Women and non-binary people are invited to come and share their poetry at this event hosted by Gabriela Falzon of Poetry Not Luxury.

Alongside the open mic, this event will feature readings by Steffi Linton, Merlinda Bobis, Melinda Smith, and GWEN, Canberra’s very own poetry band!

People of all genders are welcome at this event, but the open mic is exclusively open to women and non-binary people.

GWEN are a 5-piece band working with the poems of Gwen Harwood. Through their delicately arranged and emotionally-charged folk songs to Harwood's poetry, GWEN aims to bring Harwood's poetry to a wider and more diverse audience.

Gabriela Falzon is a Canberra poet who has performed at Art Not Apart, on NBC Radio, at the Canberra Australian Poetry Slam Final and as a feature artist for National Young Writers Month. Demos Journal, The ANU Women's Department, Feminartsy and The Canberra Times have published her work. Gabriela hosts the feminist open-mic event Poetry Not Luxury.

Steffi Linton is a queer poet living and writing on Ngunnawal country. Her work reflects her obsession with exploring issues relating to identity, sexuality, relationships and the power of socialisation. She recently completed a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing, and her first chapbook, More to Lose, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2022. Steffi’s work has also appeared in poetry journal The Crow and UC’s First and Curieux publications and will feature in forthcoming editions of Wishbone Words & Beyond Queer Words.

Melinda Smith lives on unceded Ngunnawal and Ngambri country and works as a poet, editor, teacher, translator, performer and part-time lawyer. Her latest book is Man-handled (Recent Work Press, 2020). She is the author of seven other poetry books, including the 2014 Prime Minister’s Literary Award winner, Drag down to unlock or place an emergency call, and her work has been widely anthologised and translated. She helped organise the Canberra poetry reading series 'That Poetry Thing' from 2017 -2020, and is a former poetry editor of The Canberra Times. During the pandemic she co-edited Borderless: A Transnational Anthology of Feminist Poetry with Saba Vasefi and Yvette Holt. She currently tutors in the writing program at the University of Canberra. melindasmithpoet

Merlinda Bobis is an award-winning novelist, poet, and dramatist. Her latest book of short stories The Kindness of Birds was shortlisted for the 2022 Steele Rudd Award and the Christina Stead Prize, which she won for her novel Locust Girl, A Lovesong. She sings some of her poems that she set to music.
merlindabobis