Mirandi Riwoe is the author of Stone Sky Gold Mountain, which won the 2020 Queensland Literary Award – Fiction Book Award and the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Her short story collection, The Burnished Sun, includes the novella, The Fish Girl, which won Seizure Viva la Novella and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her latest book is Sunbirds.
Journalist and author Michael Burge is based at Deepwater in the NSW New England region. His debut novel Tank Water (MidnightSun Publishing) is a coming-of-age crime novel exploring the taboo subject of homophobia in rural Australia. He has written for Guardian Australia, Fairfax Media and The Journal of Australian Studies.
Mykaela Saunders is a Koori/Goori and Lebanese writer and the editor of THIS ALL COME BACK NOW. Mykaela was awarded the 2022 David Unaipon Award for ALWAYS WILL BE and has won prizes for short fiction, poetry, life writing and research. Mykaela holds the 2023 Macquarie University Fellowship for Indigenous Research.
Yen-Rong Wong is an arts critic and award-winning writer. She won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer in 2022, and the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award in 2020. Her work has appeared in many print and online publications, including The Guardian, Sydney Review of Books, Meanjin, and Griffith Review. Me, Her, Us is her debut book of non-fiction.
Naima Brown is the author of The Shot (fiction, Pan Macmillan, 2023), How To Age Against the Machine (non-fiction, Hardie Grant, 2023), and the upcoming novel Mother Tongue (PanMacmillan, 2025). Her short fiction has appeared in Popshot Magazine and the Love On The Road anthology. Her essays have appeared in The Guardian Australia, Vogue Australia, and more. In addition to her writing, she is also a documentary (SBS, Channel 7) and podcast producer, having created five Audible Original series. Originally from California, she now calls the Northern Rivers of Australia home, where she lives with her husband and dog.
Sarah Daley is a social worker and play therapist living on Bundjalung land. She provides psychotherapy to foster healing through play and creativity for children and youth. Sarah has facilitated community publishing projects through the Gugin Gudduba Local Aboriginal Land Council in Kyogle, and in Melbourne and Timor-Leste. Sarah believes in the power of storytelling to build hope and resilience.
Rosemary Nissen-Wade’s work has appeared in paper and digital journals, anthologies, and her own volumes. In the past she was involved in Melbourne Poets Union, poetry workshops in Pentridge Prison, and Word of Mouth Poetry Theatre. She has run workshops in TAFE and tertiary colleges and Neighbourhood Centres. Resident in Northern Rivers for the past 30 years, she now combines poetry and memoir.