At twelve years old Paddy Boylan started running Dungeons & Dragons games for his friends. Spinning stories was like a heady narcotic to him. He fell in love with it. He'd write real prose fiction on and off, here and there, but never actually showed anyone or finished anything. Then in his late 20s he went back and read over some of the things his younger self had written. He was surprised-it wasn't as bad as he remembered. Some of it was actually pretty good. He writes a lot more now. He's writing science fiction for the Precipice Fiction anthology, and a novel-length work that might even be finished one day. He thinks Phillip K Dick's work is pretty great, but couldn't actually tell you what any of it was about, and doesn't think Dick was the strongest character writer. But Paddy's ok with that.
Alexandria (Ally) Burnham is an AWGIE winning screenwriter. A NIDA graduate (2016, Masters, Writing for Performance), Ally is a freelance screenwriter, script editor and author, under her business name Faucet Fictions. She is also the Creative Producer at Westwords - Western Sydney's literary development organisation. She is best known for her feature film Unsound (2020), nominated for best original feature at the 2020 AWGIE awards. Ally is the lead writer Metropius (AcropolisWorld), a multi-media franchise. Her screenplay for the animation won Most Outstanding Animation at the 2022 AWGIE Awards. The first issue of her comic book, Forgotten Rose, is out now. In 2020 she received a residency fellowship from Varuna House for the development of her fantasy manuscript, Majesty. She frequently contributes fantasy short stories to the free online e-zine Tales from Netherun. Alexandria has a passion for building worlds - whether through sci-fi and fantasy genres, historical settings, or via characters discovering new ways of communicating with the world.
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 writer 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. He predominantly writes fantasy & horror, though he is not above a children's tale or two. His first novel, 'The Road to Aurelia' has reached the pitching phase, while Matan is working on 'Absolution', a dark-urban fantasy taking place in a world where humanity has permanently tilted the balance of nature at a terrible cost. 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 Raig is an author with a passion for children's writing, speculative fiction, and poetry. He's a contracted children's author with Beyond Words Literary Agency and enjoys sharing his work at open mic events, as well as creating large collaborations. One such project involves nearly one hundred illustrators from around the world for a book of haikus he'll be publishing in the near future.On Spotify he can be found under, "The Tree Line", reading original works with self-created ambient environments. Lately, he's been releasing one audio story a month on his website, each story paired with a delicious tea/coffee/brew of some kind. Over the last few years, he has had the privilege of honing his craft through the help of editors from Greenleaf Press, and with the help of a robust writers group found through Writing NSW. He is now a pro-rated editor on Fiverr and has worked with authors both at the onset of their journey as well as those with a few commercial publications under their belt.
