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.

Her debut novel Terra Nullius, written while traveling around the continent in a caravan, was published by Hachette in Australia and Small Beer in the US. Terra Nullius won a black&write! Fellowship and a Norma K. Hemming Award and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Aurealis Science Fiction Award among others. The Old Lie (Hachette 2019) is her second novel.

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.

Lies Damned Lies: A Personal Exploration of the Impact of Colonisation, her first nonfiction book, was published in September 2021 by Ultimo Press. Her first play, Black Betty at the End of the World won the Malcolm Robertson Foundation Fellowship and is under development with Malthouse Theatre.

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.

Annie Te Whiu (Te Rarawa) is a poet, weaver, cultural producer and editor, having worked on Tony Birch's Whisper Songs and the anthology, Solid Air: Australia & New Zealand Spoken Word. She previously co-directed the Queensland Poetry Festival and currently works at Red Room Poetry. Annie is a recipient of the Next Chapter Fellowship and is studying a Master of Indigenous Studies and Master of Māori Studies at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi.