Jenni Kemarre Martiniello is an award winning poet, writer, editor, publisher, photographer, visual artist and academic of Arrernte, Chinese and Anglo-Celtic descent. Jennifer was awarded the Canberra Critics Circle Award 2000 for Literature, and an ACT Creative Arts Fellowship in 2003. She is a former member of the Aboriginal Studies Press Advisory Committee and her poetry, prose and essays have been published in journals and anthologies nationally and internationally, including in the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature. Her poetry has been translated into Polish, Spanish and Arabic. Jennifer has judged past NSW and Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, and the David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Literature, 2006 -2010. Her prizes include the Banjo Paterson Poetry Prize and the Henry Lawson Short Story Prize. Jennifer has published seven books, and represented Australia as an Indigenous writer at Festivals of Pacific Arts in 2004 and 2012.
Kate McNamara was a poet, playwright and critical theorist. Her plays have been performed internationally. McNamara delivered the opening address to the Fourth International Conference of Women Playwrights in Galway (2001). She was awarded the H.C. Coombs Fellowship at ANU (1991) and elected to the Emeritus Faculty. She won The Banjo Patterson Award for her short story Verity. Her published works include Leaves, The Rule of Zip (AGP), Praxis and The Void Zone (AGP). Her poetry, short fiction and critical theory have been published in a number of anthologies including There is No Mystery (ed. K Kituai, 1998), The Death Mook (ed. Dion Kagan, 2008) These Strange Outcrops (2020) and The Blue Nib (2020) She also worked extensively as an editor and returned to her first great love, poetry, later in life. McNamara had finished working on The Burning Times when she died, and we hope to see it published posthumously.
Robert Verdon was a member of Aberrant Genotype Press, 1998-2002. He came second in the 2012 W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia. His books include The Well-Scrubbed Desert (Polonius, 1994), Her Brilliant Career (Aberrant Genotype Press, 1998), My Cat Eats Spaghetti (Ginninderra Press, 2000), Before we Knew this Century (erbacce, 2010), a spiral life (Resurgam, 2021), and Glass Cassowary (Walleah, 2025). He has a PhD from University of Canberra on the subject of how imagined dramatic scenes can be used in creating poems.
Judith Nangala Crispin is an artist and poet of Bpangerang and Gunaikurnai descent. She spends part of every year living and working in the Tanami Desert, in Warlpiri Country, where she maintains strong community links. Her work deals with issues of displacement and connection to Country. Judith has published two collections of poetry, The Myrrh-Bearers (Puncher & Wattmann, 2015) and The Lumen Seed (Daylight Books, 2017). Her illustrated verse novel, The Dingo’s Noctuary, (Puncher & Wattmann, 2025) won the Marion Halligan Award in 2026.
Paul Collis is a Barkindji man, born in Bourke in far western New South Wales on the Darling River. Paul worked in Newcastle for much of his young adult life in the areas of teaching and in Aboriginal community development positions. He has taught Aboriginal Studies to Indigenous inmates at the Worimi and Mount Penang juvenile detention centres and in Cessnock and Maitland prisons. Paul has a Bachelor of Arts degree and a doctorate in Communications. He lives in Canberra and works as a Creative Writing academic at the University of Canberra. His novel Dancing Home (University of Queensland Press) won the David Unaipon Award. His poetry collection Nightmares Run Like Mercury (Recent Works Press) was published in 2021, and Wita Witalana (Recent Works Press 2025) won an ACT Book of the Year Award for Poetry in 2026. He is co-editor of Storyground: the Anthology (Recent Works Press) with Jen Crawford.
Sue Donnelly lives on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. She is a part of the organising group for That Poetry Thing That Is On At Smith’s Every Monday . As a performance poet she is passionate about bringing words to life. Sue is known for her short poems. ‘Heartfelt Moments’ was published by Ginninderra Press. Her poems and short stories have been published in numerous anthologies. She was a guest poet at M16 Artspace, and her poetry was also welcomed at Belconnen Arts Centre as part of a Commemorative Anthology. Sue has been a guest poet at the Canberra Botanic Gardens for Tree Week, Box Hill Theatre, Federation Square, Eltham Festival, and has been a poet on radio in Canberra, Melbourne and South Australia.
Audrey McCormick is a medical receptionist by day and poet by night. Her poetry explores her experiences as a young, queer woman in Australia. She has been a three-time national finalist in the Australian Poetry Slam and has performed her poetry at events including Enlighten Festival, the National Folk Festival, the Australian Love Stories exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and Poetic City. Audrey was 18 when she wrote her poem Patchy Shade for Kindred Trees, but she did not stay 18 for very long. She is currently trying to ignore the passage of time.
Sarah Rice’s poetry collection Fingertip of the Tongue (UWAP) won the Eyelands International Book Awards, and her Text/ure project (poetry, music, art) was the recipient of two Canberra Critics Circle Awards. Her art-book of poetry Those Who Travel is held in the National Gallery of Australia, and other institutions, and her art and poetry chapbook Care-Stopis published with Recent Work Press. Her newest collection of poetry and visual images Alight on all things precious has recently been released with Liquid Amber. Sarah won the Ron Pretty and Bruce Dawe poetry prizes, co-won the Writing Ventures, and Gwen Harwood poetry prizes, placed second in the Val Vallis Awards, and been shortlisted in numerous poetry prizes, including the Montreal, Bridport, Aesthetica, Newcastle, Fish, New Millenium, and Overland, amongst others, and her work has been widely published. Sarah teaches art-theory, drawing, and cross-media workshops, as well as exhibiting her own visual work, and enjoys collaborations across art, music, and writing.
Kathy Kituai has published a four-part radio documentary for NBC, seven poetry collections, five anthologies, a children’s story, and received two Canberra Critic Awards for her teaching in Scotland, South Australia, New South Wales, and the ACT since 1990. She has also been the tanka editor for Cattails, creative editor for Muse magazine (twice) and assistant editor for Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, her poetry has been published in Japan, UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and has won international awards. Her tanka collection, Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls, won the 2016 ACT Writing and Publisher Award.
Sarah St Vincent Welch is known for chalking her poetry on the footpaths at arts festivals. She is one of the organisers of That Poetry Thing that is On at Smiths Every Monday. Her poem Marion won the inaugural City of Design Poetry Award in 2018. She has facilitated creative writing in the Canberra community for many years, and also works as a writer, editor, and image-maker. Her chapbook Open was published in 2019 by Rochford Press and her first collection of poetry chalk borders was published in the 2021 Flying Islands Pocket Poets series. Her poetry, and chalking practice #litchalk was acknowledged with a Canberra Circle of Critics Award. During the fires of 2020 she was inspired to stop dreaming about a poetry and tree project and to just start one – Kindred Trees.
S. K. Kelen is an Australian poet who has been writing longer than he cares to remember. He lives in a city where the reserves and parklands are inhabited by kangaroos, wallaroos, echidnas and many kinds of beautiful parrots and other wonderful animals. His most recent book is A Happening in Hades (Waratah, NSW: Puncher & Wattmann 2020), and Love’s Philosophy (Summer Hill, NSW: Gazebo Books 2020)
Lizz Murphy has published fifteen books. Her tenth poetry title is Bitumen Psalms (Flying Islands Pocket Poets, 2024/25). Other poetry collections are The Wear of My Face and Two Lips Went Shopping (Spinifex Press). Lizz writes in a variety of styles from prose poetry to micro poetry, sometimes incorporating found text. She has worked in shops, regional arts development and in publicity and marketing in arts and publishing. She was born in Belfast and has lived in Binalong in rural NSW – not too far from Canberra – for a long time. Trees are love and connection
Tony Steven Williams is a Canberra poet, short-fiction author and songwriter with many publications in journals, anthologies and magazines. Tony’s poetic output is intentionally diverse both in form and material. He loves to wander from densely dark through to almost farcical, and he considers this a reflection of our rollercoaster lives. An occasional speculative fiction piece is a frequent visitor. However, in all his work, the environment and the human condition are very important to him. Tony is the convenor of local poetry group Tram Stop Poets. His debut poetry collection, Sun and Moon, Light and Dark, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2018, and he is currently working on his second poetry collection.
Samia Goudie is a Queer Bundjalung woman. She was born on Ngunnawal country where she lives and writes. Her writing can be found in journals, anthologies and online publications. Samia’s writing reflects her love of country, her lived experiences, and speaks to historical injustices and current social and political issues.
Jacqui Malins is a multidisciplinary artist and poet based in Canberra. Her practice incorporates ceramics, poetry and spoken word, performance, video, drawing and photography. Jacqui’s most recent poetry theatre shows GERT, Words in Flight; and Cavorting with Time. Her poetry collections GERT (2025) and F-Words (2021) are published by Recent Work Press. You can find Jacqui and her work in galleries, on stage and page, and online at www.jacquimalinsart.com.
Amanda McLeod is a Canberra-based creative, the author of two books, and is obsessed with trees. Her current work explores humans and nature, ecology, and connection. Most recently her pieces have appeared in Wild Roof Journal and EcoTheo Review. Find her near the nearest river; if she's not there, look at amandamcleodwrites.com
C.E. Collins is a morris-dancing, shanty-singing, former English teacher who writes. She stalks the heaths of the west midlands in the UK, writing about her intense attachment to Place, and general love of fibre. Her poetry has been published by Not Very Quiet, Cicerone Journal, Sudo Journal, Fawn Press, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and Seedlings Studio.
Jen Webb is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Creative Practice at the University of Canberra.
Jen’s creative works include lyric and prose poetry, short fictions, and artist books. She is the holder of the inaugural ACT Poet of the Year Award, as well as many other literary awards. She is also the co-editor for the experimental-scholarly journal Axon: Creative Explorations, and the literary journal, Meniscus.
Her most recent volumes of poetry are The Daily News (Recent Work Press 2024), and the multi-authored Grief: Five Sequences (Authorised Theft, 2025). She also crafts visual poetry, artist books and zines; recent exhibitions include ‘Age Not Relevant’ with Postcards from the Sky (Civic Art Bureau, 2026); and ‘Message in a bottle’, in We Need to Talk, Belconnen Arts Centre (2023).
Shehzad Hashi is now a Sydney-based person that occasionally starts writing a poem but rarely finishes one. ‘Chemical blue gum’ was written at a time when the occasion met a circumstance that would render him incapable of any industry except poetry. The present times, however, are best described in the words of Vincent Adultman, “I went to stock market today. I did a business.”
Samantha Faulker is a Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal woman, from Badu and Moa Islands in the Torres Strait and the Yadhaigana and Wuthathi peoples of Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. She is the proud author of Life Blong Ali Drummond: A Life in the Torres Strait, (Aboriginal Studies Press, July 2007) and edited Pamle: Torres Strait Islanders in Canberra (2018).
Her poetry and short stories are published nationally (Cordite, Verity La, Canberra Times and Rabbit Journal) and internationally (Ora Nui: A Collection of Maori and Aboriginal Literature, and Narrative Witness: International Writing Program, University of Iowa). She is a member of the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Network and Director, MARION (ACT Writers). She is the Treasurer of First Nations Australia Writers Network and Us Mob Writing Group.
Hazel Hall is an Australian poet and musicologist and author of two poetry collections, three chapbooks and a radio play. She has judged three international tanka competitions. Hazel was founder and coordinator of the School of Music Poets from 2012- 2018 and directed Poetry at Manning Clark House from 2018-2022.
Andrew Cox is a proud Filipino/Australian who creates and lives in Ngunnawal and Ngambri country (Canberra) Australia. Currently, Andrew produces and leads Canberra Poetry Slam, the capital’s new and exciting home for stories and spoken word.
With a desire to see people experience poetry and engage deeply, his live performances are memorable for intensity, honesty and abstract storytelling.
Andrew’s work has been shortlisted for national writing prizes, notably for Innovation in Spoken Word and his writing published in multiple anthologies, recognised as an emerging voice in Australian poetry.
See his work via @andrewcoxpoetry on Instagram and Facebook.
Hangama Obaidullah came to Australia from Afghanistan as a refugee in August 2003. At that time, she spoke no English, but in October that year she began her English language studies and progressed rapidly. She enrolled as a mature age student at St Mary’s Senior High School, Sydney, graduating with her Higher School Certificate in 2009. She received an Award for Excellence, Major Works, and a Commendation Award for her HSC body of artwork.
Hangama has since developed her arts practice in painting, drawing, photography and writing. She moved to Canberra in 2010. Hangama has exhibited in a variety of public venues in Canberra, other Australian cities and internationally and she has worked actively as an advocate for migrant women and refugees.
Hangama’s artwork draws on her Afghan heritage, her homeland and its history. She espouses an aesthetic and philosophy of beauty, grace and community service. Her goal is to assist other Afghan women and children though her visual arts practice and her writing.
Asefeh Abedini is a poet who writes in three languages; English, Persian and Azerbaijani. Her poems are published in Cicerone Journal issue 2, Woroni Multilingual paper, ‘Arrival’ a ‘Lost in Books Anthology’ (Lost in Books bookshop in Sydney) and ‘Persian Sugar in English Tea VIII’ a bilingual anthology in USA. She was also a member of the ‘Please Explain’ panel in June 2018 at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art as a multilingual poet and a linguist. She has featured in a number of poetry festivals and continues to be a fan of different languages. Her poetry is included in ‘100 poets’ (Flying Islands Books 2025.)
Penelope Layland is a poet and editor. Her most recent book is Beloved (Recent Work Press 2022), a suite of poems in the voice of the 19th-century diarist Dorothy Wordsworth.
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Barrina South is a Barkindji artist, poet and critic dedicated to writing about topics and themes affecting land, place, culture, and history. In 2023, her short story Family Tree was adapted for the stage by the Mill Theatre, Canberra and she was commissioned to write an ekphrastic poem for the National Gallery of Australia. Her work has been published in Rabbit, Authora Australia, Kuracca a First Nations poetry anthology and the special issue of the Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, India. Barrina was an invited speaker at the 2023 Blue Mountains Writers Festival and was awarded the 2024 Varuna First Nations Fellowship. Her debut collection of poetry Makarra (Recent Works Press 2025) was shortlisted in the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for Poetry. Barrina is a current member of the First Nations Australia Writers Network and a Director of Us Mob Writing (UMW) who lives on Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country.
PS Cottier has written eight books of poetry, a collection of short stories and a non-fiction pamphlet about the wildlife near Parliament House. She used to edit poetry for a newspaper, and is an avid collector of garden gnomes.
Sandra Renew’s poetry has been awarded two Canberra Critics Circle Awards. One in 2023 for Apostles of Anarchy (Recent Work Press 2023), and one in 2019, with Moya Pacey “for their influential work in exposing Canberra women’s poetry to view through their biannual online journal for women’s poetry, Not Very Quiet 2017-2022.” Sandra’s collection, It’s the sugar, Sugar (Recent Work Press, 2021) won the ACT Writers Notable Awards for Poetry 2021. Acting Like a Girl (Recent Work Press, 2019) was the winner of the 2020 ACT Writing and Publishing Award for Poetry, and was also shortlisted for the 2020 ACT Book of the Year. She writes on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land (Canberra) and Yuin land (Cobargo).
Lawren Wooding is a trans woman, writer and poet. She is one of the organisers of That Poetry Thing That Is On At Smiths Every Monday. Lawren’s day job is as a software engineer and web developer – she developed and currently administers the Kindred Trees website.
K A Nelson won a major poetry prize in 2010, so she bought a computer, a fountain pen and stopped full-time work. Since then, Recent Work Press has published two collections, Inlandia (2018) and Meaty Bones (2023), both shortlisted for ACT Writers’ Centre Publishing Awards (now Marion). Meaty Bones also won a Canberra Critics Circle Award.
Nelson’s work has won or been shortlisted for prizes, published widely in Australian literary magazines and anthologies. She was a guest editor for Not Very Quiet’s online women’s poetry journal and recently edited two collections of poetry for poets published by Recent Work Press. More recently she read at, and co-hosted poetry at the Cobargo Folk Festival with Sandra Renew.
Alex Eagleton is a queer author and poet writing on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. Her debut collection To Hang the Masks Upon the Wall was released in January of 2023, quickly followed by a chapbook in August of 2023 titled the merry-go-round. Earlier this year, Alex released her newest collection of poetry, Tarot.
Outside of poetry, Alex is completing a Bachelor of Arts with a specialisation in Middle Eastern Gender Studies. She is a co-author on two articles awaiting publication in various academic journals.
In her free time, Alex enjoys reading queer romances, playing TTRPG’s, and furthering her caffeine addiction.
Moya Pacey’s third collection, Doggerland (Recent Work Press 2020), was highly commended in 2021 Australian Capital Territory Book of the Year Awards.
She is a founding editor of the women’s on-line journal, Not Very Quiet, and was awarded a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award in 2019. In October 2018, she was the Poet in Residence at the Elizabeth Bishop House in Great Village, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Listen to Moya read and talk about her poetry at https://artsound.fm/poetry-on-the-radio/
Martin Dolan is a Canberra-based poet who has been writing and publishing for thirty years. He previously moonlighted as a senior public servant, but retired to write full time in 2016. Martin has published four poetry collections, most recently On the Record (Recent Work Press, 2023). Martin is the chair of Australian Poetry, the national body for poetry in Australia. He is also one of of the organisers of That Poetry Thing, Canberra’s weekly poetry event for the last eight years.
Marissa McDowell is a Wiradjuri woman from Cowra New South Wales, with over two decades of experience in working in the First Nation multi-media storytelling space. Her journey has spanned influential roles across major Australian media organisations, including Special Broadcast Service, National Indigenous Television and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Her poetry has been published in defi-Nations 2025, Kuracca First Nation Voices anthology by Us Mob Writers 2023, the Rabbit Journal 2024, 2022, and 2021, the literary journal Ora Nui, featured work by Aboriginal and Maori writers and as part of Overland’s Emerging Poet Series. I featured as a contributor in A Pocketful of Leadership in the ACT 2016 and Us Mob Writing, Too Deadly Our Voices Our Way Our Business 2017, Haiku For You, poetry in the City Canberra 2022. Us Mob Writers have facilitated writers’ workshops and performed spoken poetry at a number of venues and events across the country.
Sara Bell is an emerging writer and poet based in Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, Canberra. She began writing poetry in 2022 and has since become a regular attendee of That Poetry Thing, developing her poetry with the support of the Canberra literary community. She completed a Master of Arts in English Literature in 2026, a foundation that informs her interest in the porous boundaries between the self, environment, and the cosmic unknown. As any good Northsider would do, she has developed an obsession with Mount Majura and its forests, which features in her Kindred Trees contribution.
Jacinta Zander was born and grew up on Ngunawal and Ngambri Country. She’s studying Creative Writing at the University of Canberra but don’t ask her when she’ll graduate. She’s performed at That Poetry Thing and the Poetic City Festival. She’s published poetry with the ANU Poet’s Lunch, UC FIRST and Curieux. She regularly chimes in to conversations on ABC Canberra and encourages more young people to join in on the radio. Despite being a hopeless romantic for a full circle, she appreciates storytelling in all shapes and forms. Australia is home to the oldest continuing storytelling traditions in the world and Jacinta feels deeply privileged to be a part of it.
Merri Andrew is a writer living on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country in Canberra. She is a member of the organising group for That Poetry Thing That Is On Every Monday At Smith’s. Her debut poetry chapbook Holds Up When Shattered was published by Kith Books in 2024 and launched at Smith’s. As a prose writer, she has published short stories, most recently ‘Its Own Richness’, which appears in Never Say Die, the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild’s 2025 anthology. To read more of her poetry and stories, you can visit www.merriandrew.com
Owen Bullock’s most recent publication is the poetry collection, Pancakes for Neptune (Recent Work Press, 2023), following three previous poetry titles, five books of haiku, a bilingual edition of tanka, and a novella. He has a new book of haiku appearing in 2026, titled The Scuppered Lily. Owen is Discipline Lead for Creative Writing and Literary Studies at the University of Canberra. His other interests include music, juggling and chess.