Poetry Salon: All I Have is a Voice

Anna Jacobson is an award-winning writer and artist from Meanjin (Brisbane). Her poetry collection Amnesia Findings (UQP) won the 2018 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize. Anna’s second illustrated poetry collection, Anxious in a Sweet Store was published with Upswell in 2023. Her memoir How to Knit a Human is forthcoming with NewSouth Publishing in 2024. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Creative Writing from the Queensland University of Technology. Anna’s website is www.annajacobson.com.au.

Amanda Chong is a lawyer, poet and playwright who explores themes of gender and power in her work. Her poetry collection, Professions, was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018, and her poetry is studied as part of the Cambridge International GCSE Syllabus. Her plays include the one woman show Psychobitch which sold out its extended run (Wild Rice, 2023), the musical The Feelings Farm (Esplanade Theatres, 2021) and the award-winning #WomenSupportingWomen (T:>Works, 2022) which was also staged in Cambridge, UK. 

Jarad Bruinstroop’s debut poetry collection, Reliefs, won the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and is available now through UQP. He won the 2023 Val Vallis Award. His work has appeared in The Best of Australian Poems, Meanjin, Overland, and elsewhere. As the University of Queensland Fryer Library Creative Writing Fellow, he is developing a novella cycle that draws on Brisbane’s Queer history. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from QUT where he also teaches.  

Joshua Ip is a Singaporean poet, editor and literary organiser. He has published six-ish poetry collections, edited eleven anthologies, and co-founded Sing Lit Station, an over-active literary charity. His latest book, translations to the tanglish (Math Paper Press, 2021) gathers contemporary and anachronistic translations of classical Tang/Song Dynasty poetry.

Kent MacCarter is a poet and publisher based in Castlemaine, Victoria. His publishing career began at University of Chicago Press in 2000; since then, he has worked with educational publishers and, for the past 12 years been the managing editor of Cordite Poetry Review and for 8 years publisher of Cordite Books. His writing has been published widely and includes four poetry collections. Kent has been an active participant in writing and publishing communities for decades.

Shivram Gopinath is a writer and spoken word performer from Chennai, and calls Singapore home. A twice-winning National Singapore Poetry Slam champion, he has performed at Singapore Writers Festival, Borobudur Writers and Cultural Festival, Jaipur Literary Festival, among others. His work often contends with notions of identity, community and absurdity, as a way of exploring cross-cultural experiences. He is the author of the upcoming Dey (Ethos Books, 2024).

Born in New Zealand to Russian/Jewish parents, Svetlana is now a swimming coach based in Meanjin (Brisbane).

Her writing has recently been recognised in the 2023 Richell Prize and the State Library of Queensland Young Writers Award. She has poetry and short fiction in Island, Westerly, takah?, Meanjin, Cordite, and elsewhere. Svetlana also edits with Voiceworks and is the founding editor of swim meet lit mag.

As an emerging screenwriter, Svetlana has participated in various programs and initiatives run by Screen Queensland and Queensland Writers Centre.

Mindy Gill’s poems have most recently appeared in The Penguin Book of Indian Poets. Her criticism has been published in Australian Book Review, Sydney Review of Books and Meanjin. She is an Australian Book Review Rising Star.