Student Sessions

Since emigrating from Singapore in 1997, Kim Cheng Boey has made a home in Berowra, NSW. His poems have featured in the literature syllabus of the GCE A Level, the HSC and the International Baccalaureate. His sixth collection of poetry, The Singer and Other Poems, won the 2023 Kenneth Slessor Prize. He has also published a travel memoir, Between Stations, and Gull Between Heaven and Earth, a novel based on the life of the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu.

Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of the Australian Book Industry and Indie Book Award–winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil (2014), the critically acclaimed memoir The Hate Race (2016), the poetry collections Carrying the World (2016), and How Decent Folk Behave (2021) and many other books for children and adults. Maxine is the inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence at The University of Melbourne and her latest poetry collection, It’s the Sound of the Thing: 100 new poems for young people was shortlisted for the 2024 Victorian Premier’s Award for Children’s Literature.

Eileen Chong is a poet of Hakka, Hokkien and Peranakan descent. As well as being featured in Contemporary Asian Australian Poets, her poetry collections include: Burning Rice (2012), Peony (2014), Painting Red Orchids (2016), and Rainforest (2018). Her work has been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, the NSW Premier's Literary Award Kenneth Slessor Prize, the NSW Premier's Literary Award Multicultural Prize, and twice for the Prime Minister's Literary Award, among other accolades. Her next collection, We Speak of Flowers, is forthcoming with UQP in 2025. She lives and works on unceded Gadigal land.

Julian Larnach is a Sydney-based playwright and screenwriter. He is Literary Associate at Griffin Theatre Company. Julian’s theatrical adaptation of Favel Parrett’s novel Past the Shallows has won 6 Tasmanian Theatre awards including Best Production and Best New Writing. It has been developed into a feature film and premiered at Ten Days on the Island Festival. He is currently working on new plays for Bell Shakespeare, Australian Theatre for Young People and Queensland Performing Arts Centre. 

Melissa Lucashenko is a multi-award-winning novelist from the Bundjalung nation. Too Much Lip won the 2019 Miles Franklin Award and the QLA Prize for a Work of State Significance. Melissa’s most recent novel, Edenglassie, was released to critical acclaim in October 2023. She is a Walkley Award winner and a founding member of Sisters Inside.

Solli Raphael is an award-winning author, poet, advocate and acclaimed keynote speaker. Solli has authored three books, which have received accolades for their capacity to engage children and teenagers educationally. Solli has spoken at hundreds of schools, universities and events and has been regularly featured on radio and TV shows, in printed media and in books, reaching a global audience of two billion people with his work. His latest book is 29 Things You Didn't Know About Me.

Damien Ryan is Managing Director and Artistic Director of Sport for Jove Theatre. The company’s comprehensive Education Program works with tens of thousands of Australian students annually. He has worked extensively with Shakespeare, performing in or directing over 70 productions in Australia and overseas, and has worked as actor, director and writer across Australia’s major companies including Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, Belvoir and Sydney Festival.

Kate Rossmanith is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. She is the author of Small Wrongs: How we really say sorry in love, life and law (Hardie Grant Books, 2018), and co-editor of Remorse and Criminal Justice: Multi-disciplinary perspectives (Routledge, 2022). Her essay Ditching the New Yorker Voice (Sydney Review of Books) was featured on Lit Hub Daily. Kate is an Associate Professor in Media, Cultural Studies and Creative Writing at Macquarie University. She lives and works on Dharug country.