Meet the Toolkits: Nonfiction 2025 participants

Say hello to the young writers who will be taking part in this season of Toolkits: Nonfiction! Facilitated by Indigo Bailey, this 12-week program is designed to combine theoretical approaches, practical exercises, and group workshopping to guide young writers through the development of their work.

These workshops offer a unique developmental opportunity for participants to work one-on-one with the facilitar, hear from industry guests, and forge creative community.

Congratulations to this year’s cohort!

Agata Arczynska

Agata Arczynska (she/her), grown in Poland, lived in Germany for a couple of years and hopes Melbourne is the place she will settle in. She enjoys the serendipity of walks and solitude of long distance running, writes about a sense of belonging, the nature of connections, love, fears, the eerie, and all the trivial things around them.

Alessia Georgina

Alessia Georgina (they/she) is an artist and arts worker committed to bolstering the Adelaide art scene and the emergence and accessibility for new artists. Her aim for her career is to assist in the creation of paid work for artists and the integration of art in non-traditional spaces, as well as be an exhibiting artist. The beginnings of her magazine can be found under the same name on Substack (Heretics Mag), and similarly for her visual arts career invites to shows in December2025 and July 2026 will be making their rounds in Alessia's circles. 

Instagram: @alessiageorgina @hxrxticsmag 

Substack: https://alessiageorgina.substack.com

Anna Liang

Anna Liang (she/her) is a writer, economics student and data analyst working on Gadigal land. Her work has appeared in Voiceworks, The 2023 University of Sydney Anthology and the Care Zine. When she’s not reading, writing, or coding, you can find her maintaining her balcony veggie garden or trying to perfect a pour over coffee.

Bronte Lemaire

Bronte Lemaire (she/any) is a writer and theatre maker living in Naarm, recently having finished her minor thesis in the connection between queer desire and violent imagery in creative writing. She has been published in The Dialog, Farrago, The Bowen Street Press, and has had her play Medusa produced by Four Letter Word Theatre. 

Instagram: @bronte_lemaire

Claude Kempen

Claude Kempen (they/them) is a white, trans nonbinary writer from Berlin, currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Melbourne. Their research focuses on contemporary nonbinary memoirs, with the aim of developing a nonbinary theory. Kempen’s non-fiction work has delved into experiences of nonbinary transition, navigating the grief of losing their mother, and surviving coercive and corrective surgery during childhood. One of their poems was published in transcodiert, a Berlin-based queer magazine. 

Instagram: @claudekempen 

Edie Hopgood

Edie Hopgood (she/her) is a Creative + Writer living and practising on the stolen and unceded lands of the Eastern Kulin Nation (Melbourne/Naarm, Victoria). My current day job is as a Graphic Designer in the fashion industry, but I have always been interested in writing and the Media/Publication industries. Having a Bachelors degree in Design and Media Communication, my creative interests span many different formats - including design (largely editorial), journalism/creative writing, fashion, culture and much more. 

Instagram: @edie.hopgood

Ellie Fisher 

Ellie Fisher (she/they) is a writer, editor, and doctoral student. Her creative work has appeared in Westerly Magazine, Pulch Mag, Gems zine, Night Parrot Press and Swim Meet Lit Mag, amongst others. They are a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at UWA, researching feminist autotheory, écriture féminine, and the possibilities of textural intimacy in hybrid nonfiction. She splits her time between Kinjarling and Boorloo. 

Instagram: @bodilyofferings

Finn Dall

Finn Dall (he/they) is a writer and critic. His work has been featured in ACMI Stories & Ideas, Kinotopia, FilmInk, Rough Cut Film and the Melbourne University Film Inquirer. You can follow him at Letterboxd, Instagram and Bluesky @finnwritesdall.

Kae Woodbury

Kae Woodbury (they/them) is an emerging writer and community facilitator living and working on Gadigal land. They have been published in Archer, Honi Soit, ARNA, and Fondue, and are also the facilitator/gatherer/editor of the scrap,book zine project. Kae is passionate about platforming queer stories, working as a bookseller at The Bookshop Darlinghurst, Eora's only LGBTQIA+ specialist bookstore. They are also known as mad lad brad, Eora's first (and only) parkour-based drag king. 

Instagram: @c00chie__boi 

Kien-Ling Liem

Kien-Ling Liem is a Chinese-Malaysian writer currently residing on Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung soil. Having been writing for nearly her whole life, Kien-Ling is very passionate about writing as an art form and means of expression, but also as a resource for education. Her favourite books are Gone Girl and My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

Tali Oates

Tali Oates (she/her) is an emerging artist, writer and still not fully cooked human. She is inspired by the ragged natural landscapes of Australia and its equally precariously balanced and ever-growing human eco-system built from the ever-interesting lives of people. Right now she is on a gap year, going wherever the wind takes her.