Find a Writer

Find a Writer is an online writer profile listing providing promotional support for Writing NSW members. Simply filter using the options below to find professionals from across Writing NSW’s community available for work in a wide variety of disciplines and genres.

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Amy Lovat

Fiction
Beta readingCopywritingEditing and proofingGhost writingJudgingPublic appearanceReviewing
Amy Lovat is the author of Mistakes and Other Lovers (Pan Macmillan 2023) and the founder of online bookstore Secret Book Stuff. She has a PhD from the University of Newcastle where she's taught creative writing and the humanities for almost a decade. Amy is a professional editor and proofreader and has worked as a copywriter, subeditor and ghostwriter. She’s the former Program Manager of Writing NSW and current Program Manager of the Newcastle Writers Festival. Amy loves mentoring emerging writers, helping people tell stories with heart, and immersing herself in books and words.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://amylovat.com

Ashley Lowe

JournalismMemoirNon-fiction
Collaborative projectsCopywritingEditing and proofingJournalism
Ashley Lowe is a freelance writer, editor and content marketing specialist. Having written for some of Australia's top-selling weekly magazines, Ashley now predominantly works brand-side for clients in industries as diverse as health, beauty, law, private equity, psychology and even construction. Ashley also writes a weekly newsletter on the realities of life, In The Thick Of It, which can be found on Substack.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: http://inthethickofit.substack.com/

Emily Maguire

FictionJournalismMemoirNon-fiction
JournalismJudgingPublic appearanceSchool visits
Emily Maguire is the author of six novels, including the Stella Prize and Miles Franklin shortlisted An Isolated Incident, and three non-fiction books. Emily’s articles and essays on sex, feminism, culture and literature have been published widely including in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Observer and The Age. Emily works as a teacher and as a mentor to emerging and established writers, was the 2018/2019 Writer-in-Residence at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney and is the 2023 HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellow at the Australian National University. Her latest book is the novel Love Objects.
Website: https://www.emilymaguire.com.au

Sarah Malik

JournalismMemoir
Beta readingCollaborative projectsCopywritingEditing and proofingGhost writingJournalismJudgingPublic appearanceReviewingSchool visitsTranslation
Sarah Malik is a Walkley award winning senior investigative journalist, author and broadcaster, with two decades of media experience. She is the creator and EP of the SBS podcasts My Ramadan and The SBS Book Club. She also co-hosted and co-produced Let Me Tell You (winner of the gold Best Arts/Culture podcast at the 2022 Australian Podcast awards, and honoree at the 2023 Webby Awards), and the New Writers Room podcast. Her New Writers Room interview with Larissa Behrendt and Jazz Money was awarded bronze for Best Interview at the 2022 Australian podcast awards. Her work focuses on domestic violence, asylum and in its intersection with gender and race. She has been featured in the Sydney Review of Books, New York Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian. She has also produced and presented programs for ABC Radio National and Al Jazeera. Her debut memoir Desi Girl: On feminism, race, faith and belonging was published by UQP 2022. Her second book Safar: Muslim women’s stories of travel and transformation was published by Hardie Grant. In 2023 she was a keynote speaker for International Women’s Day at UTS speaking on the power of education, intersectionality and advancing women’s rights globally.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://sarahbmalik.com/

Alice Mantel

CrimeJournalismNon-fiction
Beta readingCollaborative projectsCopywritingEditing and proofingGhost writingJournalismPublic appearance
Alice is a former lawyer and an experienced professional writer and editor who specialises in the legal publication area. As a fast and accurate writer, over the past 10 years, she has also written copy for sales and marketing teams. She has a deep interest and understanding of women’s issues in getting older and wrote Every Woman’s Guide to Retirement to meet the need for a comprehensive and practical guide to managing post-retirement challenges. Consequently, Alice has given many talks to community groups about retirement and elder law. In her spare time, Alice writes short stories which occasionally get published. 
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://www.manteladvisory.com.au/

Mark Marusic

FictionMemoirNon-fictionPoetry
Collaborative projectsEditing and proofingGhost writingPublic appearanceSchool visits
Mark Marusic has been writing poetry since the mid 1990s. Four years ago he turned his versing to a longer format - a verse novel. Themes in his shorter poems include environment and home, and our relationships with these. His poems have been published in a range of journals and magazines. He has self-published two poetry books – Mercurial Meanderings and Iconoclastic Journeys, also co-publishing four anthologies – A Square Circle, and Poetsconsortorium; Anthology of Poets at the Petersham Bowlo (three volumes). He also writes short stories, plays, verse novels, prose novels and philosophy papers.
Contact: Click to Email

Catherine McCullagh

Fiction
JudgingPublic appearance
Catherine McCullagh has published three non-fiction books, Willingly into the Fray (2010), a history of Australian Army nursing, War Child (2016), a wartime memoir, and Unconquered (2019), stories from the 2018 Invictus Games. Catherine’s first historical novel, Dancing with Deception (2017), was re-released in 2022. Her second novel, Secrets and Showgirls (2021), was followed by Love and Retribution (2022) and Resistance and Revenge (2023). Her areas of interest centre on wartime history, particularly daily life during periods of conflict such as World War I and II, and the impact of conflict on society and the individual.  
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://www.facebook.com/catherinemccullaghauthor

Garry McDougall

CrimeFiction
Beta readingCollaborative projectsEditing and proofingJudgingPublic appearanceSchool visits
Garry McDougall is a former lecturer and Artist-in-Residence at University of Western Sydney, and tutor at WEA. He is the winner of the Art-in-Unusual-Places Grant, 2022, Peter Cowan Short Story Prize, 2015, and editor of Coming Up for Air, Wonoona Storyteller Workshops, 2022. Garry was a feature poet at Sydney Writers Festival, 2017, and has over thirty published works including six novels, travel, poetry, as well as numerous short stories and poems published in international magazines. Garry is the author of Belonging, Knowing Simone, and is a specialist in general fiction, historical fiction, travel and photography, and the world’s most prolific writer on the Camino de Santiago.
Contact: Click to Email

Katrina McKelvey

Kids and YA
Editing and proofingJudgingPublic appearanceSchool visits
Katrina McKelvey is a children’s author, former primary school teacher and mother living in Newcastle, NSW. She’s highly involved in CBCA, SCBWI, Littlescribe, community events, literary conferences and festivals, and loves visiting schools. She’s written many children's picture books and educational readers including her new titles, My Heart (March, 2024) and three Healthy Harold Big Books for the newly released Life Education Australia Early Years program. Katrina is left-handed, loves tea, scary movies and rollercoasters, and is addicted to mint chocolate. When she was little, a hot air balloon accidentally landed in her backyard.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: http://www.katrinamckelvey.com/

Melissa McNamara

Kids and YAMemoir
Beta readingCopywritingEditing and proofingGhost writing
Melissa is a writer, editor, proofreader and English teacher. She has Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Deakin University, a Bachelor of Education (Primary and Early Childhood), and post graduate degrees in editing, publishing and psychological science. Melissa has an unwavering passion for the written word and a profound love of storytelling.
Contact: Click to Email

Jane Messer

FictionMemoirNon-fictionRomanceSpeculative fiction
Collaborative projectsEditing and proofingJudgingPublic appearance
Author, Mentor, Developmental Editor: Jane has worked with many writers at all stages of their careers over the past thirty years. She offers mentoring, developmental editing, writing workshops, and grant writing assistance. Jane has published and broadcast works across fiction, memoir, radio drama, and scholarly essays. Her books include the novels Hopscotch, Provenance, and Night By Night. For over 15 years she led the postgraduate creative writing programs at Macquarie University.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://janemesser.com/

Michelle Morgan

FictionKids and YAStage and screen
Public appearanceSchool visits
Michelle Morgan is the author of two teen novels - Flying through Clouds (2017) and Racing the Moon (2014). Four of Michelle’s plays havevbeen performed in Short Play festivals in Sydney, Newcastle and Armidale, and excerpts of her play Karma were performed at Kings Cross Theatre in 2019. She is also a songwriter and co-wrote the songs on Luke Johnson’s albums – Goodbye Frankie (2021) and Little Worlds (2022) - and on Studio8’s debut album - Into the New – to be released in 2024. Michelle plays keyboard and sings backing vocals in Studio8.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: http://www.michellejmorgan.com.au/

Adrian Mouhajer

ComedyFictionMemoirNon-fictionPoetryRomanceStage and screen
Beta readingCollaborative projectsEditing and proofingGhost writingJournalismJudgingPublic appearanceReviewingSchool visits
Adrian is a queer non-binary Lebanese-Australian writer and editor from Western Sydney. Their work centres on spirituality, desire, love, grief, and understanding. They have performed their poetry for Bankstown Poetry Slam, Queerstories, Eulogy for the Dyke Bar and Cement Fondu. Their work has been published with Hardie Grant Books, SBS, Aniko Press and Diversity Arts Australia. They were shortlisted for the 2022 SBS Emerging Writers Competition and the 2021 Sydney Opera House Antidote Mentorship for Diverse Emerging Writers. Adrian edited the anthology Stories Out West, which centres LGBTIQ+ First Nations and CALD writers with a connection to Western Sydney.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://www.instagram.com/adrian_alleles/

Belinda Murrell

FictionKids and YANon-fiction
Public appearanceSchool visits
At about the age of eight, Belinda Murrell began writing stirring tales of adventure, mystery and magic in hand-illustrated exercise books. As an adult, she combined two of her great loves – writing and travelling the world – and worked as a travel writer, journalist and public relations consultant. Now, inspired by her own three children, Belinda is an award-winning, internationally published children’s author with a history of writing in her family that spans over 200 years. Belinda has written over 35 books including The Golden Tower and The Silver Sea, her fantasy adventure series The Sun Sword trilogy and her award-winning time-slip adventures, The Locket of Dreams, The Ruby Talisman, The Ivory Rose, The Forgotten Pearl, The River Charm, The Sequin Star, and The Lost Sapphire. For younger readers Belinda has her popular Lulu Bell and Pippa’s Island series. Her new junior fiction series, The Daredevil Princess, is about a brave and bold young girl solving mysteries in the Queendom of Blumenfeld. Belinda won the Society of Women Writers 2023 Di Yerbury award, a three month residency in the UK.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: http://www.belindamurrell.com.au/

Virginia Muzik

MemoirNon-fiction
Collaborative projectsCopywritingEditing and proofing
Virginia Muzik is a copywriter, proofreader and feature writer with a Bachelor of Communication (UTS). Her short-form memoir and features have appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Big Issue, Stereo Stories and Months to Years. She has written for Newtown Review of Books, and the anthologies, Grieve Vol. 10 (2022: Hunter Writers Centre), Product 45 (2015: Murray Bennett) and Dogs that Make a Difference (2014: Penguin Books Australia). Virginia’s writing explores grief, the body and self, music (as a consumer and singer), and living with complex trauma and chronic pain. She’s based in Sydney on unceded Gadigal land.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: http://www.virginiamuzik.com/

Denise O'Hagan

FictionPoetry
Editing and proofingReviewingSchool visits
Denise O’Hagan is an editor and poet with a background in commercial book publishing in London and Sydney. Recipient of the Dalkey Poetry Prize, she has been shortlisted in the Robert Graves Poetry Prize, the Bridport Poetry Prize and the Proverse International Poetry Prize. She was Poetry Editor for Australia/New Zealand for Irish literary journal The Blue Nib. Her recent poetry collection, Anamnesis, was a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Award (USA) and shortlisted in the International Rubery Book Award (UK). Denise enjoys editing and critiquing individual poems and short fiction as well as manuscript assessment.
Contact: Click to Email

Amra Pajalic

FictionJournalismKids and YAMemoirNon-fictionRomance
JournalismJudgingPublic appearanceSchool visits
Amra Pajalić is an award-winning author, editor and teacher who draws on her Bosnian cultural heritage to write own voices stories for young people, who like her, are searching to mediate their identity and take pride in their diverse culture. She won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature's Civic Choice Award for her debut novel The Good Daughter, re-released as Sabiha's Dilemma (Pishukin Press, 2022). The anthology she co-edited, Growing up Muslim in Australia (Allen and Unwin, 2014), was shortlisted for the 2015 Children's Book Council awards and her memoir Things Nobody Knows But Me (Transit Lounge, 2019) was shortlisted for the 2020 National Biography Award. Amra has published non-fiction including opinion and analysis, reviews and memoir pieces, in ArtsHub, Kalliope, The Guardian, The Age, Southerly, Overland, AEU Magazines, Meanjin and 25 memoir pieces in SBS Voices. She writes romance as Mae Archer.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://www.amrapajalic.com/

Vivian Pham

ComedyFictionKids and YAPoetryRomanceStage and screen
Beta readingCollaborative projectsCopywritingEditing and proofingJudgingPublic appearanceReviewingSchool visits
Vivian Pham is a Vietnamese novelist, essayist and poet from south-western Sydney. In high school she wrote a novel called The Coconut Children, which was published in March 2020 by Penguin Random House. In 2021, she won the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist Award and the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year for her work. She has twice attended the International Congress of Youth Voices, a summit for young activists nominated by nonprofits around the world for their writing and engagement. She is currently perfecting writing the film and stage adaptations of The Coconut Children.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://www.instagram.com/long.live.viv/

Kathy Prokhovnik

FictionJournalismMemoirNon-fiction
Beta readingCollaborative projectsCopywritingEditing and proofingGhost writingJournalismReviewing
Kathy Prokhovnik writes fiction (long form, short stories, microfiction) and nonfiction. She is currently finalising her second novel and preparing her social history of Sydney, Seeking Sydney, for a podcast series. She is also a technical writer with extensive training and experience in research, writing and editing expertise. She has worked extensively on the production of examination materials, print books, ebooks, articles, newsletters, media releases, user guides, publicity material, fact sheets, equipment manuals, business reports and websites. She has been successful in many Australian short story writing competitions and has been published in anthologies and online and print journals.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: http://kathyprokhovnik.com/

Natasha Rai

Fiction
Beta readingJudgingPublic appearanceSchool visits
Natasha, a Sydney-based Indian-Australian woman, was born in India, migrating to Australia with her parents at the age of ten. She lived in the UK for several years as an adult, and the influence of three homes features in her writing. Her work has appeared in Australia’s first #MeToo anthology, Enough Anthology about gender violence, Overland, Verity La, StylusLit, and New-York based Adelaide magazine. Her first novel, An Onslaught of Light, longlisted for the 2017 Richell Prize, 2018 KYD Unpublished Manuscript award, and highly commended for the Ultimo Press/Westwords 2020 Prize, will be published by Pantera Press in 2025.
Website: https://www.instagram.com/raiwriting/
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