In the lead up to the 2025 Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival, 8 exciting writers will be visiting Blue Mountains public high schools to talk expression, respect, identity, the power of story, and building careers and community through writing.
Presented by Varuna, the National Writers’ House, with support from the Blue Mountains City Council Safe to Be campaign.
Express Yourself
Session 1
Experience the power of poetry and performance with Emilie Zoey Baker (slam poet), Nick Solo (Hip Hop artist with background teaching poetry to young people) and Vivian Pham (a writer and poet who published her first novel at 19). In this session, students will hear about how our panel use carefully chosen words to express their experiences and emotions, and how they tell stories about the world through their chosen artform. Includes readings/performances.
Emilie Zoey Baker is an award-winning poet and performer who has toured nationally and internationally. She teaches slam poetry in schools around the world and is the founder and creative director of OutLoud, Australian Poetry's Victorian youth slam competition.
Nick Solo is an artist, poet and songwriter best known for his work as the frontman of Hip Hop outfit Horrorshow. Over the course of a 15-year career, he has released seven studio albums and collaborated with some of the biggest names in Australian music.
Vivian Pham is a Vietnamese novelist, essayist, and poet from southwestern Sydney. Her novel The Coconut Children was published in 2020 by Penguin Random House, which won the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year and the SMH Best Young Australian Novelist Award.
Session 2
Power of Story
What does it mean to write – and read – about people like you? Join Nevo Zisin (storyteller, writer, poet and educator); Jasmin McGaughey (author Young Adult fiction, and Ash Barty’s Little Ash Series); and Jumaana Abdu (winner of the 2017 What Matters? Competition, now a published author, who was shortlisted for the prestigious Stella Prize in 2025) for this session about the incredible power of storytelling to build empathy and develop our understanding of the world around us.
Nevo Zisin is a storyteller, poet, TEDx speaker, educator on transgender topics, workshop facilitator and award-winning author of Finding Nevo and The Pronoun Lowdown. They have been in-conversation with Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness, Transparent producer Zackary Drucker and world-famous spoken-word poet and activist Alok Vaid-Menon.
Jasmin McGaughey is a Torres Strait Islander and African American writer and editor. She is the author of the Little Ash series presented by Ash Barty and illustrated by Jade Goodwin. In 2023, Jasmin won a Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Award.
Jumaana Abdu is the author of Translations. She was named Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist in 2025 and her widely published fiction and essays have won the Dal Stivens Award, the Patricia Hackett Prize and the Phoebe Journal fiction prize.
From the Mountains to the World: community and careers
Session 3
Get inspired! You CAN make a living drawing illustrations and writing stories! The creative industries is in the top 5 employing sectors in the Blue Mountains, and we have more creatives living here than in many regions in Australia. Join Blue Mountains locals Tegan Bennett Daylight (author and teacher) and Bill Hope (artist and illustrator) for a session about creative community and creative careers.
Tegan Bennett Daylight is a writer, teacher and critic whose books include novels, short stories, essays on writing and reading, as well as fiction for children and young adults. Tegan’s YA novel Royals was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Award for Young People’s Literature. How to Survive 1985, a stand-alone YA novel and sequel to Royals was published this year with a third and final book in the Royals series in the works.
Bill Hope accidentally drew himself into existence with a crayon at an early age and has been drawing ever since. Today he is an artist and illustrator living in the Blue Mountains. Bill has published a number of books for children and held a series of solo exhibitions, and is also the illustrator for the YOU & ME series with Andy Griffiths.
This event is part of the Blue Mountains City Council’s Safe to Be - In Our Community program of free activities helping our community keep each other safe, proudly funded by the NSW Government through the NSW Social Cohesion Grants for Local Government.
Find out more at bmcc.nsw.gov.au/safe-to-be
