Hunter Writers' Centre Board
Hunter Writers' Centre Board
Jamie Lewis
Chair
Jamie is a Newcastle-based writer and filmmaker. His debut feature film, Mikey’s Extreme Romance won the Original Filmmaker Award at the LA Comedy Festival and his short films have been screened at festivals across UK, Europe and the USA.
Jamie brings 28 years of commercial copywriting, content directing and marketing experience across a range of industries from arts, health and retail to heavy industry, politics and finance.
Recently Jamie has interviewed authors for their book launches, festivals and library tours
Ed Wright
Deputy-Chair
Ed Wright is a writer, publisher, editor, critic and educator. His latest book of poetry, his third is Gas Deities (Puncher & Wattmann 2020). He is the author of eight non-fiction books including the best-selling Left Handed History of the World and a prize-winning novella, An End to Hope. He is the founding director of the Creative Word Shop which teaches Creative Writing to adults and children and provides editing and manuscript assessment services. He is also a Publisher and part-owner of the indie press Puncher and Wattmann. Books he has edited have been short-listed for a number of awards including the Miles Franklin and Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. He lives in Newcastle with his wife and kids and likes to play the harmonica when not lost in books.
Rhona Hammond
Secretary
Originally from Scotland, Rhona has called Newcastle home since 2007. She studied Classics and English at Oxford University and wrote her PhD on the poetry of Derek Walcott part-time through the Open University. Rhona is a Trademark Attorney and a proud winner of the local author prize in the 2017 Newcastle Short Story Competition.
Dael Allison
Treasurer
Dael Allison is an award-winning poet, writer and editor whose awards include the Henry Kendall Poetry Award, the Philip Bacon Ekphrasis Award, and the Wildcare Prize for Environmental Writing. She holds an MA from UTS and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Newcastle. Her poetry collection Fairweather’s Raft (Walleah Press) was featured on ABC’s Poetica. Dael has held multiple residencies, including at Varuna, Wildcare Tasmania, and a Lighthouse Arts residency. Dael first joined the Board in 2018 as Secretary for three years and is looking forward to contributing to the organisation again as Treasurer.
Vanessa Alexander
Vanessa Alexander is an award-winning writer and producer best known for her work on Vikings: Valhalla (Netflix) and The Great (Hulu/Stan), which saw her nominated for Best Comedy Series and Best New Series at the Writers Guild of America Awards. Her work in Australia includes writing scripts for Love Child and The Wrong Girl, for which she received an AWGIE nomination for Best Script. Vanessa has also worked extensively as a television director, Executive Produced a documentary series for Netflix and was previously nominated for an international Emmy for producing and directing the teen series Being Eve. With a love of poorly-behaved but endearing female protagonists, Vanessa enjoys the collaborative writing process, often running international writers rooms out of Newcastle. Outside of her screen work, Vanessa has a B.A. in English Literature, a P.G. Dip in Directing, a Masters in Film and Television Theory and a Ph.D in Creative Writing from UNSW. With five children, a foster son, two ex’s, a ukulele orchestra and a mid life crises at clown school in Paris, Vanessa is rarely short of inspiration for a story.
Ronald Araña Atilano
Ronald Araña Atilano is a Filipino-born poet who lives in Awabakal land in Lake Macquarie, New South Wales. His works have been published in the Rabbit Poetry Journal, Westerly Magazine, Island Magazine Online, The Marrow, Jacaranda Journal, fourW anthology and ‘Remnants’ Microlit anthology.
Helen Hopcroft
Helen Hopcroft is a Tasmanian artist, writer and occasional performer who lives in Maitland. She holds a Master in Fine Arts (Painting) from the Royal College of Art and a Creative Writing PhD from Newcastle University. Helen has just been awarded Creative Australia’s Keesing Studio for Australian writers in Paris.
Helen’s publication list includes The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Art Monthly, Griffith Review and ArtsHub.com. She has been shortlisted for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 Newcastle Writers Festival joanne burns Microlit Award, and for the 2022 Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing for her poem ‘The Howling’. Spineless Wonders recently published Helen’s erotic novella, The Nights, as an illustrated book with a foreword by Carmel Bird. The Nights was launched at the 2024 Newcastle Writers Festival.
Helen once spent a year dressed as Marie Antoinette for a piece of performance art titled My Year as a Fairy Tale and is currently writing a memoir/auto-fiction about the experience.
Paris Rosemont
Paris Rosemont is a Thai-Australian poet, educator, and author of Banana Girl and Barefoot Poetess. Her debut was shortlisted for several poetry book awards, and her writing has been published in over 80 literary journals and anthologies worldwide including Australian Poetry Journal, Mascara, Rabbit, Sky Island Journal, Splinter, and Verge.
Lamisa Siddique
Lamisa Siddique is a slam poet based in Awabakal Country. Her voice has been shaped by her own poet father and the rich Bangali tradition of কবিতা আবৃত্তি (kobitta abritti/poetry recitals). She writes from a place of quiet observation of the world and people- inequality, injustice, love and loss – and uses her words to “rage against the world”. She came in 2nd at the 2025 National Finals of Australian Poetry Slam and has had her work showcased at the Brown Women Poetry organised by Australian South Asian Centre. She hopes to bring the beauty of slam poetry to the Newcastle and Hunter area and has hosted the inaugural ‘Speak Your Truth’ Poetry Slam at the 2026 Newcastle Writers Festival.
Hunter Writers' Centre Staff
Katherine McLean
Director
Katherine has over 20 year’s experience working in arts and non-profit organisations, working across artistic disciplines such as theatre, puppetry, community cultural development, and digital storytelling.
She was CEO of CuriousWorks (NSW) and Barking Gecko Theatre (WA) and was the Assistant Manager of the Abbotsford Convent Foundation, working as part of the small team that established the arts, culture and education precinct.
She has served as a member of the City of Melbourne’s Community Cultural Development Arts Advisory Panel and held Board positions at Country Arts WA, Performing Arts Touring Alliance, Australian Performing Arts Centre Association, Surfrider Foundation Australia and Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub.
Personal highlights of her career include seeding Sensorium–Australia’s only theatre company making interactive sensory theatre designed for young audiences with disability.
To the Hunter Writer Centre, she brings working knowledge of the arts industry, coupled with project management and strategic development skills, and a deep love and respect for story. She is a skilled communicator and facilitator and loves to work with passionate people towards a common goal. She thrives on supporting artists, developing opportunities to assist big, beautiful ideas to manifest in the world.
E: director@hunterwriterscentre.org
Keighley Bradford
Awards and Publications Coordinator
Keighley is our membership and marketing co-ordinator and prepares our publications. She has a Masters in Creative Industries from the University of Newcastle specialising in Writing, Publishing, and Marketing
E: kbradford@hunterwriterscentre.org
Jacqueline Williams
Bookkeeper
Jacqueline is our Bookkeeper. She has 30+ years experience working with Not-for-Profit organisations. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Masters in Business Administration.