Doorways to Other Worlds

Kirsten McGavin is a mixed race woman of Aotearoa New Zealand Pākehā and Papua New Guinean (Lavongai, New Ireland Province) descent. She has a PhD in anthropology and, more recently, completed a master’s degree in creative writing. Her research interests—in both fields—include: identity, place, representation, belonging, material culture and popular culture. Kirsten is the compiler and editor of World Beyond: An Anthology of Papua New Guinean Speculative Fiction - the first book of its kind from PNG.

Trent Jamieson is the Award-winning author of the novels The Stone Road, and Day Boy, as well as the Death Works Trilogy, and Roil Duology. His children's book The Giant and the Sea, illustrated by Rovina Cai, won the 2021 Environment Award for Children's Literature Picture Fiction. His latest book is Mr Impoppable, illustrated by Brent Wilson. Brent and Trent are currently working on a series of graphic novels together.

Aimée Lindorff is an Australian cultural producer, arts reviewer, podcaster, and story editor. She's developed and produced projects for the likes of Netflix, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Universal Pictures, Discovery Channel, and Gold Coast Film Festival, and is in-demand as an event host, appearing for Brisbane Libraries, Supanova, and at festivals across the country. She produced and hosted SQ On Air podcast for Screen Queensland, and is co-founder of cross-platform production team Inside Voice.

Mykaela Saunders is a Koori and Lebanese writer, teacher, community researcher and the editor of This All Come Back Now, the world's first anthology of blackfella speculative fiction, forthcoming with UQP in 2022. Mykaela is a 2021 Next Chapter recipient, and has won the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, the National Indigenous Story Award, the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize, the Grace Marion Wilson Emerging Writers Prize for Nonfiction and the University of Sydney's Sister Alison Bush Graduate Medal for Indigenous research. Of Dharug descent, and working-class and queer, Mykaela belongs to the Tweed Goori community.

C.S. Pacat is the New York Times and USA-Today best-selling author of Dark Rise, the Captive Prince trilogy, and the GLAAD-nominated graphic novels Fence, as well as a writer for DC Comics.

Educated at the University of Melbourne, C.S. Pacat has since lived in a number of cities, including Tokyo and Perugia, and currently resides and writes in Melbourne.