With over 35 years of experience Michael has worked as CEO, Artistic Director, an arts consultant and strategist, artistic co-ordinator, producer, events manager, librettist, editor, writer, events manager, director, choreographer and dancer. He was the Festival Director for the Brisbane Writers Festival (2006-2009), and the literary events program at gleebooks in Sydney for 4 years (2002-2005). He is a former Chair of Currency House, and of its Editorial Committee, and edited Keith Bain on Movement and Keith Bain: The Principles of Movement for Currency House and Oberon Books (UK). He was a principal dancer with West Australian Ballet, Queensland Ballet and Oper der Stadt Köln, and has worked for companies in various capacities including Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare Company, Griffin Theatre Company and Sydney Youth Orchestra. 

He has worked for Opera Australia in various capacities from director, choreographer to set designer, on numerous works over a 20 year period, including Merry Widow, Handa on Sydney Harbour: Carmen and La Traviata, La Forza del Destino and Salome. In 2004 he directed the opera Madeline Lee, which he also co-wrote, and was nominated for seven Helpmann Awards. The work was restaged by State Opera of South Australia in 2019. Other notable creative projects include directing, producing and co-creating The Faces of Mercy – a multi-artform work performed in Sydney and Rome; presenting the TV show For the Love of Books (Studio TV – Foxtel); judging the 2013, 2014, 2016 WA Premier’s Book Awards. 

In 2018 he was a member of the Western Sydney Arts, Screen and Culture Roundtable and served on the Creative Arts and Humanities panel for Australia Research Council’s inaugural Engagement and Impact Assessment. In August 2019 Michael was appointed to the inaugural Create NSW Artform Literature Advisory Board. WestWords was awarded the Commbank Excellence in Arts and Culture in the 2020 and 2021 Western Sydney Awards for Business Excellence and in 2021 Michael was personally awarded Excellence in Business Leadership. Also in 2021 he was shortlisted for the Impact 25 Awards recognising “innovators, collaborators and changemakers from across the social sector who are making a positive impact in the community”. In 2023 WestWords’ Living Stories Writing Competition was awarded the Outstanding Project Community Arts and Culture Award at the ZEST Awards. both WestWords and Michael were nominated for the Parramatta Citizen of Year Awards, Michael was a finalist as a Westfield Local Hero recognising and celebrating role models who work has benefitted others. In 2024 Michael was name as one of 30 Australians “leaving their mark” on Community, Culture and Innovation in Guardian Australia’s and Grant Burge wine’s Leaving Your Mark Awards.

Ally Burnham is an AWGIE-winning screenwriter, novelist and writer of comics. She is also the Creative Producer at Westwords – Western Sydney’s Centre for Writing. As a part of this work, Ally features regularly at writing festivals, hosting cross-media and writing talks and workshops. Past events have included the Art Gallery of NSW, the Writing NSW Speculative Fiction Festival, the 2023 HNSA Conference, Sydney’s first SXSW Conference, and was a guest curator for 10th anniversary of the Rose Scott Women Writers’ Festival.

A NIDA graduate (2016, Masters, Writing for Performance), she is best known for her feature film Unsound (Apple, 2020), which was nominated for best original feature at the 2020 AWGIE awards. A romantic-drama, the film won best Australian feature at the 2020 Melbourne Queer Film Festival, best fiction feature film at the 2020 ATOM Awards, and was nominated for best indie feature at the 2020 AACTA awards, and Best Oceania Film at the 2022 Septimius Awards.

Ally also writes as a novelist. Her debut novel, Swallow, is set for release November 2025. Swallow is a pirate historical fiction based on a true story from Australian history. An early draft of the manuscript was longlisted for the 2022 Page Turner awards.

Ally is the lead writer for Metropius (AcropolisWorld), a multi-media franchise produced by 18 Degrees. In 2019 the project received funding from Screen Queensland, and her screenplay for the animation won Most Outstanding Animation at the 2022 AWGIE Awards. In 2021 project was awarded the Epic Games’ Epic Megagrants to expand into comics, an AR experience and a board game. The first and second issues of her comic book, Forgotten Rose, are based in the world of Metropius. Further collaborating with 18 Degrees, Ally shares a writing credit on the comedy-heist feature film, Nice Package (2016).

Writing for television, Ally has collaborated on projects for CJZ, and assisted on projects for Essential Media and Blackfella Films in 2017. In 2016, developing for CJZ, Sweet Jane, was a recipient of Screen Australia’s Gender Matters initiative.In 2014, Ally graduated from Griffith Film School with a Bachelor in Film and Screen Media, specialising as an on-set AD and script supervisor. For her graduate work, Ally wrote and directed the short, 2.0. The film celebrated a fruitful festival run, appearing in competition at seven international film festivals. In 2013, Ally won the Australian-wide young filmmaker’s competition, ‘The Shoot’, hosted by Baz Luhrmann, NIDA and Samsung. Her short film, The Pilgrim Report, premiered at the Sydney Opera House during its 40th Anniversary Celebrations.

Speculative fiction is also a large part of her writing. In 2020 she received a residency fellowship from Varuna House for the development of her fantasy manuscript, Majesty. In 2021 she was accepted into the Westwords Academy for development of the same project. Three of her fantasy short stories, Suns of the Division, Feeder and Clipped, have been published by Quill and Read, an online magazine. 

Ally is a part of the writing collective and indie publisher Precipice Fiction. Together they released the fantasy, sci-fi & horror short story anthology The New Mythic in December 2022, of which Ally is a contributing editor, and author, with the fantasy novella The Stolen Sword. The New Mythic was nominated for two Aurealis Awards in 2022. Precipice Fiction also drops fortnightly podcast episodes called Prose & Cons. It is a podcast by emerging writers, for emerging writers. 

Other writing acknowledgments include the long list for the AWG Prime Time program (TV), and the semi-finals of the Screencraft Thriller and Action screenplay competition. In 2021, her short film, Saving Daylight premiered in competition at the Flickerfest Film festival, and Flood and Fire premiered at Lift Off Sydney film festival 2024. 

When there is time, she also teaches at NIDA Open, course designing and training school-aged and adult students in screenwriting for film and television.

Isabelle Quilty (she/they) is a non-binary writer and poet from regional NSW, Australia. Some of their work is published under Beau Quilty. Their work covers LGBTQ+ topics, working towards a greener future and works inspired by their South Asian Heritage. They enjoy writing horror focused on providing cathartic narratives for all women and marginalised gender identities.

Sheryl Cootes has been teaching for over thirty years in schools in the Blue Mountains and western Sydney areas. She has been teacher, Assistant Principal and Relieving Principal at Department of Education schools, most recently in the role of Assistant Principal at Bidwill PS, mentoring inexperienced teachers in the use of literature in the classroom and establisiing a culture of ‘reading for pleasure’ among students.

She is a recipient of the Minister’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Australian College of Education Award for Outstanding Achievement.

Sheryl is passionate about engaging students with children’s literature, conducting Book Clubs for senior students and challenging them to read forty books within a school year. She has actively promoted and developed literature resources in all schools at which she worked.

Sheryl is currently President of the Blue Mountains sub-branch of the Children’s Book Council of Australia (NSW branch), a position she has held since 2015. She has established Little Free Libraries at ten locations in the middle and upper mountains, providing access to quality children’s literature for the broader community. As President of the sub-branch, she has been instrumental in conducting literary dinners and children’s activities in conjunction with Blue Mountains City library and local authors and illustrators.

Sheryl has recently been apppointed as judge for the Eve Pownall Award for the CBCA Book of the Year for 2021-2023.

Kathie’s corporate background began after a successful career as a professional dancer was cut short due to injury. She completed a Diploma in Business (Marketing) whilst working in business development and management roles within the transport and HR industries, before moving into the Not-for-Profit sector around 12 years ago.

She then worked as a Corporate Partnerships Manager for three large Australian charities and negotiated significant social responsibility programs with ASX listed organisations, coupled with managing fundraising teams, high profile events, direct marketing campaigns, sponsorships, and media relations.

Seeing a gap in the NFP sector for smaller organisations to allocate time and resources to sourcing partnerships and funding, Kathie decided to form her own consultancy, Square Pegs. She is passionate about assisting small to medium arts and social justice organisations source extra funding, sustainability, diversification, and support for their programs through establishing mutually beneficial partnerships, generating revenue and raising their profiles through targeted campaigns and advocacy work.