Marcella Polain was born in Singapore, and migrated to Australia with her Armenian mother and Irish father. She lives and works on unceded Wadjuk Noongar land. Marcella has a background in theatre and screen. She has published four poetry collections and two novels, as well as short fiction and braided essays. Her work has won the Anne Elder Poetry Award, has twice won the Patricia Hackett Prize, and been shortlisted for the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, the WA Premier’s Poetry Prize and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. She has also been a recipient of an Australia Council grant. With visual artist Paul Uhlmann, Marcella co-founded fold editions, dedicated to the creation of hand-made books. She has been awarded the Gold Medal by the Writers Association of Armenia and has been published internationally and in translation.

Marcella has particular interest in trauma, migration, exile, genocide (including the Armenian Genocide), counter-narrative, resistance, hybridity, and liminality. She has taught Creative Writing for over 30 years at universities in Western Australia and now holds an Honorary position at Edith Cowan University. In that time, Marcella has worked with more than three dozen emerging writers – in the community and in postgraduate courses – supervising, mentoring, and helping to shape and edit manuscripts for publication. (Her work with postgraduate students was recognised with the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research Supervision.) The writers she has worked with include: Kaya Ortiz, Brendan Ritchie, Holden Sheppard, Nandi Chinna, Shevaun Cooley, Elizabeth Lewis, Jennifer Kornberger, Karleah Olson, Jo Pollitt, and Christopher Konrad.

Fiona Murphy is an award-winning writer, editor and arts critic. She has been widely published, including in The Guardian, ABC, The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review, The Big Issue. In 2021, her memoir, The Shape of Sound was released in Australia, New Zealand, UK and North America. It was highly commended in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. She regularly lectures on creative writing and facilitates creative writing workshops. She is a MacDowell Fellow (2022) and Peter Blazey Fellow (2024).

Seana Smith is a supportive and engaged writer of factual books and memoir. She has worked as a writer for more than 35 years and has had five books traditionally published by Pan Macmillan and Ventura Press. These are: Going Under, a memoir of family secrets, addiction and escape, 2024;  Sydney For Under Fives, 2001, 2005, 2008,; The Australian Autism Handbook, 2008, 2023; Beyond The Baby Blues, 2011, 2013; and Pocket Superfoods, 2014

Seana has also independently published two books and is experienced in supporting others to learn the art of self-publishing. She is co-host of the podcast The Publisher & The Writer which covers all aspects of writing and publishing.

Maame Blue is the author of two novels; Bad Love, which won the 2021 Betty Trask award, and The Rest Of You, longlisted for the 2025 Jhalak Prose Prize. Her short stories have appeared in three anthologies, with another forthcoming in Be Gay, Do Crime in 2025. She has written for multiple publications including The Bookseller, Writers Mosaic and The Independent. She regularly mentors emerging writers working on their debut novels and nonfiction proposals, recently offering her services to Faber Academy UK and Kill Your Darlings in Australia. Maame has been a reader for multiple short story competitions including The Commonwealth Prize, The Brick Lane Short Story Prize and was a 2024 judge for the John Florio Prize. She regularly runs creative writing workshops and has taught for many places including Writing New South Wales, Writers Victoria, Kill Your Darlings and more. She splits her time between London and Melbourne.

Fiona Kelly McGregor is a writer, artist, critic, teacher and mentor with over thirty years’ experience. McGregor has published eight books and won a variety of awards, including The Age Book of the Year for Indelible Ink, a Queensland Literary Award (Steel Rudd) for short story collection Suck my Toes and the Woollahra Digital Literary Award for essay ‘The Hot Desk’. Recent nominations include the Miles Franklin, the NSW Premiers’ Award, and the Stella Prize for the novel Iris. McGregor has conducted seminars at universities and given lectures internationally on topics pertaining to writing, performance art, urban histories, memoir, street life, activism, LGBTIQ culture and politics, and more. McGregor has taught a range of creative writing subjects including fiction both long and short, narrative non-fiction, and arts and music criticism. McGregor has also taught English as a second language and mentored extensively, with several mentees progressing to publication and being shortlisted for awards. McGregor is based in Sydney, on unceded Gadigal land.

Mireille Juchau is a novelist, essayist and critic. Her third novel, The World Without Us, won the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Her essays, reviews and short fiction are widely published, most recently in The Monthly, newyorker.com, Tablet, Sydney Review of Books, Best Australian Essays and LA Review of Books. She has taught at several universities and in the community and has a PhD in literature. Mireille has also worked as an editor, at HEAT Magazine, RealTime and on several other publications.

Lliane Clarke is an experienced publisher, writer, ghost-writer, editor and journalist with over 20 years of experience in publishing in print and online. She has a passion for story-telling and helping writers to bring to life the stories they want to tell.

Lliane has managed major authors across a variety of genres from biography, cookery and crime and has commissioned titles for markets in Australia and the UK. She has written and created trade and custom publishing titles for companies such as New Hobsons Press, New Holland Publishers International, Bauer Media Books, Emap Media Magazines and others. She runs non-fiction manuscript assessment sessions for Writing NSW and presents non-fiction titles on behalf of authors to publishers such as Hardie Grant, Allen and Unwin/Murdoch, Random House Penguin and New Holland Publishers amongst others. Lliane is also an experienced communications professional with extensive experience in developing publicity campaigns.

Diana Giese has worked for publishers large and small, including Macmillan, Oxford University Press, HarperEducational and Brandl & Schlesinger, in Australia and overseas. She has collaborated with many writers to help them develop their best possible work, and produced and promoted prize-winners and excellent sellers. She is the author of six books, including Astronauts, Lost Souls and Dragons (University of Queensland Press), Beyond Chinatown (National Library of Australia) and A better place to live (Freshwater Bay Press). She has also worked as a literary journalist for major newspapers and ABC radio, and served on writers’ festival and prize committees. A recent mentoree placed his first book with a major international publisher. Diana will help you produce memoirs, fiction and history.