The Express Media team is so excited to announce the ten young writers who will be taking part in this season of Toolkits: Non-Fiction!

Facilitated by Hasib Hourani, this online course explores forms, skills, and ethics of writing non-fiction, combining theoretical approaches and practical exercises to guide young writers through the development process.

They will be encouraged to write, workshop and edit their writing throughout the weeks. They will hone their skills in textual analysis, create their own original work (which can be experimental, autobiographical, biographical or journalistic), explore the possibilities of collaborative work, and learn how to pitch work to publishers when they’re done. 

Congratulations to this year’s cohort – we can’t wait to see what exciting work arises from this program!

 

Ash (they/them) is a Melbourne-based writer with a love for memoir and autobiography. Drawn to the heartache, joy, and catharsis of real-life stories, they hope to tell their own stories of love, mental health, and coming of age as a queer and disabled person. With their skill in finding the humour in almost anything, Ash often jokes about changing their name to Murphy due to the nature of their experiences feeling like a prime example of Murphy’s Law, Ash hopes to craft stories for readers who often feel the same that leave them feeling truly seen. 

 

Julianna Perkosz (she/her) is a writer, photographer and zine-maker currently based in Naarm (Melbourne). Shortlisted for The Next Chapter 2020. Her work has appeared in Lethal Dose, Wet Dreamz Journal, Moan zine, The Emerging Writers Festival (2021) and RMIT Catalyst. 

 

Laura Pettenuzzo (she/her) is a disabled writer and bibliophile living on Wurundjeri country. She is a plain language and Easy Read content writer with a Masters of Professional Psychology from Monash University. Her words have appeared in places such as Mascara Literary Review, ArtsHub, The Big Issue, Meanjin, Griffith Review Online, ABC Everyday and The Age. When she’s not reading or writing, she can usually be found watching The Good Place and enjoying a cup of tea. 

 

Lilian Martin (they/them) is a writer, poet, and zine maker based in Meanjin and a recent creative writing graduate from the Queensland University of Technology. Their work tends to explore intersectional identities and themes through a humorous lens, and has appeared in #EnbyLife Journal, QUT Glass, and ScratchThat Magazine, among others. When Lilian isn’t writing, they are busy listening to old music, talking about old music or singing along (badly) to old music. Stay up to date with Lilian’s writing and zines on Instagram @lilian.is.feeling.groovy 

 

Lucinda (she/her) is a writer and reader from nipaluna/Hobart. She is studying an undergraduate degree in Classics, and loves sunbathing, red wine between $15-$30, and Roman love poems. 

@louiwee 

 

(he/him) I am a teacher/librarian splitting my time between Phillip Island and Melbourne. I am an avid reader of books and love going in to the city for the events, festivals and concerts on show. I have been published in Deakin University student magazine, Verandah Journal, Archer Magazine, and the 2023 Grit and Growing anthology.

 

She/they 

I am a Zambian-born storyteller. I write to honour my lineage and family, the first people to introduce me to oral storytelling. My writing has been published in the anthology, Under the Paving Stones, the Beach, Black Ballad UK and SBS Voices. I am among the 2024 recipients of the Centre for Stories Writing Traineeship. I was shortlisted for the 2024 Kat Muscat Fellowship for writers and editors. I am a spoken word poet who performs and reads my work for audiences throughout WA. I am avidly involved in my community, and I founded and managed the AfroHeritage Book Club – a community space for African Australians that promotes African literature. I am passionate about African stories, and I love promoting diverse African books that illustrate the vibrant, multifaceted, and enduring histories of our community. I am currently developing my first full length poetry manuscript that poeticises Zambian culture and traditions, and my coming-of-age within two cultures (Zambian and Australian). 

@vumalilli 

 

Yaseera Moosa (she/her) is a writer, photographer and architecture worker from South Africa living in Naarm. Her practice looks at the fluidity of place, its infinite making and unmaking by myth and matter. She has written about swamps, infrastructure, settler colonial mythology, fantasies of separation, and ways of knowing. She is interested in leaky containers: language, rivers, cities, bodies. 

@yaseera.jpg 

 

Adela Teubner (she/her) is an Honours student in Film Studies at the University of Adelaide. She enjoys writing about film, music, and art, and what our relationship with them says about ourselves and our society – alongside writing truly terrible poetry in her diary! Her writing has been previously published in Little White Lies, Senses of Cinema, and Polyester (upcoming.) Adela also loves to watch movies from the 1970s, read Joan Didion books, listen to her extensive record collection, go vintage shopping, and hang out with her girlfriend and her cat at home. You would currently be most likely to find her eating pasta and crying over the new Adrianne Lenker album! 

@tangerinetrees99 

 

Aïsha Trambas (she/her) is an afro-greek poet, facilitator and arts worker. Aïsha is currently Creative Producer at Western Edge youth theatre company, and has worked across programming, production and performing with SIGNAL youth arts studio, the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival, Emerging Writers’ Festival, YIRRAMBOI, Footscray Community Arts, Next in Colour, and more. In 2022, Aisha’s work was published by Freemantle and Djed Press in Unlimited Futures, an anthology of Bla(c)k speculative fiction. 

@aisha__3000