THAT POETRY THING
Samantha Faulkner (ACT) and Natalie Cooke (ACT) + open mic
7pm Monday 31 October (Doors open 6:30pm)
Smith’s Alternative, Canberra
Samantha Faulkner is a Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal woman, from Badu and Moa Islands in the Torres Strait and the Yadhaigana and Wuthathi peoples of Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. She is the proud author of Life B’long Ali Drummond: A Life in the Torres Strait, (Aboriginal Studies Press, July 2007) and edited Pamle: Torres Strait Islanders in Canberra (2018).
Her poetry and short stories are published nationally (Cordite, Verity La, Canberra Times and Rabbit Journal) and internationally (Ora Nui: A Collection of Maori and Aboriginal Literature, and Narrative Witness: International Writing Program, University of Iowa). She is a member of the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Network and Director, ACT Writers. She is the Treasurer of First Nations Australia Writers Network and Us Mob Writing Group.
Natalie Cooke
Born and raised in regional South Australia, Natalie Cooke is a Canberra-based writer of poetry and prose. She received an Anne Edgeworth Fellowship in 2020, which supported the development of Wrestling with Bees, and was a Katherine Sussanah Pritchard Fellow in 2019. Her poems have been published in a number of anthologies and magazine. Wrestling with Bees is her first poetry collection, and is published by Gazebo Books poetry imprint Life Before Man.