Coming of Age: Growing up Muslim in Australia

Irfan Yusuf is a lawyer and commentator who writes on national security, cultural diversity and conservative politics. He has been published in Crikey, The Canberra Times, The Drum, and the Australian among others. He has appeared on The Project and RN's God Forbid! 

Irfan won the 2007 Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues and is the author of Once Were Radicals: My Years as a Teenage Islamo-fascist.

He is currently a PhD scholar at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation where he is researching national security and transnational identities of young Australians. 

Demet Divaroren was born in Adana, Turkey and migrated to Australia with her family when she was six months old. She writes fiction and non-fiction and her writing has appeared in Island magazine, Scribe’s New Australian Stories, the Age Epicure, The Big Issue, and was commended in the Ada Cambridge Biographical Prose Prize 2013.

Her first novel, Orayt?, was shortlisted for the Australian Vogel Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. Demet is the recipient of an Australia Council Artstart Grant, a Rosebank Residential Writing Fellowship, a Varuna Fellowship for a Writing Retreat and a Glenfern Grace Marion Wilson Fellowship.

She is the Artist in Residence at Deer Park Art Spaces and has appeared as a panellist, guest speaker and workshop leader at literary festivals, universities, and schools across Melbourne. Demet is currently writing her memoir, aided by an Australia Council Jump Mentoring Grant.

A cross-cultural Consultant, Tasneem addresses issues of diversity, equity and inclusion across organisational leadership, including intersectionality within government, corporate, arts and community sectors. For her efforts she was recently appointed the inaugural Ambassador for Women of Colour, Australia, and in 2020, awarded an OAM. Tasneem has been named an ‘Anti-Racism Champion’ by the Australian Human Rights Commission and holds a Distinguished Alumni Award from La Trobe University in recognition of her impact in the diversity sector. She is a Board Director for The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), as well as a Strategic advisor for Fire Rescue Victoria and the Collingwood Football Expert Panel on Anti-Racism. Tasneem has also enjoyed governance affiliations with Ambulance Victoria, the In-Touch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence, the Luke Batty Foundation, NOW Australia, and Board Chairing roles for the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights and Lentil As Anything. A TEDxMelbourne presenter and writer, Tasneem has featured in SBS Life, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald and appeared on BBC’s IQ2 Debates, Q&A is a regular panellist on The Drum and host of the podcast series, Strengths Untold.

Alyena Mohummadally is a Pakistani-Australian queer Muslim woman who spent many years as a community legal centre lawyer before recently retraining as a primary school teacher. 

She is currently writing a cookbook on modern Australian cuisine with a Pakistani twist, and her two young sons are her favourite people to cook for.

She founded the Queer Muslims in Australia Yahoo Group in 2005 and has been published in journals, books, articles, spoken at conferences, workshops and has had documentaries made on her queer Muslim advocacy. Alyena had a long tenure on the Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council Inc.

Amra Pajalic is an award winning author, an editor and teacher. Her debut novel The Good Daughter (Text Publishing) won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature's Civic Choice Award, and was also shortlisted in the Victorian Premier’s Awards for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Writer.

She is also author of a novel for children Amir: Friend on Loan (Garratt Publishing, 2014) and is co-editor of the anthology Coming of Age: Growing up Muslim in Australia (Allen and Unwin, 2014) – shortlisted for the 2015 Children's Book Council of Australia Awards. She is funded by Arts Victoria to develop her memoir Things Nobody Knows But Me.