Hot Desk Edition #3

Nic Alea is a queer interdisciplinary writer with a BA in Creative Writing. They hold fellowships from the Lambda Literary Foundation and the Wheeler Centre. They have work published in Muzzle Magazine, the Paris American, Write Bloody, BOAAT, Crab Fat, Reservoir, decomP and others. In 2014, Nic was rated one of San Francisco Weekly's 'Best Writers without a Book' and has performed at the National Queer Arts Festival (US), the Santa Cruz Music Festival (US), Lit Quake (US), and the 2019 Emerging Writers’ Festival (AUS). Nic works at a public library and is invested in documentation as a way to reclaim and integrate the fragmented self. Originally from California, they now live in Narrm.

Geetha Balakrishnan is a fiction writer from Sydney, Australia, whose work explores issues of race, gender, exile, and loss in the legacy of colonialism. Her work is deeply influenced by her Sri Lankan Tamil background and her political perspective on the 30-year civil war informs the way she interprets the rise of identity politics in Australia. Balakrishnan's work seeks to disrupt simplified tropes that have historically represented minorities in Western literature, using sophisticated characters that reflect the experiences of those living on the margins of dominant cultures.

She was the 2014 recipient of the ArtStart Grant awarded by Australia Council for development of unpublished fiction manuscript, is an alumni of Voices of Our Nations Workshop (VONA) for Writers of Colour (2015 and 2016) and holds an MA in Cultural and Creative Practice from The University of Western Sydney (2013).

Christine Davey is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, director and PhD candidate. With over 30 years of experience in theatre in Australia, the UK and US, she is dedicated to telling stories through a myriad of mediums. She runs an independent theatre company – Skin Of Our Teeth Productions – has won awards such as the Wal Cherry Play of the year, the 101 New Plot Award and the Playbox Mentorship Award, and has had her work performed by companies such as Griffin, La MaMa, Melbourne Theatre Company, the Malthouse, the Butterfly Cub and the Melbourne Writers’ Theatre. As a journalist she has had worked published by organisations such as the Age, the Big Issue, and the Times.

Hayley holds a Masters of Writing for Performance from the Victorian College of the Arts, and was the 2019 playwright in residence at the Historic Billilla Mansion, Brighton, during which time she conducted playwriting workshops with local young theatre-makers and the University of the Third Age. She has completed an internship with Ranters Theatre Company and Creative VaQi Theatre, and residencies with Access to Arts / Arts Access Australia. Hayley has performed at various community and independent theatre companies, and has had plays produced at the Butterfly Club, Baggage Productions and Gasworks Arts Park. Her plays are published by YouthPLAYS.com and Australianplays.org.

In 2013, Hayley co-founded Dramatic Pause Theatre Company, and through them have taken her one act plays to various festivals, where she's received many Best New Australian Play Awards.

In 2017 and 2018 she was a participant in Melbourne Theatre Company's and Frankston Arts Centre's NEON Hatch Masterclass and Stage 2 Programs.

Hayley will be attending the UNESCO Short Play Festival at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand, where excerpts of two of her full-length plays The Tom and Fly will be given dramaturgical workshops and staged performances.

Gabriella Munoz is a Mexican-Australian writer, editor and translator. Her essays and reviews have been published in the Victorian Writer, Eureka Street, Mascara Literary Review, the Sydney Morning Herald and many other places. Her fiction has been published in Djed Press. Gabriella was the 2018 Digital Writer in Residence at Writers Victoria.

Jennifer Nguyen is a writer and poet. Her work has been published in Overland, Cordite, Best of Australian Poems 2021, Liminal, among others. She is the author of poetry chapbook When I die slingshot my ashes onto the surface of the moon (Subbed In, 2019).

Jas is a multi-disciplinary artist, writer and zine maker. Jas was a columnist with Scum magazine in 2020 and has an essay in the anthology Growing Up Disabled in Australia.