lives in Melbourne with her husband and fellow author, Jason Nahrung. Her website is www.kirstynmcdermott.com.

Andrew McDonald

Andrew McDonald is a children’s author, blogger and works for an independent (online) bookshop. He lives in Melbourne, holidays in Dubbo but tells everyone he’s in Paris.

Jess McGuire

Jess McGuire is a writer and broadcaster. She can be heard each weekday on RRR’s Breakfasters, and appears regularly on 774 ABC Melbourne and weekly on 720 ABC Perth’s Drive show. She is the Editor of pop culture blog Defamer Australia, and has also written for various publications including The Sunday Age, The Sun-Herald, The Drum, jmag, The Lifted Brow, Lucky Magazine, and 64 Magazine.
Jess has participated in Melbourne’s monthly Women Of Letters salon as both a contributor and guest host, and lectured on all things new media at RMIT and the University of Melbourne. She co-hosts Rock & Pop Culture trivia nights, and has also put her DJ skills to good use at events like the Falls Festival and the Big Day Out. She recently purchased a hammock, and can now die happy.

Brenton McKenna

Brenton McKenna is a young Indigenous artist and writer from the remote town of Broome in Western Australia.

Ben McKenzie

Ben McKenzie is an actor, comedian and improviser. He has written, performed and directed for live sketch show The Anarchist Guild Social Committee, and through his company Shaolin Punk devised and directed various improvised shows including musical gig Set List, genre television theatre McGuffin (Fringe 2010) and the monthly ultra-geeky comedy Dungeon Crawl. Other writer/performer credits include comedy science lectures as “the Man in the Lab Coat”, Museum Comedy tours in Melbourne and Sydney, Channel 31 variety show Planet Nerd, short play A Record or an OBE and political stand-up room Political Asylum. He also works as a presenter and voice-over artist. His favourite dinosaur is Stegosaurus. More info at labcoatman.com.au, shaolinpunk.net and museumcomedy.com.

David McLean

David is a teacher, actor and writer. He headed several English departments, the most unusual of which was in an Indonesian school, and he once chaired the Heads of English in Independent Schools in Victoria. Teaching obviously paid the bills, but his passion has been for the stage and the page. His educational publications testify to the secret desire to be in print while his stage performances once earned him a best actor award from the Victorian Drama League for his portrayal of a drunken, disillusioned English teacher in Educating Rita.

Andrew McMillen

Andrew McMillen is a freelance journalist based in Brisbane, Australia. His work has been published in Rolling Stone Australia, The Weekend Australian, Qweekend, Mess+Noise, The Vine, The Big Issue, triple j mag, The Courier-Mail, Australian Penthouse, IGN Australia and BrisbaneTimes.com.au.

He was first published in Brisbane street press Rave Magazine in June 2007. His first passion was writing about music, which has since been superseded by an interest in pursuing feature journalism – although he’s still a regular live music reviewer.

Andrew co-organised the independent music conference UnConvention Brisbane in 2010 and 2011. He was the Queensland ambassador for National Young Writers’ Month 2011, where he was charged with coordinating three public events in Brisbane and his hometown of Bundaberg. These events – which featured notable writers and journalists such as John Birmingham, Matthew Condon and Trent Dalton – were attended by a combined total of 200 young Queensland writers.

He blogs at andrewmcmillen.com and tweets as @NiteShok.

Shannon Meadows

In 1999 Shannon Meadows abandoned her legal career to travel. After a year living in a hostel in Earls Court, London (how embarrassing) she stumbled upon a new career – leading 18-35 coach tours around Europe. Shannon lasted five seasons, fifty tours, and countless adventures before returning to Australia as a mere shell of her former self. Ten years from that first tour she completed her next biggest personal challenge – her first novel. And self-published it as well. The full version is available in paperback (you can read the first three chapters or find stockists on her blog) and there is an abridged ebook available as well. Currently Shannon is busy co ordinating publicity and distribution for Road Wench – It’s a Tour, Not a Holiday, working at her day job (alas, she cannot yet retire and live off the royalties), doing a university writing course, and plotting ideas for a sequel.

David Mence

David Mence is a writer, director and dramaturge. As Artistic Director of White Whale Theatre his credits include Macbeth Re-Arisen, Convict 002, The Gully, Melburnalia 1 & 2, Othello (Bell Shakespeare) and Blackbird (MTC). David has been a Creative Fellow at the State Library of Victoria and is currently completing a Ph D at the University of Melbourne.

Carly-Jay Metcalfe

Carly-Jay Metcalfe is a Brisbane based writer who has a memoir in progress ‘chasing away salt water’. She has recently finished a book of commissioned non-fiction called Jet’s Lore. Her work has been published in journals and anthologies such as Overland, the Vignette Press Death Mook, fourW, and Wet Ink’s anthology Emerge. This year, Carly-Jay plans to complete her research Masters in Creative Writing at QUT and to begin working in Palliative Care. After receiving a double lung transplant thirteen years ago and surviving cancer in 2007, she is a passionate advocate for organ donation.

Kei Miller

Kei is a poet, novelist, occasional essayist and blogger. He has published several collections of poetry and a book of short stories, ‘The Fear of Stones’, which was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His debut novel, ‘The Same Earth’, won the Una Marson Prize for Literature, the biggest literary award in Jamaica. He was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize for Young Writers in 2008. He divides his time between Jamaica and the UK and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Glasgow.

Benjamin Grant Mitchell

Benjamin Grant Mitchell is the author of The Last Great Day, an autobiographical novel published in April, 2011. The Last Great Day is based on Mitchell’s early childhood growing up the son of a minister in a 1970s doomsday cult. The story follows his parent’s awakening to the truth about their corrupt spiritual leader after the tragic loss of Benjamin’s aunty and baby twin brothers: their deaths a direct result of cult teachings. Before writing The Last Great Day, Mitchell wrote and staged three plays (Carlton Courthouse Theatre), recorded and performed music as a singer-songwriter, and acted on stage and screen, appearing on TV in millions of homes around the world in Neighbours. He lived in London for six years before returning to Australia and releasing The Stars Can See (MGM) in 2006, his critically acclaimed lo-fi/alt-country album. Mitchell published The Last Great Day independently in April 2011 and you can find out more about his novel and his music at www.benjamingrantmitchell.com.

Penny Modra

Penny Modra is the editor of ThreeThousand.com.au, a weekly subcultural guide to Melbourne published in website, e-newsletter and iPhone app formats by Right Angle Studio. Founded in 2005, it’s an online magazine written by a motley band of locals for readers who love independent projects, nice clothes, new music, good reading, honest reviews, hard-to-find lunch places, art openings and free drinks. She also writes weekly visual arts columns for The Age and The Sunday Age, and has worked for clients including Gertrude Contemporary, PhD students whose dissertations are due in twelve hours and London’s Future Laboratory. Penny was a co-founder of Melbourne’s experimental poster publishing project Is Not Magazine (2005-2008, RIP).

Tony Moore

Tony Moore is a writer, historian and academic and Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University where he lectures in media studies. Tony’s career has spanned political activism, documentary making at the ABC, journalism and book publishing. He writes regularly on Australian culture, history and politics. His latest book, ‘Death or Liberty: Rebels and Radicals Transported to Australia 1788 to 1868′, is the first narrative history that brings together the stories of the political prisoners sent as convicts to Australia from all parts of the British Empire. Tony has a PhD in Australian history from the University of Sydney, and is Commissioning Editor of the ‘Australian Encounters’ book series (CUP). He is currently writing a book on Australia’s bohemian tradition.

Chris Morphew

Born in 1985, Chris Morphew spent his childhood writing stories about dinosaurs and time machines. More recently he has written 12 titles for the best-selling Zac Power series, including the Zac Power Mega Missions. The Phoenix Files is his first series for young adults.

Derek Motion

Derek Motion is PhD candidate at Charles Sturt University, where he is writing a thesis exploring the way failure defines the work and reputations of Christopher Brennan, Michael Dransfield, and himself. It is to be a document full of hope. Derek works as Director of the Booranga Writers’ Centre, and often writes poetry. His work has appeared in Black Inc’s Best Australian Poems series in 2009 and 2010.

Meg Mundell

Kiwi immigrant Meg Mundell writes fiction, journalism and memoir. Her first novel Black Glass (Scribe) is out now. Meg has published in the Age, The Monthly, Sydney Morning Herald, The Big Issue, Best Australian Stories, New Australian Stories, Meanjin and Sleepers Almanac. Now she’s writing a PhD and a trucking memoir.

Ruby J Murray

Ruby J Murray is a Melbourne based writer and researcher. Her work has appeared in publications including The Age, Eureka Street Magazine, Frankie, Meanjin, The Lifted Brow, Torpedo,Dumbo Feather, The Sleepers Almanac and harvest. She is co-founder of The Democracy Project http://the-democracy-project.org/ Ruby is currently finishing her first novel, Running Dogs, which has been funded by The Australia Council and Arts Victoria.

Jason Nelson

Born from the Oklahoma flatlands of farmers and spring thunderstorms, Jason Nelson somehow stumbled into creating awkward and wondrous digital poems and interactive stories of odd lives, building confounding art games and all manner of curious digital creatures.

Currently he professes Net Art and Electronic Literature at Australia’s Griffith University in the Gold Coast’s contradictory shores. Aside from coaxing his students into breaking, playing and morphing their creativity with all manner of technologies, he exhibits widely in galleries and journals, with work featured around globe at FILE, ACM, LEA, ISEA, ACM, ELO and dozens of other acronyms. There are awards to list (Paris Biennale Media Poetry Prize), organizational boards he frequents (Australia Council Literature Board), and numerous
other accolades (Webby Award), but in the web based realm where his work resides, Jason is most proud of the millions of visitors his artwork/digital poetry portal www.secrettechnology.com attracts each year.

Andrew Nette

Andrew Nette worked as a journalist in Southeast Asia for six years in the mid-nineties. He has returned frequently, living in Phnom Penh for a year in 2008, where he wrote the manuscript of a crime novel set in Cambodia. He lives in Melbourne, works as a researcher in the community sector, and blogs about crime film and fiction with a focus on Asia and Australia.

Telia Nevile

Telia Nevile is an award-winning theatre-maker and performer known for experimenting with theatrical form. She recently completed a critically-acclaimed season at the 2011 MICF with her comedy character ‘Poet Laureate Telia Nevile’, who is also the cult Last Tuesday Society’s resident poet.

Charmaine O'Brien

Charmaine O’Brien is a Melbourne based writer. Her unique work encompasses food history, culinary travel, cookery, recipe development and using recipes as social history. Her works include: Flavours of Melbourne: a culinary biography and Flavours of Delhi. She is currently writing the Penguin Food Guide to India and is working on a social history of Australian cookbooks (supported by the Australia Council Literature Developing Writer grant). Charmaine also sporadically writes a blog www.eatingindia.net

Connor O'Brien

Connor O’Brien is the author of Quiet City, an illustrated collection of short stories. He is currently editing The Bright Young, a soon-to-be released iPad book on modern web culture. www.connortomas.com

Patrick O'Duffy

Patrick O’Duffy used to write games about demons, vampires and pirates; now he works in educational publishing. He has recently published a novella (Hotel Flamingo) and an anthology (Godheads) as e-books, and is currently working erratically on a novel. His website is www.patrickoduffy.com.

Ben O'Mara

Ben O’Mara is a writer, researcher and filmmaker living and working in Melbourne’s west. He has written for Meanjin, The Age, The Herald Sun and Eureka Street, and his short films have played at festivals across Australia. His research at Victoria University develops health communication strategies that use new and emerging digital technology for migrant and refugee communities.

Paddy O'Reilly

Paddy O’Reilly is the author of a collection of award-winning stories, The End of the World, a novel, The Factory, and a novella, ‘Deep Water.’ Her national and international story awards include ‘The Age’, the ‘My Brother Jack’, ‘Zoetrope All-Story’ (USA) and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Short Story Competition (UK). Her stories have been widely published and broadcast, and are frequently anthologised in Australia and overseas in collections such as Best Australian Stories and New Australian Stories.

Ryan Paine

Ryan is a book junkie currently getting his fix as an editor at Wakefield Press, and previously as editor of Voiceworks, a Melbourne-based quarterly produced by writers and editors under 25. He is Director of Format Festival’s Academy of Words in Adelaide and blogs at Socratic Ignorance is Bliss.

Tim Pegler

Tim Pegler was a Melbourne-based newspaper journalist for a decade, winning media prizes from the United Nations Association of Australia and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. After switching to online media, Tim found himself briefly without gainful employment after being “tech-wrecked”. This prompted a change of focus and a return to the novel he began as a teenager. ‘Game as Ned’ was published in 2007 and commended as a Children’s Book Council notable book for older readers in 2008. Tim’s second novel for young adults, also strongly influenced by his time in journalism, was published in 2010.

Elyce Phillips

Elyce Phillips is a Melbourne-based writer and editor, currently undertaking her masters in Editing, Publishing, and Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. Her short stories ‘Monday’ and ‘Statue’ are soon to be published in the upcoming issue of AntiThesis. She is also an Editorial Assistant in the University of Melbourne’s Marketing and Communications division.

Karen Pickering

Karen Pickering is the host of Cherchez la Femme, a monthly digest of pop culture and current affairs from a feminist perspective. With Clem Bastow, she founded The Dawn Conspiracy, an annual celebration of feminist culture to coincide with International Womens Day. She is an MC for hire and in her spare time teaches publishing and literature.

Ben Pobjie

Ben Pobjie is a comedian and author. Since 2008 he’s been New Matilda’s resident satirist, and since 2011 the Saturday Age’s TV columnist. He has also appeared in the Drum and Crikey among others. His first book, Surveying the Wreckage, came out in 2011. He lives on Twitter where he says peculiar things about cooking shows.

Pigeons Projects

Pigeons is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to assisting children in improving their literacy skills and developing a passion for reading and writing. By offering project-based learning activities in line with teacher needs and curriculum objectives, Pigeons aims to cultivate creative partnerships between local public schools, authors and artists.
A core value of Pigeons is to celebrate and support the crucial role that teachers play in education and to provide resources that can be adapted and evolved to meet their needs in the classroom. Through collaboration and discussion with teachers, Pigeons is able to develop and deliver projects to meet curriculum needs. Pigeons projects are delivered to schools and students at no charge.
Jenna Williams and Lachlann Carter founded Pigeons in 2009, following the completion of internships at 826 Valencia, a not-for-profit community organisation working with students in the San Francisco area (www.826valencia.org).

Tama Pugsley

Thirty-one years old. Web developer, cyborg, adventurer, playboy, alcoholic, photographer and international man of mystery. http://tama.co.nz/

Bhakthi Puvanenthiran

Bhakthi Puvanenthiran is a Melburnian of Tamil origin. She has written for Crikey, Arena and Frankie and held a brief stint as the new media columnist Voiceworks and regularly makes community radio on 3CR. In 2009, she co-edited Melbourne University’s student paper, Farrago, and in 2010, joined the Co-director team at National Young Writers’ Festival. This year, Bhakthi’s other lives will include managing “The Underage” , an exciting new project by Express Media and The Age as well as completing her degree in Law/Media and Communications at Melbourne Uni.

Paper Radio

Founded in 2010 by Jessie Borrelle and Jon Tjhia, Paper Radio is an independent Melbourne-based podcast which aims to share the finest of storytelling from Australia and New Zealand with the wider world. Covering both fiction and non-fiction, the project combines a DIY ethic with world-class production values.

Each episode marries a story with meticulous, rich sound design as well as a graphic artist’s unique ‘album cover’ for the piece. It’s with an eye for narrative and an ear for colour that Paper Radio goes about its storytelling work.

Aden Rolfe

Aden Rolfe is a Melbourne-based writer, editor and radiomaker whose work includes poetry, collage and criticism. His writing has appeared in Overland and Best Australian Poetry, and his sound works have been broadcast on ABC Radio National. He recently edited Volume 2 of The Reader for the Emerging Writers Festival, and directed the Critical Animals Creative Research Symposium as part of This Is Not Art.

David Ryding

Through out his career, David has consistently worked with new Australian scripts and new Australian writers. He is currently the Director of the New South Wales Writers Centre, previously he was Director of the Emerging Writers’ Festival in Melbourne and prior to this he was Artistic Director for Mainstreet Theatre Company, a company dedicated to new Australian writing about Regional Australia. For a short period of time David thought he was a writer and his credits include The three for ABC Radio National, Myra for Australian Theatre for Young People’s RE; MacBeth, Nesmith for the Blue Room and the screenplay Ant’s Hills (winner of a ScreenWest New screenwriters grant). He also wrote Shift Swapping (Audax Productions), Chat ( Skimpy Theatre) and his short play The City of Lights was part of Dullsville (Perth Theatre Company). He has conducted Community Cultural Development programmes in Broome, Kalgoorlie and Denmark and taught script writing across Western Australia as part of the WA State Literature Centres Writers on the Road program. In a former life he was a Youth Worker and ran Camps for the YMCA.

Lou Sanz

Comedy writer (Life Support SBS, Dear Lou I thought we agreed not to talk about this, Please don’t Use My Flannel for that. A Memoir, The Problematic World of You, Not Suitable for Children, Six Days Straight, She Touched Me There and The Passion of Her) Lou is also an award winning producer (Celia Pacquola – Am I Strange?, The Skirt Network’s Keep Your Skirt On!) and has recently turned her hand to directing comedy. Having been nominated and won numerous awards for her writing over the last 12 years including the Sony/ Columbia Tri Star Screen Scholar Award, Best Debut – Comedy @ Trades as well as being a Moosehead recipient she has also toured the US with her live comedy, and is currently working on her second feature in Melbourne and working on her first book chocked full of her emerging dry wit.

Sexytime!

Sexytime! is a physical theatre comedy exploring sexiness throughout the ages and is created and performed by Tessa Waters and Kai Smythe, who have been creating projects for film and theatre together for the past six years. Kai was the lighting designer on Tessa’s first show ‘Small Dream’s in 2004 and Tessa has produced the majority of Kai’s film and theatre projects. Sexytime! is the first time the two have created and performed together and most recently played a sell out season at Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Sexytime’s hosts Woman and Man are the MC’s for Dirty Words, sharing with you the best of the naughty stuff with a wink and a giggle.

Carmel Shute

Carmel Shute is a co-founder and national convenor of Sisters in Crime Australia.

Ted Skewes

Ted Skewes is 57 and lives near Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and three sons. He has been a computer professional for over 20 years, prior to which his time was consumed by music, song-writing and philosophy. Apart from a few articles published in UFO journals and on websites, The Mystic Functions is his first literary endeavour.

Angela Smith

Angela Smith’s first collection of poetry The Geometry of Flight has been described by poet Bruce Dawe as ‘free verse at its finest’. Her work has been published widely in literary journals, broadcast on radio, screened at Federation Square during the 2010 Melbourne Writers’ Festival and featured on Melbourne trains. She was awarded two Young Adult Fiction Residencies at Varuna, The Writers’ House. Angela’s poetry explores memory, love, loss and landscape. A sequence of poems in The Geometry of Flight explores her experience of breast cancer.

Jeff Sparrow

Jeff Sparrow is the editor of Overland and the author of Killing: Misadventures in Violence.

Amy Spiers

Amy Spiers is an artist and writer interested in participatory art. Her art projects have appeared at Melbourne Fringe, Next Wave and This Is Not Art, and she has written for Live Art List Australia, Artlink and un magazine. Amy is currently studying a Masters of Fine Art at VCA.

Marian Spires

Marian Spires is a poet, writer and teacher who explores the internal landscapes of personal and cultural myths with concrete language. She has performed her poetry on radio, television, at festivals and featured at poetry events. Her first collection, red angels rising, was published by Woorilla (2004). In 2009, she won the Melbourne Writers Festival Poetry Idol Award and used her prize money to travel to Europe to view the original canvases and walk the landscapes where Vincent van Gogh painted. Her verse novel about van Gogh called Knowing Vincent (Picaro Press) was launched at the 2010 Melbourne Writers Festival.

Rebecca Starford

Rebecca Starford is the editor and co-founder of Kill Your Darlings literary journal. She is also the associate publisher at Affirm Press. Her writing has been published in The Australian, The Age, Australian Literary Review, Australian Book Review, The Big Issue and Overland.

Laurie Steed

Laurie Steed is a short story writer, editor and freelance journalist. His writing has been published in The Age, The Courier Mail, Meanjin, The Sleepers Almanac, and The Big Issue, among other publications.

Emmett Stinson

Emmett Stinson was born in the United States in 1977; his debut collection of short stories, Known Unknowns (Affirm Press), was published in 2010. He is a recipient of The Age Short Story Award and a Lannan Poetry Fellowship. He is a Lecturer in Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne; President of SPUNC—The Small Press Network, Australia’s only advocacy group for small presses; Fiction Editor for Wet Ink: The Magazine of New Writing; the book reviewer for Triple R Radio’s Breakfasters program; and a panellist on the Australian Department of Innovation’s federal Book Industry Strategy Group. His essays, reviews, and fiction have appeared in The Age, The Australian, The Big Issue, Kill Your Darlings, Meanjin, The Monthly, Overland, The Sleepers Almanac, and many others.

Paulie Stewart

Paulie Stewart has been a musician, journalist at the Herald Sun and long campaigning activist for East Timor for 30 years.

Paul was a founding member of and singer with the (in)famous Melbourne punk rock act The Painters And Dockers who released seven albums and toured extensively throughout Australia, New Zealand and North America. Painters and Dockers formed in Melbourne, in 1982. Paul,singer-songwriter and trumpet player, is the only mainstay in the band, named for the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union, when Paul and his friends performed an early gig at a pub rock venue in Port Melbourne frequented by the union’s members. Some members of the band went on to form the Dili Allstars. The seven piece Dili Allstars formed in 1998 after Stewart met East Timorese musician Gil Santos; the band has now toured East Timor six times, extensively throughout Australia and even to Europe. The band appeared alongside Kylie Minogue and John Farnham in the TOUR OF DUTY concert for peace-keeping troops in Dili. The Dili Allstars have now released four albums of their own original material and four compilation albums for the women and children of East Timor, which has raised more than $350,000. Guests on these albums included Midnight Oil, Paul Kelly, Yothu Yindi, U2, Billy Bragg and some 30 other artists.

Chris Summers

Chris Summers is an emerging playwright and winner of the Sydney Theatre Company Young Playwright’s Award in 2005, the St Martins National Playwriting Competition in 2008 (shortlisted 2010) and the Script Development Award from Union House Theatre in 2009. His commission from Union House Theatre, No Place Like, was directed by Tom Gutteridge and had a sell-out season in the Guild Theatre in May. His commission from Platform Youth Theatre, Crossed, was selected for PlayWriting Australia’s National Play Festival 2011 and opens June 9 at LaMama Courthouse, directed by Matt Scholten.

Estelle Tang

Estelle Tang is an editor at Oxford University Press. Her writing can be found in the Australian Literary Review, Australian Book Review, harvest magazine and Radio National’s The Book Show. She blogs at the Melbourne Writers Festival blog and www.3000books.com.au. Estelle is also Online Editor for literary journal Kill Your Darlings.

MKA Theatre

MKA is Melbourne’s theatre of new writing. Based on the model of playwright development theatres such as the Royal Cour Londo, SOHO Writers Theatre in the UK and more locally the Instant Cafe Theatre in Kuala Lumpu, MKA was co-founded by playwrights Tobias Manderson-Galvin (Artistic Director) & Glyn Roberts (General Manager) the company is in exile from the City of Yarra at present after having launched a venue late last year that the council then shut down after two days, a matter that gathered some press, both locally and abroad.
The company has yet to be set back however and after the success of their maiden ‘Open Season’ in Nov-Dec last year, they will launch their first full season of four new, fully produced plays, in a purpose built theatre in Prahran from May-July 2011. Artistic Director Manderson-Galvin was the 2010 Winner of the St Martins Young Playwright Competition for his play Dogmeat. Both Roberts and Manderson-Galvin have had 4 and 5 star reviews in both the major papers in Victoria for their works and been produced at a wide variety of independent venues across the nation. One of the four works in the first MKA 2011 season will be Roberts’ new play ‘The Horror Face’.

Philip Thiel

Philip Thiel is a Melbourne-based museum worker and blog artist whose writing has appeared in numerous print and online publications. In 2010 he kissed the lips of 365 different people. thiel.livejournal.com

Meredith Tucker-Evans

Meredith Tucker-Evans is a Melbourne-based writer and editor, and is the Communications Coordinator for the Emerging Writers’ Festival.

Sam Twyford-Moore

Sam Twyford-Moore is the editor of Cutwater. His writing has appeared in Meanjin, Overland and various anthologies.

Meg Upton

Across the years, Meg has been an arts educator, a researcher and a mentor. She writes about arts education and young audiences, and more recently has begun writing about arts education and sustainability. While Education and Youth Access Manager at Malthouse Theatre she co-developed 3DFest, a theatre festival for emerging theatre artists which ran for eight years. Meg lectures in Drama Education at Deakin University, and is a lead researcher at the University of Melbourne with TheatreSpace: Accessing the Cultural Conversation as well conducting her own PhD research. She is a committed advocate for youth arts and emerging artists across all areas of her work.

Owen Vandenberg

Owen Vandenberg is a Melbourne-based writer; he is the founder of TweetFilm , a monthly Twitter-based film club, and Capsule, an online literary journal showcasing stories of 250 words or less.

Adele Walsh

Adele Walsh joined the State Library of Victoria’s Reader Development team this year as the Program Coordinator for the Centre for Youth Literature. Adele brings with her extensive experience as an avid young adult literature reader and a passionate youth literature advocate. She has a professional background as a teacher and is a well known YA blogger (aka Persnickety Snark).

Danny Walsh

Danny Walsh is a revelry bluesman who entertains with songs crafted using a sharp pencil, wholegrain sounds and carrying a veneer of festival dirt. He has engaged audiences from the Wimmera to Port Fairy Folk Festival, Copenhagen’s cafes to Ireland’s pubs, the Fringe Festival of Edinburgh and now along the Tram Tracks of Melbourne, performing as a duo with Adam Redfern, enjoy!

Jeff Waters

In 25 years as a multi-platform journalist and author, Jeff Waters has enjoyed a career which has been as varied as it’s been groundbreaking. In 1996, after spending a decade working as a reporter for The Canberra Times, Channel 10 in Canberra and Channel 7 in Sydney, he bought one of the first broadcast-quality digital handicams, and set out to become Australia’s first video journalist. Over a period of almost 10 years, he covered European and North African stories for a host of broadcasters around the world, including CNN’s Inside Africa and Inside Europe programs, the BBC, APTN’s Roving Report, and all of Australia’s and New Zealand’s TV News services. He’s worked in more than 20 countries – from Egypt to the Tonga; Iceland to Mauritius – concentrating largely on stories involving social justice, human rights and environmental issues. During this time he also worked regularly as Output Editor for the TV division of world’s largest newsgathering organisation – The Associated Press. As well as his international work, Jeff’s been a reporter for the ABC in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin, and lead producer for the ABC’s National Late Edition News, Stateline Queensland, and Australia Network News. His reports are regularly broadcast on programs like The 7.30 Report, Lateline, Newsline with Jim Middleton, and radio current affairs shows AM, PM, The World Today and Correspondents’ Report. As well as The Canberra Times, Jeff has written for Australian Associated Press, Singapore’s Straits Times, the ABC’s The Drum website, and many other publications. In 2008, his first book, Gone for a Song, A Death in Custody on Palm Island (ABC Books) was released to acclaim. He’s also spoken at book launches and media conferences across the country, including The Melbourne Writers Festival, and is currently working on his second non-fiction book, Every Beat of My Heart, which is scheduled for publication in early 2012. His favourite activities are cooking for family and friends, playing the guitar and gardening. Jeff is now employed as Senior Correspondent for the ABC’s Australia Network satellite news service, and lives the suburban dream with his wife and two children.

Still Waters

Housed at the Institute of Postcolonial Studies in North Melbourne, Still Waters Black Women’s Storytelling Collective is a project that seeks to explore and encourage women’s storytelling. Primarily, the project seeks to provide a safe space for women of all cultures to convene and exchange their personal experiences of life. The project began in 2011, focussing first on encouraging the participation of women of black (African) descent from all walks of life. Still Waters convenes on the third Saturday of every month, allowing the women to workshop their stories within a culturally-sensitive, harmonious and safe environment.

John Weldon

John Weldon has worked as a freelance writer since the mid 90s. He has written op ed, sport, food and funny stuff for The Age, The Western Times, The ABC, Lonely Planet, and The Western Bulldogs among other organisations.

Sarah Werkmeister

Sarah Werkmeister is a freelance writer and artist who has written and contributed to various publications around Australia. These include The Thousands Brisbane, where she is currently Associate Editor, and Independent Press – a creative art magazine that she co-edits. Sarah is also a part of an Artist Run Initiative called The Wandering Room, and an announcer on community radio 4zzzfm. She loves her chickens whose names are Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. She enjoys too much coffee and playing violin along to Slayer.

Lia Weston

Lia Weston was born in Sydney in 1974 and then found herself growing up in Adelaide, to her surprise. Surviving an adolescence spent at an all-girls’ religious school instilled a curiosity about the numerous parallels between cults and organised religion, as well as a life-long hatred of berets. A move into publishing saw her marketing non-fiction books by day and practising pagan rites by night. One ritual too many (‘Hecate, Help Me Find My Car Keys’) finally saw her flee the New Age scene with her brain still intact. The result was her first novel, The Fortunes of Ruby White. Lia currently resides in Adelaide and writes in between running a bicycle shop with her husband, Pete. Lia and Pete own a rescued German Shepherd called Kif, who is a traitor to his breed in that he is beautiful but not smart.

Sean M Whelan

Sean M Whelan writes for paper, performance and pixels. He also works extensively with musicians. His band The Interim Lovers released an album called Softly & Suddenly in Oct 2010. He has recently begun collaborating with electronic musician Isnod. He most recent book of poetry is Tattooing the Surface of the Moon.

Geordie Williamson

Geordie Williamson is chief literary critic of The Australian.

David Winter

David Winter is an editor at Text Publishing, working on fiction and non-fiction titles, and the associate editor of Griffith REVIEW. He was deputy editor of The Monthly until 2009.

David Witteveen

David Witteveen is a weird fantasy and suburban gothic writer based in Melbourne, Australia. He wrote and drew the minicomic DEATH BY MUSIC, and won the inaugural Australian Horror Writers Association’s Flash Fiction award. His website is at www.davidwitteveen.com

Daniel Wood

I’m a graduate student, subject tutor, and sessional lecturer in Literary Studies at the University of Melbourne; my specialty is American fiction. Mostly I publish literary criticism—academic articles (written begrudgingly) alongside more informal essays, reviews, and blog posts (written enthusiastically)—although I publish fiction, too, under an as-yet-undisclosed pseudonym.

Fiona Wood

Fiona Wood has been writing television scripts for ten years on shows ranging from ‘ MDA’ and ‘The Secret Life of Us’ to ‘Neighbours’ and ‘Home and Away’. Her first YA novel ‘Six Impossible Things’ – for which she was awarded the Varuna Eleanor Dark Fellowship in 2008, and a Readings Foundation Glenfern Fellowship in 2009 – was published by Pan Macmillan in 2010. She lives in Melbourne with her husband, two YAs and a bad old dog.

Jacinda Woodhead

Jacinda Woodhead is a writer and Overland associate editor. She runs the Overland website, where she blogs about politics and literature, and the Meanland project, where she blogs about reading, writing and technology. She is also a PhD student at Victoria University.

Damon Young

Damon Young is a philosopher and author whose work has appeared in the Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian, New York Daily News, Meanjin and Overland, and on the ABC and BBC. His first book, Distraction, was recently published in the UK and USA. His next book, The Mystery of the Garden, will be out in 2012. Damon also appears regularly on ABC radio. He lives with his wife and two children in Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs.

Robyne Young

Robyne Young has worked with words for almost 30 years as a journalist, PR person and event manager including writers’ festivals. She has had short fiction and non-fiction published, and self published a collection of short stories and is currently working on a new collection of short fiction and a novel.

[/writer]