Paddy Boylan is a writing teacher and editor who loves communicating the joy and art of writing. Mainly an author of short stories, in 2023 he was awarded a New Zealand Society of Authors mentorship to help develop his first novel, Sovereignty. He loves science fiction and weird tales, such as the work of Phillip K Dick. He's been writing since he was twelve and has a love of nontypical storytelling forms, such as tabletop roleplay games and narrative-based videogames. He's one-sixth of Precipice Fiction and one-half of the editing team for the Prose and Cons podcast (https://proseandcons.buzzsprout.com/).
Alexandria (Ally) Burnham is an AWGIE award-winning screenwriter and novelist. A NIDA graduate (2016, Masters, Writing for Performance). She is best known for her feature film Unsound (2020), which was nominated for best original feature at the 2020 AWGIE Awards. The film won best Australian feature at the 2020 Melbourne Queer Film Festival and best fiction feature film at the 2020 ATOM Awards. Ally is the lead writer of Metropius, a multi-media franchise. Her screenplay for the animation won Most Outstanding Animation at the 2022 AWGIE Awards, and issue #1 and #2 of her comic book, Forgotten Rose (2022) are out now. Ally also writes as a novelist. She is a contributing author and editor to the fantasy, sci-fi & horror short story anthology The New Mythic, which features her novella, The Stolen Sword. Set in the same universe, her fantasy manuscript, Majesty, recieved a Varuna Fellowship in 2020. Her debut historical fiction novel, Swallow, releases November 2025.
Alex is a writer and owner of a guitar school in Sydney. A lifelong reader and staunch devotee of the bedtime story, he started writing music reviews for street mags as a teenager. After picking up a battered copy of Steven King's 'Skeleton Crew 'at the age of 28 he realised that he wanted to become a writer and creator of stories. Currently he is working on his first novel (technically second but we don't count trunk novels.) He writes predominantly in the horror and sci-fi genres and currently lives in Sydney with his girlfriend.
Matan is an Israel-based author and editor, who spent 5 years honing his craft with the NSW Writing Center while spending most of his early 20s in Australia. His short stories have been featured in several competitions, and published by digital magazines. His short story "Glyphlight", which has been published as part of the "New Mythic" anthology, has been a finalist for the Aurealis Award in the horror category. He predominantly writes fantasy & horror, though he is not above a children's tale or two. As an editor, he has published multiple fiction and non-fiction books ranging from Fantasy to real-life spy thrillers. He loves reading Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss and Tolkien, though much like Paddy Boylan, and due to mounting influences by Alex Elridge, he is also an avid fan of Philip K Dick. The rest of the time he teaches English at a high school, and goes on long rambling walks in the parks of Tel Aviv with his wife.
James Healy is a member of NSW writers, born in Dublin and currently living in Sydney. Coming from a family of story tellers ingrained in James a keen interest in the entertaining yarn, cautionary tale and what stories can tell us about our world and natures. He developed a foundation in fiction writing with Big Smoke Writing Factory between 2009 and 2012. Using horror, science fiction and thriller elements, James likes to present bleak settings and explore how characters react under tension and pressure. He writes short stories and is working on his first novel.
Phoenix is a writer of children's literature, speculative fiction, poetry, and anything else he feels like taking a run at. He is proudly represented by Beyond Words Literary Agency and has had the honor of a nomination for an Aurealis Award for his work "Enter Elias Schmidt" in The New Mythic. In 2024 he presented at two national conferences hosted by ACES: The Society of Editing on behalf of his current project Bent Light Writing, a freelance editing house that has grown rapidly on Fiverr and is now partnering with independent publishing houses around Australia. The editing house seeks to put Authenticity Reading at the forefront and aims to bring out the most authentic and evocative version of any given story.
