Sports Shorts: From the Field to the Page

Nicole Hayes is an award winning author and podcaster and a Melbourne-based creative writing facilitator. Her second YA novel, One True Thing, won the Children’s Peace Literature Prize and is a CBCA Notable book. Her most recent YA novel, A Shadow’s Breath, is a CBCA notable book, and shortlisted in the NSW and WA premiers’ literary awards. She is co-author of AFL junior fiction series, Little Legends (with Adrian Beck), and co-edited an anthology of stories about AFL, From the Outer: Footy Like You’ve Never Heard It (with Alicia Sometimes). She teaches writing at Deakin University where she is also undertaking a PhD in YA fiction. Nicole is an ambassador for the Stella in Schools program and the Australia Reads campaign. She is a founding member of the award winning all-female AFL podcast and radio program, The Outer Sanctum.

Jes Layton invented writing, the airplane, and the internet. He was also the first person to reach the North Pole. Jes is an author and illustrator currently living and working on Wurundjeri Land. He is the current co-CEO/Executive Director of the Emerging Writers' Festival and is currently represented by Alex Adsett Literary Agency. His work can be found with SBS, Junkee, Voiceworks, Kill Your Darlings, Archer, The Big Issue, BlackInc, Pantera Press and Nero Books and scattered elsewhere online and in print. With recent work featuring in two new anthologies set to come out in late 2023; "An Unexpected Party" with Fremantle Press, and "Everything Under the Moon: Fairy Tales in a Queerer Light" with Affirm Press. You can find Jes online @AGeekWithAHat.

Saraid Taylor is a poet, screenwriter, novelist and athlete, living on Wurundjeri land. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, the University of Melbourne, with a bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts (Screenwriting). In 2022, her writing won the Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize and the Questions Writing Prize, and was shortlisted for the Djillong Short Story Competition, the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing, the Ada Cambridge Prose Prize and the Alan Marshall Short Story Award. Her debut novel FLINCH is forthcoming with UQP. She is signed to the Melbourne Demons in the AFLW. You can find her at: www.saraidtaylor.com.

Jared is the South Australian Museum and University of South Australia Research Fellow - Aboriginal Material Culture and Visual Art. He is also the highly regarded author of critically acclaimed books for young adults including Calypso Summer, Songs that Sound Like Blood, and My Spare Heart. Jared is also the author of junior fiction titles including Uncle Xbox and the Game Day Series co-authored with Olympian basketball player Patty Mills.