Category: People

Michael Moller has a deep commitment to Australian literature as a reader, writer and educator. His scholarly work has been published in Remote Control: New Media, New Ethics, The Journal of Gender Studies, and Cultural Studies Review, among other publications. He works as Head Teacher, English at Auburn Girls High School, leading the Faculty of English in educating the next generation of readers and writers in the analysis and interpretation of literary texts and in the creation of new work. He is passionate about the dynamic nature of Australian literature and the creative potential of young voices.

Axel-Nathaniel Rose is an author, editor, and academic based at UNSW Sydney. His research crosses literary studies, fan studies, queer studies, and book history. His research has appeared in Axon: Creative Explorations, Transformative Works and Cultures, and Ludic Inquiries Into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education. His short stories and poetry have been published in Unsweetened Literary Journal and Tharunka, and his novella, Stars, Hide Your Fires, will be published in a forthcoming anthology from Penguin Vintage. He is a co-opted committee member of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs, and he is administrative assistant and blogs editor for Southerly.

Craig Billingham is a writer and academic. He has published two collections of poetry (Storytelling, 2007; Public Transport, 2017) and numerous short stories, essays, and reviews. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at UNSW.

Melody Ellis is a writer and creative practice researcher interested in the politics of value and taste, language, interpretation, and subjectivity. Her work is informed by critical theory, philosophy, and art – as well as a long history of participating in grassroots artist-led collaborative projects. Melody is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University where she is currently Program Manager of the Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours) degree and is a member of the non/fictionLab research group. She is also co-convenor of the Gutter Stars comics collective.

Paul Dawson’s latest collection of poetry is Lines of Desire (Puncher & Watmann, 2025). His first book, Imagining Winter (IP, 2006), won the national IP Picks Best Poetry Award. Paul has been anthologised in Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (Puncher & Wattmann, 2013) and Harbour City Poems: Sydney in Verse 1788-2008 (Puncher & Wattmann, 2009), and his poetry and short stories have appeared in top Australian literary journals such as Meanjin, Island, Overland, Southerly, Westerly, Cordite Poetry Review, Australian Poetry Journal, Peril Magazine, Mascara Literary Review, and The Sleepers Almanac. Paul is also an internationally recognized scholar. He has published three…

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Dr Luke Johnson, Incoming Fiction Editor: Luke Johnson is a writer and academic from Wollongong, NSW. He is the author of two books: the short-collection Ferocious Animals (Recent Work Press, 2021), and Kangaroo Unbound (Puncher & Wattmann, 2025) – a collection of 50-odd poems that take their titles and inspiration from legendary Australian artist Garry Shead’s ‘D.H. Lawrence’ paintings. His poems, stories, essays and criticism have appeared in such places as Griffith Review, HEAT, Island, Southerly, Overland, Westerly, The Lifted Brow, Going Down Swinging, Meniscus, TEXT, Mascara Literary Review, The Age, The Herald Sun, The Conversation and Australian Book Review,…

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Debra Adelaide is continuing as the Fiction Editor of Southerly. She is the author or editor of 18 books, including fiction, non-fiction, edited collections and reference works. Her 2018 novel, The Household Guide to Dying, was published to acclaim in Australia and around the world, and was short- and long-listed for several literary awards, including the former international Orange Prize, now the Women’s Prize, for fiction. Other fiction includes Letter to George Clooney (2013), which was shortlisted for the Nita B. Kibble Award, The Women’s Pages (2015), and Zebra (2019), winner of the short story category in the Queensland Literary…

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Roanna Gonsalves is an award-winning writer and educator with an interdisciplinary practice. Roanna is a recipient of a NSW Premier’s Literary Award for her collection of short fiction The Permanent Resident (UWAP, 2016) as well as of the UNSW Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, and the Prime Minister’s Australia Asia Endeavour Award. She has been an invited Keynote Speaker, Chair and panellist at literary events across Australia and internationally. She has been teaching, supervising and mentoring emerging prose writers and screenwriters within communities, schools, literary organizations and institutions for many years. She is a recipient of grants from Creative…

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