Jack Latimore is an Indigenous researcher with the Centre for Advancing Journalism. He is currently involved in the development of several projects aimed at improving the quality of Indigenous representation and participation in the mainstream media-sphere. His journalism work has appeared in Koori Mail, Guardian Australia, Overland and IndigenousX.
My name is Doreen Nelson (Jetta) and I was born at Kellerberrin, a small country in the Central Wheatbelt area of Noongar Country. It is situated on the Great Eastern Highway and is about 200 kilometers from Perth. It’s the traditional country of the Balladong people and the area is surrounded by many fields, salt lakes and hills. There are not many trees and bush in the area because the land has been cleared for farming by the white Settlers in the1800s. However, there are still many birds and animal species around the place, it is the place where I grew up with my family and it will always be considered as my home.
Celeste Liddle is an Arrernte woman, an opinion writer, a trade unionist and public speaker. Celeste started her blog Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist in June 2012. A mere six weeks after she started it, Celeste had a piece picked up for publication by Daily Life and since then has written for a number of publications. Along with Daily Life (Fairfax), Celeste’s work has been seen in The Guardian, New Matilda, Tracker Magazine, Eureka Street and others, and she has contributed chapters to anthologies such as Pan Macmillan’s Mothers and Others.
Amy McQuire is a Darumbal and South Sea Islander woman from Rockhampton in central Queensland. She is currently completing a PhD at the University of Queensland into media representations of violence against Aboriginal women. She is also a freelance writer and journalist.
Amy has been the editor of the National Indigenous Times and Tracker magazine, was a former NITV National News political correspondent and journalist, senior reporter for New Matilda and producer for 98.9 FM in Brisbane. Recently, Amy was the Indigenous Affairs Reporter at Buzzfeed News Australia.
Over the past four years, Amy has co-hosted the investigative podcast ‘Curtain’ with human rights lawyer Martin Hodgson. The podcast puts forth the case for innocence for Aboriginal man Kevin Henry, who was wrongfully convicted in 1992.
Mathew Lillyst belongs to the Gunditjmara people of south-west Victoria and the Bunitj people of north-west Arnhem land, but was born and raised in Melbourne. He is the youngest of six kids and the uncle to eight beautiful nieces and nephews. Over the past few years he has worked as a high school teacher in Victoria, the ACT and the Northern Territory. Currently, he teaches English at Muswellbrook High School in the Hunter Valley in NSW.
Taryn Little is a teenage school girl living in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney. She and her family are members of the Wiradjuri tribe from Central New South Wales. In her chapter, "Just a Young Girl", she describes her strong connection with family and her pride in her Indigenous identity.
Melanie Mununggurr-Williams is the 2018 Australian Poetry Slam Champion.
Melanie is a Djapu writer from Yirrkala in East Arnhem Land. She is one of about 4600 speakers of Yolnu-Matha. Her first poetry book will be published by Penguin in 2020.