Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, researcher, and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal.

N'arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM is a Boon Wurrung senior elder and is the chairperson and founder of the Boon Wurrung Foundation. A descendant of the First Peoples of Melbourne, the Yaluk-ut Weelam clan of the Boon Wurrung, she is the great-granddaughter of Louisa Briggs, a Boon Wurrung woman born near Melbourne in the 1830s.

Carolyn has been involved in developing and supporting opportunities for Indigenous youth and Boon Wurrung culture for over 40 years. In 2005, she established the Boon Wurrung Foundation, which has been responsible for significant work in cultural research, including restoration of the Boon Wurrung language. The Foundation also helps connect Aboriginal youth to their heritage.

Carolyn has worked across numerous communities for over 40 years and is currently completing her Doctorate in Philosophy researching assisting urban indigenous youth to understand indigenous knowledge.

Her cultural knowledge and experience has been recognised by communities throughout Australia. These achievements have been recognised by:

• Being Awarded the National Aboriginal Elder of the Year in 2011 by the National NAIDOC Committee;

• Being inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2005;

• Being entered into the 2012 and 2013 'Who’s Who Australia';

• Being appointed an Elders in Residence at RMIT University 2017;

• Being inducted into the 2017 Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll;

• Receiving the Member of the Order (AM) of Australia for significant service to the Indigenous community 2019;

• Elected member of inaugural First People’s Assembly of Victoria 2019.

She is the author of Journey Cycles of the Boon Wurrung: Stories with Boonwurrung Language, Bundjil Creation Story and Barraeemal Story.

Charmaine Papertalk Green is from the Wajarri, Badimaya and Southern Yamaji peoples of Mid West Western Australia. She has lived and worked in rural Western Australia (Mid West and Pilbara) most of her life, and within the Aboriginal sector industry as a community agitator, artist/poet, community development practitioner and social sciences researcher. Her poetry has appeared in Antipodes, Artlink Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, the Kenyon Review and the Lifted Brow, as well as in the anthologies The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry, Inside Black Australia: An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry, Ora Nui: A Collection of Maori and Aboriginal Literature, The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets and Those Who Remain Will Always Remember: An Anthology of Aboriginal Writing. She lives in Geraldton, Western Australia.

Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi AKA Vika Mana, is a proud Torres Strait Islander and Tongan storyteller that takes many forms. They descend from the Zagareb and Dauareb tribes of Mer Island and the village of Fahefa in Tonga. They perform poetry, write criticism, breathe life into worlds and lastly, can share a joke or two, max. That’s because they only know exactly two jokes.They've written for Overland, The Big Issue, the Saturday Paper and several publications both at home and internationally. Vika is also a part of the FAMILI collective, rapping about Afros and abolition. In 2019, Meleika became one of ten writers that were chosen to be a part of The Next Chapter scheme from the Wheeler Centre.

Raelee Lancaster is a writer, collaborator and creative industries professional based in Meanjin (Brisbane). She is the co-director of the National Young Writers Festival (NYWF). 

In 2018, Raelee was awarded first place for the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers. Her writing has featured in Cordite Poetry Review, the Saturday Paper, ArtsHub, Voiceworks, Overland and other print and elsewhere. Raised on Awabakal land in Newcastle New South Wales, Raelee is descended from the Wiradjuri and Biripi peoples. 

Jeanine Leane belongs to the Wiradjuri people from the Murrumbidgee River in south west NSW. She is a writer poet and teacher whose prose, essays and poetry have been published widely in Australia and abroad. She is the editor ...

Lorna Munro, or ‘Yilinhi’, is a Wiradjuri and Gamilaroi woman, multidisciplinary artist and regular radio and podcast host at Sydney’s ‘Radio Skid Row’. A long-time active member of her Redfern/Waterloo community, her work is informed by her passion and well-studied insight in areas such as culture, history, politics and popular culture. 

Lorna has travelled the world showcasing her skills and distinctive style of poetry and political commentary. She was also the sole designer and creator of Sydney’s, and possibly 'Australia’s' first initiative to teach Aboriginal language through poetry in partnership with Red Room Poetry in 2015. Throughout her career she has been on stage, in films and on paper, namely compiling and editing Paper Dreaming: Our Stories Our Way for Cambridge University Press in 2015. 

Lorna continues to work tirelessly mastering many art forms, raising funds, supporting and advocating for her community and her people on the local, national and international stage. She is a 2019 recipient of the Wheeler Centre’s Next Chapter writers’ scheme.