Xiaole Zhan

Xiaole Zhan ( ) is a Chinese-New Zealand writer and composer based in Naarm. They are the recipient of the 2024 Kat Muscat Fellowship. Awards include the i>Kill Your Darlings /i>Creative Non-Fiction Essay Prize and the Charles Brasch Young Writers' Essay Competition. Their work has appeared in Island, i>The Suburban Review/i>, Landfall, Cordite Poetry Review, i>Going Down Swinging/i>, Starling and Sweet Mammalian. Their name in Chinese is and means 'Little Happy' but can also be read as 'Little Music'.

Margo Montes de Oca is a poet and researcher of Mexican and Pakeha descent living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She holds degrees in English literature and in ecology and biodiversity. She was a 2024 Starling writer-in-residence at the New Zealand Young Writers Festival, and her poetry has been published in issues of Starling, Sweet Mammalian, bad apple, i>Minarets /i>and Mayhem Literary Journal.

J. A. Vili is an Auckland-based poet of Samoan descent whose poetry often advocates for suicide prevention and mental illness support. He dedicates poems to friends and to his children who lost their mother at a young age. Vili holds a bachelor of creative writing. His poems have appeared in i>Ika /i>journal and i>Katuivei: Contemporary Pasifika Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand /i>(Massey University Press, 2024).