Hear Me Roar!

Maxine Beneba Clarke is a widely published Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent. She won the Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) for Literary Fiction and the Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction for Foreign Soil (2015) and the NSW Premier's Literary Multicultural Awards for her memoir, The Hate Race. Both were shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her poetry collection Carrying the World (2017) won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry. The Patchwork Bike, Maxine's first picture book with Van T. Rudd, was a CBCA Honour Book for 2017.

Ian Gibbins is a widely-published Adelaide poet, video artist and electronic musician working across diverse forms. He used to be a neuroscientist and Professor of Anatomy at Flinders University.

Emelia Haskey is a rising star on the Adelaide poetry scene as a 2017 and 2018 finalist of the Goolwa Poetry Cup, finalist of the SA Poetry Slam 2018 and winner of the slam in 2019, as well as the winner of the SAEFTA Spring Poetry Festival Senior Poetry prize. She is currently working on publishing her first collection and serving on the Friendly Street Poetry committee.

Laniyuk was born of a French mother and a Larrakia, Kungarrakan and Gurindji father. She contributed to Colouring the Rainbow: Blak Queer and Trans Perspectives and awarded the Indigenous residency (Canberra's Noted Writers Festival 2017, Overland’s Writers Residency 2018).

Luka Lesson is a poet who has performed with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, had poems studied in Australian curriculums and runs his own poetry retreat in Greece every year. Luka's latest solo work Agapi & Other Kinds of Love will premiere in 2020.

H. M. Naqvi is the acclaimed author of Home Boy, which won the inaugural DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Naqvi has worked in the financial services industry, taught creative writing at Boston University, run a spoken word venue, and appeared on CNN, National Public Radio, and Bloomberg TV. He is currently Visiting Professor at the Lahore Institute of Management Sciences. The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack is his second book.

Caroline Reid is an award-winning writer who found her feet in the theatre, so her poetry is steeped in the oral tradition. In 2016 she read her first poem in public. Two years later she qualified as one of the Top 5 poets in the Australian Poetry Slam.

David Stavanger is a poet, performer, cultural producer, editor and lapsed psychologist. His poetry collection The Special won several awards and he is the co-editor of SOLID AIR: Collected Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word.  His new collection is Case Notes.  David is sometimes known as Green Room-nominated spoken weird artist Ghostboy. These days he lives between the stage and the page.

Anne-Marie Te Whiu (Annie) is the Co-Editor of Solid Air: Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word.  Born in Brisbane, she is of Māori and Scottish, English & Irish descent, her tribal affiliations are Ngāpuhi and Te Rarawa. She has directed several festivals, most recently as Co-Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival from 2015-17. She is an emerging poet and weaver.

Jessica Alice is a poet, editor and writer. She is Director of Writers SA, the peak organisation for literature in South Australia.

wāni is a trans-disciplinary artist of Indigenous Ba Shi heritage. He is the founder of Sapologie the showcase, winner of the 2019 Wyndham Art Prize as well as the current Australian Poetry Slam Champion.  wāni is also a Greenroom award winner for his experimental theatre work Tales of an Afronaut.

Manal Younus is an Australian based freelance storyteller from Eritrea who believes that language and stories are the very fabric of our existence. Using her writing and performance, Manal explores different aspects of life from perseverance, identity, travel and truth.