Daniel Juckes is a writer from Perth, Western Australia. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at UWA, and he holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Curtin University. His creative and critical work has been published in journals such as Axon, Life Writing, M/C Journal, TEXT and Westerly, and his research investigates seamlessness in prose style and the potential of objects in stories about the past.

Shalmalee is an academic in English and Literary Studies at The University of Western Australia. She has previously taught at renowned Indian and Australian Universities, and has won national awards for excellence in teaching. She writes on South Asian literatures and Indian cinemas and is also a published poet. Shalmalee has co-written original scripts and performed shows nationally and internationally with three women and a cello, collectively called Funkier than Alice.

Melissa, also known as Maiken, (she/they) is a queer writer, editor, performance artist, playwright, and vocalist who lives, works, plays and studies on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja. Melissa holds a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in English & Creative Writing and Theatre & Drama from Murdoch University and a Bachelor of Performing Arts with First Class Honours at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in Performance Making. Passionate about the Arts, she prefers a multi-disciplinary approach in her own practice, with a special interest in how art can combine with activism. They enjoy experimenting with multiple genres on the same subject with the aim to showcase the importance and value of art in shaping society. Melissa is co-Artistic Director of Split Lip Productions. She was born in South Africa and has lived in New Zealand and the UK as well as Australia, with Perth being home since 2016. They are interested in continuing to learn and draw from the multiple cultures they’ve been fortunate enough to be welcomed into with respect, honouring the knowledge and wisdom of each. She considers herself a lifelong student.

Sarah Yeung 楊静雯 is a queer Cantonese editor, researcher, and sessional tutor living and working on unceded Whadjuk Noongar Boodja. She co-edited Zou Mat Je 做乜嘢, a transnational collection of Cantonese literary and visual artworks, and is currently co-editing the upcoming poetry collection Hello Keanu!. Sarah’s poetry and reviews have been published in Right Now, Red Pocket Press, and Westerly’s Editor’s Desk. She is currently completing a PhD on literary representations of haunting at The University of Western Australia.

Mirandi Riwoe’s Stone Sky Gold Mountain won the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize and the Queensland Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her novella The Fish Girl won Seizure’s Viva la Novella and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Sunbirds was shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award, while The Burnished Sun is a collection of her short stories and novellas. Mirandi has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies (QUT). Her novel A Short History of Longans will be out in June, 2026.

Stefanie is a writer and researcher in the field of nonfiction writing. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literary Studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, and her work spans creative nonfiction, life writing and creative-critical arts practice.

Stefanie has had a longstanding editorial career—her writing has appeared in major Australian magazines, journals and on stage. She has edited nonfiction books in travel and culture, and was the founding creative writing editor at Ramona Magazine.

Michael Farrell is originally from Bombala in NSW: living in Melbourne since 1990. A relationship with Western Australia began in 2006, with a residency at Tom Collins House, through the Fellowship of Australian Writers (WA); a relationship that continued with the China Australia Writing Centre at Curtin University. Michael’s book publications include Googlecholia, Family Trees, I Love Poetry (won the Judith Wright Calanthe Queensland Literary Award), and Cocky’s Joy (poetry), as well as, most recently, The Victoria Principle (stories), and Writing Australian Unsettlement: Modes of Poetic Invention 1796-1945 (from revised PhD thesis at The University of Melbourne), and the edited anthologies, Out of the Box: Contemporary Australian Gay and Lesbian Poets (co-ed. with Jill Jones) and Ashbery Mode. Michael has also written on Australian poetry for The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry (ed. Ann Vickery) and The Cambridge History of Australian Poetry (ed. Vickery and Philip Mead). Michael edits a small magazine, The Chalamet Review (PDF only) and posts collages and other art on Instagram and Facebook (see Westerly 67.2). View Michael’s author page at Giramondo.

Casey Mulder is a Ballardong Noongar woman with Dutch and English heritage. She is an English teacher and school leader, and has a Master of Leadership and Management in Education. In 2020 Casey joined the team at the School of Indigenous Studies at UWA where she taught Creative Writing and Aboriginal Voices and co-hosted First Nations Writers’ Circles in collaboration with Westerly Magazine. She recently joined the board of Night Parrot Press and is currently completing editing mentorship at Night Parrot Press with the support of Magabala Books. Casey is currently working on a memoir with the support of a Centre for Stories Writing Fellowship, and aspires to continue to advocate for First Nations storytellers within the publishing industry.

Cassandra Atherton is an award-winning poet and Associate Professor at Deakin University. She was a Harvard Visiting Scholar in poetry in 2016, and has been the successful recipient of fifteen national and international grants and awards, most recently a VicArts grant and an Australia Council Grant to work on a book of prose poetry on the atomic bomb. Cassandra has published twelve books including seven poetry collections, most recently Pikadon (2018), and is writing a critical book on prose poetry for Princeton University Press. She has been invited to judge several awards and prizes, including the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards: Prize for Poetry, the Lord Mayor’s Prize for Poetry and the joanne burns microliterature award.

Catherine Noske is an academic and writer at The University of Western Australia. She was General Editor of Westerly from 2015–2023.

Creatively, her short-form writing has appeared in Meanjin, Antipodes, Meniscus and Plumwood Mountain, as well as several anthologies, and has been twice awarded the Elyne Mitchell Prize for Rural Women Writers. Her debut novel, The Salt Madonna (Picador, 2020), was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Book Awards, and she is delivering the Randolph Stow Memorial Lecture for 2024. Catherine is grateful to reside on Whadjuk Noongar boodjar.

Per Henningsgaard is a senior lecturer and the major coordinator for the Professional Writing and Publishing major at Curtin University. His research interests include editing, publishing, Australian literature and comics. He has published more than twenty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters across six countries, including several about the publishing of Australian comics. He was also the guest editor of Westerly’s online special issue 15, which is titled “Graphic Narratives: New Comics from Western Australia” and was the first issue of Westerly to include comics.

Per is an IPEd accredited editor with in-house experience in both trade and educational publishing, as well as experience as a freelance editor. He is also the founder and publisher of Elephant Page Publishing, a newly established publishing house that is powered by students and guided by a team of publishing professionals; its purpose is to uplift new voices and talents on both sides of the publishing process.

Biography goes here…