Poetry Reading

Peter Goldsworthy divides his working time between medicine and writing. His novels have sold over 400,000 copies in Australia alone, and his writing has been shortlisted and won major literary awards across a range of genres: poetry, short story, novels, theatre, and opera libretti. His most recent book is Minotaur.

Joy Harjo is the US Poet Laureate. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. Her seven books of poetry have garnered many awards, including the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas; and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her most recent publication is For a Girl Becoming, a young adult/coming of age book.

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.

Peter Rose is the author of six collections of poetry and the family memoir Rose Boys. He is Editor of Australian Book Review.

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.

Ali Cobby Eckermann’s first poetry collection little bit long time was written in the desert.  Its 2009 publication launched her literary career.  Her verse novel Ruby Moonlight won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and Book Of The Year at the 2013 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and in 2014 she was the inaugural recipient of the Tungkunungka Pintyanthi Fellowship at Adelaide Festival Literary Awards. In 2017 Ali received a Windham-Campbell Award for Poetry from Yale University. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at RMIT Melbourne.