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2025
Literary Allsorts
Lineup

Peter Greste

Professor Peter Greste is an award-winning foreign correspondent who spent 25 years working for the BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera in some of the world’s most volatile places. From Afghanistan to Latin American, Africa and the Middle East, he reported from the frontlines and beyond, although he is best known for becoming a headline himself, when he and two of his colleagues were arrested in Cairo while working for Al Jazeera and charged with terrorism offences.

Peter’s excellent book The Correspondent has just been re-released and is now a major film.

Peter will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of a very special in conversation event.

Nam Le

Nam’s poetry has been published in The Monthly, The Paris Review, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Bomb, Conjunctions, Boston Review, Lana Turner and Tin House. His short story collection The Boat received numerous major international awards, including the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the Melbourne Prize for Literature, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. The Boat has been republished as a modern classic and is widely translated, anthologised and taught. Nam Le lives in Melbourne.

Nam will be appearing at Literary Allsorts in conversation with Tony Birch.

Jessie Cole

Jessie is the author of four books. Her first novel, Darkness on the Edge of Town, was shortlisted for the 2013 ALS Gold Medal and longlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award. Her second novel, Deeper Water, was released in 2014 to critical acclaim. Staying: A Memoir was longlisted for the 2019 Colin Roderick Award and shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. Her new memoir, Desire, A Reckoning, is out now.

Jessie will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of the Life Story: Memoir Panel

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Hayley Lawrence

Hayley writes young adult novels full of heart and hope, often inspired by her work as a lawyer. She lives in the seaside town of Port Macquarie with her five wild daughters where she stays up too late, too often, writing into the witching hours of the night. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council Awards, The Vogel Literary Prize for young writers, and in 2023, her novel The Other Side of Tomorrow received an Honour Award from the Children’s Book Council of Australia.

Hayley is our Writer in Residence 2025 Mentor, and will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of Meet the Resident Writer Panel.

Daniel Browning

Daniel is an award-winning Bundjalung and Kullilli writer, journalist and radio broadcaster. Currently he presents The Art Show and Arts in 30 podcasts for ABC Radio National. Hailed as “an outstanding contribution to arts journalism”, his first book, Close to the Subject: Selected Works won the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. In the same year the book won the Indigenous Writing Prize at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in the same category. Most recently he was First Nations Writer-in-Residence at Trinity Hall College, Cambridge.

Melaina Faranda

Melaina is the author of 68 books, published nationally and internationally, a trained teacher, manuscript appraisal consultant, and an oral storyteller who performs in Australia and overseas. As well as facilitating programs for Writing NSW, TasWriters, Northern Territory Writers Centre, Queensland Writers Centre, Outback Writers, Kyogle Readers and Writers Inc, he is also an ongoing mentor for the Byron Writers Festival Storyboard program.

Melaina will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of our KRAW School’s Program Showcase.

Sharlene Allsopp

Sharlene was born on Bundjalung Country into the Olive mob. Her debut novel The Great Undoing, released with Ultimo Press, won the QLD Literary Awards Fiction Book of the Year 2024. She is currently studying for her Masters in Creative Writing and developing her next novel. Sharlene lives in Meanjin/Brisbane with her family and beloved doggo—Morty.

Sharlene will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of the Local Writer: First Book Panel

Angela Catterns

Angela is a well-known Australian broadcaster and media veteran. She has presented numerous programs across the ABC broadcasting channels.

Angela will be appearing at Literary Allsorts, hosting the Local Writer: First Book Panel

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Jane Fuller

Jane has worked extensively in the Northern Rivers as an independent producer, Festival Producer for Boomerang Festival, and Programming Manager for NORPA. From 2014 to 2018, she was General Manager for BlakDance, prior to that as Ex. Producer for the Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) in Brisbane. She has been Executive Director of Arts Northern Rivers since 2021. Jane will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of the presentation 

Jane will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of the presentation Who We Are: A profile of the Northern Rivers creative sector

Tandi Palmer Williams

Tandi is a researcher specialising in culture, creativity and community. She is Director of Patternmakers, a social enterprise using research for good. Now based on Bundjalung Country, Tandi worked previously at Creative Australia and Nesta (UK). Her work has been featured in ABC News, SMH, The Guardian and the Echo. 

David Owen Kelly

David is a memoir writer and author of Fantastic Street (Picador, 2003), State of Origin (Puncher & Wattmann, 2019), and Host City (Puncher & Wattmann, 2024). Shorter pieces have appeared in Best Australian Stories, The Lifted Brow, and The Monthly. Host City has been nominated for a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, 2025.
David is appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of the Life Story: Memoir Panel

Vincent Stead

Vincent regularly performs at and assists in the running of poetry events around the Northern Rivers and Southern Queensland, Australia.  He has won People’s Choice Award at the Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup [[2016, 2019] and been a finalist 2022, 2023, 2024, Vincent has been a NSW Finalist in the Australian Poetry Slam many times.

The second edition of his first book ‘SIMPLE POEMS FOR COMPLEX PEOPLE-VOLUME ONE’ has just been released on Amazon.

Annika Johansson

Annika is a freelance writer living in the rainforests on Bundjalung Country. Born in Brisbane, she studied a Bachelor of Business Communications which took her around the world as a copywriter and Creative Director. Her debut novel Downstream was published in 2024. Her short stories have also won awards and appeared in anthologies.
Annika will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of the Local Writer: First Book Panel

Jarrah Dundler

Jarrah was raised on Bundjalung country in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. His debut novel Hey Brother, about the challenges faced by a teenage boy when his brother returns from war in Afghanistan, was selected for a Byron Writers Festival Residential Mentorship, a Varuna fellowship and shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel Literary Award. Jarrah is a board member for WritingNSW and a current Creative Australia grant recipient.
Jarrah is convening the KRAW Writer in Residence Program and will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of the Meet the Resident Writer Panel.

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Maggie Walters

Maggie is a mother of three young adults children, and has been in the Northern Rivers for over 15 years. Her debut memoir SPLIT is an international winner of the 2024 Goodie Awards for psychology and self-help. Maggie regularly shares her story, dispelling myths around complex trauma and reducing stigmas around mental health.
Maggie will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of the Local Writer: First Book Panel

Hani Abdile

Hani is a Somalian poet living in Sydney. Hani is an honorary member of PEN International, a lead member of Writing Through Fences, and an Ambassador for the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS). Her work has appeared in ABC, SMH, Shark Island Productions and has received numerous awards for her community work and creative art.
Hani will be appearing at Literary Allsorts as part of the Life Story: Memoir Panel

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Angela Szczotko

After a long career in education in Sydney and Lismore, Angela Szczotko reinvented herself as a written and spoken word poet in the Northern Rivers.

Angela has performed in the Australian Poetry Slam and at various Spoken Word events in the Northern Rivers. She was the winner of the 2022 Kyogle Writers Festival Poetry Competition, has received several awards with associated websites and chapbooks publishing her poems. 

Sober Low

JC; aka. ‘soberlow’ is a multi-dimensional, mixed media artist from Nimbin, New South Wales.

He has been writing and recording poetry and music for 15 years, participating in performance poetry for the past 5 years. JC has been a finalist in the Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup and has been the feature poet at a number of poetry events. 

You can listen to his music streamed on all platforms under the name soberlow.

Matt Hetherington

Matt Hetherington is a writer, music-maker, and moderately immoderate self-moderator.

He has been writing poetry for 45 years, and his seventh poetry collection, About Alone Away was published by Walleah Press in December 2024.

Current Inspirations are – grated ginger, vinyl played very loud through big black speakers, and Ninja the dingo.

Aidan Coleman

Jen Boelen