Girls to the Front

Sara M Saleh is a writer/poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of Palestinian, Lebanese and Egyptian migrants based on Bidjigal land. Her poems, essays and short stories have been published widely and she is co-editor of the ground-breaking 2019 anthology Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on Race and Identity. Her first novel is Songs for the Dead and the Living (Affirm Press, 2023) and her first full-length poetry collection is The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazal el-Banat were both released late 2023.

Sara is the first and only poet to win both the 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the 2020 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of the inaugural Affirm fellowship for Sweatshop writers, a Neilma Sidney travel grant, Varuna writers residency, and Amant writers residency in New York, amongst other honours

Clementine Ford is a writer, broadcaster and feminist community builder living in Naarm/Melbourne. She is the bestselling author of the feminist manifestos Fight Like A Girl and Boys Will Be Boys, which have also been published to great acclaim in the UK and the US, and her memoir How We Love, which she adapted into a live stage performance called 'Love Sermon'. In 2017, she won the Matt Richell Award for Best New Writer of the Year at the ABIAs. Her favourite colour is pink.

Simone Amelia Jordan is Australia's most successful rap journalist, contributing to The Source, VIBE, Rolling Stone, ABC and SBS. At 23, Simone founded and edited Australia’s highest-selling rap/R&B newsstand title, Urban Hitz magazine. Resolute about hip-hop’s power to change the world, she now mentors the next generation of multicultural talent through her work with Media Diversity Australia and Diversity Arts Australia. Her first book, Tell Her She's Dreamin', won the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers.

Claire Christian tells stories: she is a writer, theatre maker and facilitator. Her first novel, Beautiful Mess won the Text Prize in 2016 and was released in 2017. Her second novel, It’s Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake was released in 2020. Both have been published internationally. She has had the great joy of directing Michelle Law’s smash hit comedy Single Asian Female since 2017. She is a proud member of the Mama’s Boys theatre collective whose hip-hop theatrical explosion Brothers Book Club premiered in 2022. Her Plays Lysa and the Freeborn Dames, Talking to Brick Walls, Hedonism’s Second Album and The Landmine is Me are available through Playlab Inc. Her second novel, It’s Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake was released in 2020. Both her novels have been published internationally. Claire’s last novel West Side Honey was released in April 2023.