Hot Desk Edition #1

Stella is the Wheeler Centre's Programming Coordinator.

An emerging arts manager and event producer, Stella was previously the Marketing and Events Coordinator for Readings, and the Festival Manager for the National Young Writers’ Festival, Australia’s largest gathering of young and innovative writers working in both new and traditional forms.

Drawn to both programming and operations, with a particular interest in education and support for young creatives, she has worked for Teach for Australia, Melbourne Writers Festival, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, Emerging Writers’ Festival and Melbourne Fringe Festival. She really likes festivals. 

Stella has a BA in Philosophy, Political Science and Literature and a Diploma of Italian from the University of Melbourne, but has definitely learnt more useful things working on the floor as a both a front of house manager and a bookseller for Readings since 2012.

Vanessa Giron is a Latinx writer and editor from Naarm/Melbourne. Her work explores identity, culture, and womanhood and has been published by Meanjin, Feminartsy and others. She is also a Small Screens Critic for the Big Issue, and has written reviews for Junkee, Kill Your Darlings and more. In 2018 Vanessa was an inaugural Featured Author for Djed Press and New Review Critic for Witness. Vanessa Giron is a proud member of West Writers Group with Footscray Community Arts Centre.

Brisbane born Yvette Henry Holt heralds from the Bidjara, Yiman and Wakaman Nations of Queensland. A multi-national award-winning poet, academic, editor, stand-up comedienne and photographer of Central Australian desert landscapes, Yvette has lived and worked in the greater region of the Australian Central Deserts for ten years. 

Her debut publication titled Anonymous Premonition (UQP 2008) won the Queensland Premier David Unaipon Award 2005, Scanlon Prize for Poetry NSW 2008, Victorian Premier’s Prize for Indigenous Writing 2008 and the RAKA Kate Challis Award 2010. In 2018 Yvette’s poem titled mother’s native tongue, an ode to all who have a parent living with dementia, was Highly Commended for the Queensland Poetry Oodgeroo Noonuccal Prize. Yvette’s poetry has been widely anthologised and translated in several languages both in print and online.

Josefina Huq is a creative writer and PhD candidate based in Melbourne. She is into place phenomena, memory, and anything that might involve icky feelings. You can cry to her short stories in publications such as Homer, GORE Journal and Alien She Zine. 

Nimity James studied writing at RMIT University. In 2016 she was awarded a Varuna Residential Fellowship and was a finalist in the 2017 Newcastle Writers Festival joanne burns Microlit Award for her prose poem 'Anniversary', published in the Spineless Wonders Time anthology. She lives in Melbourne.

Adalya Nash Hussein is a writer and editor. Her work has appeared in Voiceworks, The Lifted Brow, Ibis House, Meanjin, Overland and Going Down Swinging. She has been an Emerging Writers’, Festival Melbourne Recital ...

Kaitlyn Plyley is a writer, poet and comedian based in Melbourne's inner north. She comes to Melbourne via Cairns, Perth, and Brisbane. Kaitlyn has been featured everywhere from triple j to frankie magazine to ABC TV's Get Krack!n. Her writing has been published by the Lifted Brow, the Sydney Morning Herald, Junkee, VICE and Seizure, among others. Her podcast Just A Spoonful interviews young people living with disability and/or chronic illness. Kaitlyn is herself disabled and lives with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

Cher Tan is an essayist and critic. Her work has appeared in the Sydney Review of Books, Hyperallergic, Catapult, The Age, Disclaimer Journal, Cordite Poetry Review and Overland, amongst many others. She is an editor at Liminal and ...

Thabani Tshuma is a multi-award-winning Zimbabwean writer and performance poet. His work can be found in publications such as Dichotomi magazine, Next in Colour, CUBBY ART, Cordite Poetry Review, and ...