RITA TOGNINI

Rita Tognini writes poetry and short fiction. She was born in Italy, grew up in the South West, worked as a teacher and public servant and travelled widely in Europe and China. 

Among the themes she likes to explore in her writing are the relationship of language and identity, the intersection of the personal and the political and the consolations and constrictions of family ties. 

Her work has been published in local, national and international journals and has won prizes and commendations. In 2018 Rita was selected for the Peter Cowan Writers’ Centre Emerging Writer Program.

ROSE VAN SON

Rose van Son is a published Western Australian poetry, prose and essay writer. She has been widely published in Westerly, Cordite, Rabbit, and more and has won several literary awards, including being short listed for the Lane Cove Literary Awards, 2017 and the Fish and Grieve awards. In 2015, she was Guest at the Perth Poetry Festival, and the Broome Corrugated Lines Festival. In 2018, she was guest poet at the New Norcia Poetry Festival.  She has an Honours Degree in Creative Writing from Curtin University and was a lecturer in Communications and Media Studies for many years. She has run many workshops in writing including in the Armadale Writers Festival 2017 and 2018. In 2019, she was Guest reader at the International Women’s Day Event at The Moon, William Street, Perth. In 2018 she won the Bronze Quill for Creative non-fiction writing. She has been published nationally and internationally and reads her work regularly around Perth. Rose is passionate about all sorts of writing and is a haiku editor for Creatrix Haiku online.

Helen Hagemann

Helen's work is published in Australian literary journals including Westerly, Cordite Poetry Review (2014) and Southerly (2014). In 2004, she won an Australian Society of Authors Poetry mentorship, studying with Jean Kent, a NSW poet. In 2008, Hagemann won a Varuna Longlines Poetry workshop, resulting in the publication of her chapbook Evangelyne & Other Poems in the New Poets Series, 2009 by the Australian Poetry Centre, Melbourne. Helen has an MA in Writing and teaches prose in Fremantle in association with the OOTA Writers Group. In 2011, she spent time in a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, in Ireland, working on a new poetry collection. Helen's latest collection is of Arc & Shadow published by Sunline Press, Cottesloe WA. Currently, she is writing a children's collection called "Miniscule" - inspired by the French TV series Minuscule, and has completed a second novel titled "The Ozone Cafe" with the help of a residency at the Arvon Foundation, Shropshire England. You can read some of Helen's work here: http://helhagemann.blogspot.com.au

RENEE PETTIT-SCHIPP

 Renee lived in the Indian Ocean Territories for three years, however 2014 saw her return to the port city of Fremantle she calls home.  Renee’s recent work shares her experiences in our nation’s most marginal territory, as well as her reflections on returning to the Australian mainland. 

Renee is currently enjoying a cross-discipline approach, which has seen her work appear in multiple exhibitions, numerous publications, on national radio and performed live in venues throughout Australia.  In the past five years, Renee has been shortlisted for the Dorothy Hewett manuscript prize, the ACU literature prize, the Katherine Susannah Pritchard poetry award, the WAPI Love Poetry Prize, the Trudy Graham Biennial Literary Award, and she has both won and been highly commended in the Ethel Webb Bundell prize for poetry.  Renee is currently completing her PhD in Creative Writing through Curtin University.

You can read some of Renee's work at reneepettittschip.com.au.

JOSEPHINE CLARKE

Josephine Clarke writes short stories and poetry. She has been a member of Out of the Asylum Writers’ Group since 2005, and was a member of the collective that organised the Fremantle Voicebox poetry readings from 2007 – 2022. Her work has been published in various Australian journals including Westerly, Cordite, The Review of Australian Fiction and ABR. She was a featured poet at the 2016 Perth Poetry Festival and in 2020 UWA Press published her first collection of poetry, Recipe for Risotto. 

As a first generation Australian, of Italian descent, her poetry and short stories reflect how culture survives migration through the domestic and the sensory; the experience of the ‘new country’ and nostalgia for the ‘old country’; what is common to both and what survives. How do space, landscape and technology affect our experience of living, of family? Josephine’s published poetry collection looks back to her childhood on a farm in Pemberton and at contemporary life in historic Fremantle.

Josephine has experience facilitating workshops in creative writing and in spoken word performance. She is also an experienced MC for spoken word events.

You can read some of Josephine's work at jospehineclarke.wordpress.com

RICHARD REGAN

Retired after a forty-year career in shipping and shipbuilding during which he wrote everything from newsletters, contracts, specifications and proposals to technical papers, speeches, brochures and marketing blurbs, Richard now devotes his creative energies to writing fiction. As a member of OOTA since 2015, he has twice won its Spilt Ink short story competition. In 2018, drawing on his extensive travel and maritime experience, Richard independently published his first novel, Oriental Vagabonds, set aboard a battered old tramp steamer plying the dangerous waters of the Far East on the eve of World War Two. He has since published two sequels, Oriental Vengeance and Oriental Valiant.

You can read some of Richard's work at www.orientalvagabonds.com

Tineke van der eecken

Tineke Van der Eecken is a Belgian-born Australian writer of autobiographical fiction and poetry. She is the author of Cafe d'Afrique, a memoir about her coffee shop in Zambia, and of Traverse, a navigation through remote Madascar to save a marriage. Her poetry traverses many languages. Her work is published in Australia, Europe and in the UK. Tineke lives near Fremantle Western Australia and works in conflict resolution. 

 www.readtraverse.com

 More about the author: Tineke@tinekecreations.com, Facebook: tinekevandereeckenauthor Twitter & Instagram: @tinekecreations