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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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

Jacqx Melilli

FictionJournalismKids and YAMemoirStage and screen
CopywritingEditing and proofingGhost writingJournalismJudgingPublic appearanceReviewingSchool visits
Jacqx Melilli is a playwright and author with French and Spanish heritage. Jacqx completed a Master of Arts degree in Writing and Literature from Deakin University where she studied creative writing, editing, publishing, scriptwriting and media text for children. Jacqx’s publications include When The Glitter Fades - an Australian historical fiction novel, the Lights, Camera, Action educational book series, one-act plays, Can Anybody Hear Me?; Foreigners in Oztralia; Little Red Meets the Dingo; Goldisocks and the Three Koalas; Lost Child, and Secrets That Define Us, a short story.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://jacqx.com/

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/

Rochelle Pickles

ComedyFictionKids and YAMemoirNon-fiction
Beta readingCopywritingEditing and proofingPublic appearanceSchool visits
Rochelle Pickles is a writer and editor with a background in psychology and education. Rochelle’s writing has been published in the anthologies Soak and Our Selves by Brio Books/Night Parrot Press and she co-edited the 2023 UTS Writers’ Anthology. Rochelle holds a Graduate Certificate in Editing and Publishing and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing. She has hosted Q&A and book launch events and loves to chat books.
Contact: Click to Email

Katharine Pollock

ComedyFictionRomance
Beta readingCopywritingEditing and proofingGhost writingJournalismJudgingPublic appearanceReviewingSchool visits
Katharine Pollock (PhD) is the author of Starry Eyed (Wakefield Press, 2025), and Her Fidelity (Penguin Random House, 2022). She writes comedic fiction about ordinary women leading complicated lives. Katharine holds a PhD in Creative Writing. As well as writing novels, she writes short pieces, speaks at events, and does occasional freelance editing.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://www.katharinepollock.com.au/

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.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://www.instagram.com/raiwriting/

Leonie Rogers

Speculative fiction
Collaborative projectsPublic appearanceSchool visits
Originally from Western Australia, Leonie now lives in the Upper Hunter. She is the author of the Frontier Trilogy (glowing cats, aliens, and a dangerous planet) and The Chronicles of Albatar (Kazari defends her homeland against the Gorgone Horde) - all published by Hague Publishing. She also works part time as a physiotherapist. Leonie has a past life as an emergency services volunteer, and once trekked almost six hundred kilometres with eight camels and several other human beings. She is married with one dog and two cats, one of whom frequently handicaps her ability to use a laptop computer.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: http://www.leonierogers.me/

Paris Rosemont

Poetry
Beta readingCollaborative projectsCopywritingEditing and proofingGhost writingJudgingPublic appearanceSchool visits
Paris has worked in freelance copywriting, ghostwriting (for an advice column as well as a major TV network) and editing/proofreading (during her time as a Judge's Associate). Paris's passion is poetry; her niche is performance poetry. She has performed at various events, including the Sydney Fringe Festival and Ubud Readers & Writers Festival, and is delighted to take commissions, both for written and/or performance poetry. Paris has been a judge for writing competitions and enjoys teaching young people and adults about poetry, creative writing, public speaking and the art of performance poetry via workshops and/or private tuition. 
Contact: Click to Email
Website: http://www.parisrosemont.com/

Sara Saleh

FictionNon-fictionPoetry
Collaborative projectsEditing and proofingJudgingPublic appearanceReviewingSchool visits
Sara M Saleh is an award-winning writer/poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been widely published nationally in English and Arabic. She is co-editor of the groundbreaking 2019 anthology Arab, Australian, Other. Sara made history as the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review's 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2020. Sara lives on Bidjigal land with her partner and their cats, Cappy & Lola. Songs for the Dead and the Living is her first novel and her full-length poetry collection, The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazal el-Banat is forthcoming at the end of 2023.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: https://www.saramsaleh.com/

Hayley Scrivenor

CrimeFiction
Editing and proofingJudgingMentoringPublic appearance
I am a former festival director and the internationally bestselling author of Dirt Town. The novel has won a number of national and international awards, including an ABIA for General Fiction Book of the Year, a Lambda Literary award for LGBTQ+ Mystery and the CWA New Blood Dagger. I particularly enjoy one-on-one mentoring with emerging writers and I am also an accomplished MC. I have served as a judge for short story and novel prizes, including the New York-based Lambda Literary Awards. I hold a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong.
Contact: Click to Email
Website: http://www.hayleyscrivenor.com/

Christina Shamista

FictionPoetry
Collaborative projectsGhost writingPublic appearanceSchool visits
Christine is a poet and writer of Sri Lankan Tamil ancestry, who lives on Wangal land in Sydney. Her debut book is a book of poetry, Soft Side of Red, published in November 2023 by Gazebo Books. She has also published reviews and poetry in a range of journals, including Mascara Literary Review, and Kill Your Darlings. She is currently writing contemporary fiction novels. She is an involved and passionate supporter of Australian writers, is on the Writing NSW Board as a non executive director, and frequently attends a range of writers and readers festivals. 
Contact: Click to Email
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