ERIN SHIEL
Erin Shiel’s poetry is inspired by art, empathy and the impact these have on identity and daily life. Erin has had poems published in journals and anthologies such as Mascara, Meanjin, Cordite and Australian Love Poems. Her work has been shortlisted for the University of Canberra's Vice-Chancellor's Poetry Prize (2018) and the Blake Poetry Prize (2008). In 2022 she won the South Coast Writers Centre Poetry Award. She has worked in the health and community sectors, particularly in cancer prevention and early detection as well as in support services for children and families. She has a Master of Public Health, a Master of Arts in Literature and a Master of Arts (Research) from the University of Sydney. She is currently training to be a counsellor in the Master of Counselling program at the University of Notre Dame and is enthusiastic about the role of creativity and poetry in therapy. She lives with her partner and the youngest of her four sons on Gadigal land in Newtown, Sydney

OWEN BULLOCK
Owen Bullock is originally from Cornwall and lived for 25 years in Aotearoa New Zealand before migrating to Australia in 2014. He began writing haiku in 1999 and has published four collections: Wild Camomile (Post Pressed, 2009); Breakfast with Epiphanies (Oceanbooks, 2012); Urban Haiku (Recent Work Press, 2015), and River’s Edge (Recent Work Press, 2016). He is a former editor of Kokako, New Zealand’s only specialist haiku magazine, and was one of the editors who produced Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Vol IV (Kei Books, 2012). He has also published three books of longer poems, Sometimes the sky isn’t big enough (Steele Roberts, 2010); Semi (Puncher & Wattmann, 2017), and Work & Play (Recent Work Press, 2016), as well as the novella, A Cornish Story (Palores, 2010). Owen holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Canberra where he currently teaches.

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