Missionary Position: Colonisation & Storytelling

Claire G. Coleman is a Wirlomin Noongar woman whose ancestral country is on the south coast of Western Australia. Born in Perth she has spent most of her life in Naarm (Melbourne) or on the road. She has written 3 novels Terra Nullius (2019), The Old Lie (2019), and Enclave and a non-fiction book Lies Damned Lies: A personal exploration of the the impact of colonisation (2021). Her art criticism has been published in Spectrum, Artlink and Art Collector and in exhibition catalogues for NGV, AGSA and NGA and others. Her conceptual/video work Refugium won the Incinerator Art Award in 2021 and she will feature in a number of exhibitions in 2022. She writes novels, poetry, short-fiction, drama and essay and has featured in the Saturday Paper, the Guardian, Meanjin, Australian Poetry and many others. Her short fiction and poetry has been published in multiple anthologies.

Larissa is the author of three novels: Home, which won the 2002 David Unaipon Award and the regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book; Legacy, which won the 2010 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing; and the bestselling After Story. She has published numerous books on Indigenous legal issues; her most recent non-fiction book is Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling. She was awarded the 2009 NAIDOC Person of the Year award and 2011 NSW Australian of the Year. Larissa wrote and directed the feature films, After the Apology and Innocence Betrayed and has written and produced several short films. In 2018 she won the Australian Directors' Guild Award for Best Direction in a Documentary Feature and in 2020 the AACTA for Best Direction in Nonfiction Television. She is the host of Speaking Out on ABC radio and is Distinguished Professor at the Jumbunna Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.

Novelist and short story writer Gina Cole lives in Auckland, New Zealand. She won the Best First Book Award at the 2017 Ockham NZ Book Awards for her story collection Black Ice Matter. Her forthcoming science fiction fantasy novel Na Viro is a work of Pasifikafuturism.

Anne-Marie Te Whiu is an Australian-born Māori belonging to the Te Rarawa iwi in Aotearoa NZ. She is a poet, editor, cultural producer and weaver. She was a 2021 Next Chapter Fellowship recipient, and her writing has been published broadly. Most recently she edited Woven (Magabala Books, 2024). This year she has been awarded the Varuna Residential Fellowship Writers and a Bundanon Artist Residency.  
Anne-Marie’s forthcoming debut poetry collection titled Mettle will be published by University of Queensland Press.