David Allan-Petale is a writer and journalist who previously worked for the ABC. His debut novel Locust Summer was shortlisted for the 2021 WA Premier’s Book Awards and the Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award, and was longlisted for the prestigious ALS Gold Medal, awarded by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature.
Peta Beasley is an Adjunct Research Fellow in the School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia. She has a PhD in English Literature and taught at both The University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University. She currently works at the Lane Bookshop and is a guide at the Art Gallery of WA.
Brooke Dunnell is the author of the novels Last Best Chance and The Glass House, which won the 2021 Fogarty Literary Award. Her short fiction collection Female(s and) Dogs was a finalist for the 2020 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award and shortlisted for the 2021 Woollahra Digital Literary Prize. Brooke has been a judge in a range of short story competitions including the Peter Carey Short Story Award and the City of Armadale Writers Awards.
Aliyah Fedec is a third-year student at the University of Notre Dame studying English Literature and Marketing. After finishing her degree, she hopes to spend the rest of her life working with stories, whether they be her own or someone else’s. Aliyah aims to enter the publishing industry and has found her experience as an intern with the Australian Short Story Festival to be invaluable. It has been an incredible insight into the workings of the industry and the creative geniuses that call Australia home, and she has a great admiration for everyone involved with the Festival. Aliyah is extremely grateful to have met so many people who hold such passion for their craft. She has been able to put her learning into practice and has been thoroughly inspired during her internship.
Nadia Heisler is a former journalist from Brazil who has been living in Perth since 2013. After having countless jobs while learning English, she finally summoned her courage to do what she loves the most: writing. Her work has been published in SBS Voices, Under the Paving Stones, the Beach, and Three Can Keep a Secret. She lives in a full house with three fur babies, two actual babies, and the love of her life.
Lekkie Hopkins is a writer, former academic and teacher. She has published widely in feminist studies and is the author of On Voice and Silence, which investigates the intersection between feminism and poststructuralism. Lekkie has also written two biographies of prominent Australian female politicians: Among the Chosen, and The Magnificent Like of Miss May Holman.
Helena Kadmos teaches undergraduates and postgraduates in English Literature on the Fremantle campus of the University of Notre Dame. She is the national Discipline Group Lead for English Literature, Theatre Studies and Writing. Her research engages scholarly and creative methodologies, Australian literature, the short story cycle, motherhood and the representation of women in narrative fiction, and her creative writing includes fiction, and non-fiction essays on sustainability, memory, and grief.
Laura Keenan worked as a senior editor for the Perseus Books Group in Boulder, Colorado, where she managed the publication of a diverse range of books across multiple imprints. Since then, she has worked as an editor at UWA Publishing and as a freelance editor and consultant for various publishers, academia and emerging and established writers. She is the co-founder and editor of Night Parrot Press, a West Australian publisher devoted to celebrating the shorter forms of fictional narrative and memoir.
Sarah McNeill is an actor, producer, arts writer, MC and facilitator. As an actor, she has appeared in films, television and theatre for over 30 years, and is the producer and presenter of Lit Live, a boutique literature-in-performance company. As well as regular theatrical performances, Lit Live is also part of the literary festival and book launch scene in WA.
Sarah is also the arts editor for Post Newspapers.
Emily Paull is a Western Australian librarian, author and book reviewer. Having formerly worked in bookselling, Emily is an avid reader and a big supporter of the WA writing community who regularly moderates author interviews around Perth. In 2019, her debut collection of short fiction, Well-Behaved Women, was published by Margaret River Press. She was shortlisted in the 2023 Fogarty Literary Award for her manuscript ‘The Dreamers’, and Highly Commended in 2021 for ‘The Good Daughter’. ‘The Dreamers’ will be published as The Distance Between Dreams by Fremantle Press in 2025.
Deborah Pike is an academic and writer based in Sydney. She is the author of The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald, shortlisted for the AUHE literary criticism award. She lived in Paris for several years, immersed in the literary scene and working at Shakespeare and Company bookstore. An award-winning teacher, her research focuses on modernist literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her debut novel, The Players, was published in 2024.
Rochelle Siemienowicz is a writer, editor and arts journalist. Her first book, Fallen, is a memoir about sex, religion and marrying too young. Her recently published debut novel Double Happiness is a polyamorous love story. Rochelle’s work has been published widely, including in The Age, SBS, Kill Your Darlings, The Big Issue, Metro, ArtsHub and Kalliope X.
Josephine Taylor is a writer and editor, and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University. Her debut novel, Eye of a Rook, was published in 2021 and subsequently shortlisted in the WA Premier’s Book Awards. Her short-form creative and critical writing has been anthologised and published widely, most recently in Australian Feminist Studies. Josephine is currently at work on her second novel.
Tess Woods is an award-winning and bestselling author of contemporary fiction. Her novels have been published across North America and sold into Europe for translation. Her latest novel The Venice Hotel became an instant Top 10 Australian best seller in its debut week. It is due for release in Europe in September 2025, after a hotly contested bidding war at the London Book Fair.
Will Yeoman is an Australian citizen of mixed Samoan and Scottish descent. He was Literary Editor at The West Australian before moving into arts and travel, and he remains a freelancer for The West Australian, as well as a music critic for Limelight and Gramophone magazines. Will is Artistic Director of York Regional Writers Weekend; previously he was Artistic Director of York Festival, New Norcia Writers Festival, and Perth Festival Writers Week. A lover of literature from an early age, Will is also a keen classical guitarist who enjoys collaborating on spoken word and music performances with writers and poets, including Stephen Scourfield and John Kinsella.
