Meet the Toolkits: Fiction 2025 participants
Say hello to the young writers who will be taking part in this season of Toolkits: Fiction! Facilitated by Anna Kate Blair, 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!
Jaime Colley
Jaime Colley (she/her) is a writer from Southwest Queensland, and recent law and creative writing graduate from the Queensland University of Technology. She has been published in Voiceworks Magazine, QUT Glass, Scratch That, and others. In 2022 she won the QUT Literary Salon Winter Writing Competition and 2023, she was the winner of the QUT Allen and Unwin Writers Prize, and in 2024, she was a creative resident with WhyNot Australia. Her work often focusses on everyday magic, the subtle delicacy of relationships, and the occasional extremely honest poem. You can find Jaime on Instagram @byjaimecolley, or anywhere where there are horses, stars, and books.
Instagram: @byjaimecolley
Casey Keogh
Casey Keogh (she/her) is a Brisbane-based writer and animator with a passion for all things fantasy. A scriptwriter in her day job, she moonlights as a ghostwriter while tinkering away at her own debut manuscript. Casey completed a writing residency with the Queensland Writers Centre, where she also volunteers as a beta reader. She recently long-listed for the Hawkeye Publishing Manuscript Development Prize, placed third in Ky Garvey's Totally Lit! short story competition, and has a shiny new Diploma of Arts to join her Bachelor on the wall. When not writing, she yells at movies with her partner, trawls through her to-be-read list, and chases around two adorably mischievous cats.
Instagram: @caseyjoywrites
Aleesha Van Den Heuvel
Aleesha Van Den Heuvel (she/they) is in her third and final year of her bachelor's, double majoring in history and writing. She loves learning about history, especially finding ways to apply what she’s learnt to the world-building of her writing. Her favourite part of history is the Bronze Age collapse. She is also a florist, and flowers are her passion! Keep a look out for floral symbolism in her writing. Her favourite movie of all time and absolute obsession is ‘The Dark Crystal’. Aleesha writes mainly within the fantasy and science fiction genres.
Instagram: @avd.heuvel
Cindy Tran
Cindy Tran (she/her) is a hobbyist writer living, working and studying on Kaurna land. She has graduated with an arts honours degree and is currently aiming to pursue post-grad. She enjoys genre fiction as a means of conveying pertinent political themes, of escapism, and of finding and creating meaning through the eyes of others. When she’s not working, she spends her time playing video games and reading.
instagram: @cin.tran00
Madison Godfrey
Madison Godfrey (they/them) is a writer, editor, educator and the author of two poetry collections – Dress Rehearsals (Allen & Unwin: JOAN, 2023) and How To Be Held (Burning Eye Books, 2018). Their writing is described as “sensual and often funny” by The Guardian and "fiercely punk and undeniably powerful" by ArtsHub. Madison has performed poetry at The Sydney Opera House, Glastonbury Festival, St Paul’s Cathedral, and in a glass-bottomed cable car suspended above the Blue Mountains. Currently they live on Whadjuk Noongar land, with a rescue cat named Sylvia.
Instagram: @madfrey
X: @howtobeheld
Facebook: maddiegodfreypoet
Sabrina Caires
Sabrina Caires (she/her) is a writer and journalist specialising in arts, culture and entertainment. She holds a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from RMIT University and a Diploma of Entertainment Journalism. She has been published in Broadsheet, ACMI, The Swanston Gazette, Catalyst, Judy’s Punch, Hyperlocal News, and more. In 2024, she won the Mindframe award for mental health journalism. In her free time, she loves reading, taking ballet classes and writing posts for her perfume-based Substack newsletter.
Kamila Curtis
Kamila Curtis (she/her) is a Russian-born, Meanjin-raised emerging writer now living in Naarm. She has a degree in Arts/Laws (Honours), majoring in English and Writing. She has been published in UQ’s literary journal, Jacaranda, and her work largely features the themes of home, family, displacement, and the feeling of wanting to go back but knowing that you can't. When she’s not reading or writing she can be found browsing Goodreads, Letterboxd, and Ao3 in no specific order.
Sunny Tandoc
Sunny Tandoc (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist located in Melbourne, Australia. Their practice incorporates a combination traditional and digital mediums to explore their identity as a queer Filipinx/o-Australian with lived experience with mental health. Sunny was a grant recipient of VicScreen's Originate Program in 2023 and a Finalist in 2021 for the Midsumma. They were also a Semi-Finalist for AniMate Season 3. Sunny has completed a Bachelor of Design (Animation and Interactive Media) at RMIT.
Instagram: @tand0c
Emily White
Emily White (they/them) is an emerging writer from Boorloo/Perth, now slowly decaying in Naarm/Melbourne. They make zines and write fiction about the bodies and the worlds we inhabit. Motivated by conflicting desires to make people laugh and make people horny, Emily’s writing usually fits into the categories of comedy and/or erotica. Emily is a previous winner of the Rachel Funari prize for fiction and was recently shortlisted for the Lord Mayor's Creative Writing Awards.
Instagram: @emilybeige
Lucy Wylie
Lucy Wylie (they/them) is a writer and daggy queer making art on stolen Gadigal land. Riverstone Literary Journal is their publishing project. They host open mic community poetry events and spend a lot of time in the bush.