Parliament: Future Melbourne

Adolfo Aranjuez is an editor, writer, speaker and dancer. He is currently the Melbourne International Film Festival’s publications and content manager as well as Liminal magazine’s publication editor; previously, he edited the magazines Metro and Archer. Adolfo’s essays, criticism and poetry have appeared in Meanjin, Right Now, Screen Education, The Manila Review, Cordite and elsewhere, and he has worked with numerous organisations including the Melbourne Writers Festival, Midsumma, ABC TV and Arts Access Victoria.

Leah Jing McIntosh is the founding editor of Liminal magazine. As part of her work for Liminal, Leah has published books, created mentorships and fellowships, and established national literary prizes, seeking to create new spaces and opportunities ...

Hella Ibrahim is an editor with a passion for activism through writing and publishing. She works as a project editor at an education publishing company on weekdays, and is the founder and editorial director of Djed Press, an online publication that provides a paid platform for creators of colour.   

Karys McEwen is a school librarian in Melbourne. She is an avid reader of young adult fiction, and is particularly passionate about the role of libraries and literature in the wellbeing of young people. Karys is the President of the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Victorian Branch and the 2019 columnist for Books+Publishing Junior.

Amy Vuleta has spent most of her bookselling career hosting bookclubs, panels, events and discussions about books, literature, publishing and ideas. She reads widely, is currently training to be a high school teacher, and occasionally writes about art.

Gene Smith is Program Manager at Melbourne Writers Festival, and is a literary programmer, producer, writer and voracious reader.

Prior to Melbourne Writers Festival, he worked at other major Australian cultural organisations including the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Opera House and Sydney Writers’ Festival. He is a current participant in Midsumma Festival’s Midsumma Futures mentorship programme for emerging queer artists and culture-makers.

Alistair Baldwin is a writer and comedian based in Naarm / Melbourne. He has written for ABC's The Weekly, Get Krack!n, Hard Quiz & At Home Alone Together. Published works include pieces for un. Magazine, Archer, Metro and Black Inc.'s Growing Up Disabled In Australia anthology. He is 1/2 of the experimental (and toxic) comedy duo Nemeses with Vidya Rajan.

Elena Gomez is the author of Admit the Joyous Passion of Revolt and Body of Work. She lives on unceded Wurundjeri country. 

Elyce Phillips makes comics, comedy and general nonsense. She teaches and performs regularly at The Improv Conspiracy, and her writing has appeared in McSweeney’s and Funny Ha Ha.

Oslo Davis is an illustrator, cartoonist and artist who has drawn for a number of organisations worldwide, including the New York Times, the Age, the Monthly, Meanjin, SBS and the Guardian.

He has also been commissioned to draw for the National Gallery of Victoria, the Golden Plains music festival, State Library Victoria and Melbourne Writers Festival, among many others. Oslo’s latest book is Overheard - The Art of Eavesdropping.​

Anna Snoekstra is Melbourne-based novelist, and the author of Only Daughter – her debut book, published by Harlequin MIRA and optioned for film by Universal Pictures.

After finishing university, Anna wrote for independent films and fringe theatre, and directed music videos. During this time, she worked as a cheesemonger, a waitress, a barista, a nanny, a receptionist, a cinema attendant and a film reviewer.

She was born in Canberra, Australia, to two civil servants. At the age of 17, she decided to avoid a full-time job and a steady wage to move to Melbourne and become a writer. She studied Creative Writing and Cinema at the University of Melbourne, followed by Screenwriting at RMIT University.

Anna now lives with her husband, cat and two housemates and works full-time writing.

Laniyuk is a Larrakia, Kungarakan, Gurindji and French writer and performer. She has been published nationally and internationally in poetry collections such as Solid Air (2019) and Fire Front (2020), in the 2022 speculative ...

Michael Williams is the editor of The Monthly. He was previously the Artistic Director of Sydney Writers’ Festival. He has spent the past decade at the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in Melbourne as its ...

Didem is a writer, speaker and facilitator, who grew up in the western suburbs of Melbourne. She is a writer of plays, essays and fiction.

Her plays have been developed and produced in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide and presented in Edinburgh, London, New York and Chicago. She has received development grants through the Australian Arts Council, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, Copywright Agency, Melbourne City Council and Western Chances Scholarship Program. Her plays Vile, Isolation, Work in Progress and the University of Longing have all been funded through Melbourne funding bodies. Vile was shortlisted for a number of Australian theatre awards and in 2016 was shortlisted for the Theatre 503 New Play award in London.

Her essays and fiction have been published through Currency House Press, australianplays.org, Meanjin, Yen magazine, Express Media, Artshub and the Age. Her work draws on her mixed cultural heritage and she fuses personal stories of the working class and home, to bring light to the many facets of being Australian.

She has worked as a facilitator and creator with the emerging writers festival, dandenong city council, Victorian drama league, Tuggeranong arts centre, outer urban projects and writers victoria. Didem received a Graduate Diploma in Dramatic Art from Victoria University when she was 16 through recognition for prior learning, and is also a graduate of RMIT, NIDA and the VCA.

Sam van Zweden is a Melbourne-based writer interested in memory, food, mental health and the body. Her writing has been published by the Saturday Paper, ABC Life, Meanjin, The Big Issue, The Lifted Brow, Cordite, The Sydney Review of Books, The Wheeler Centre and others. Her debut book, Eating with my Mouth Open, won the 2019 KYD Unpublished Manuscript Award, and is available now.