Johanna Bell
Over the past two decades, she has worked as a writer, producer and project manager across fields as diverse as community cultural development, participatory journalism, social research and program evaluation.
In 2016, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, travelling to the United States to study community storytelling methods. On her return to Australia, she drew on this research to develop Birds Eye View, Australia’s first podcast created by women prisoners.
Alongside her community arts practice, she sustains a constellated writing life. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in leading literary journals including Island, Overland and Griffith Review. In March 2026, her debut verse novel, Department of the Vanishing, will be published by Transit Lounge.
She is also the author of eight picture books for children, published by Allen & Unwin, University of Queensland Press, Scholastic and Thames & Hudson, with several more forthcoming.
Dion Beasley
Dion Beasley is an artist and illustrator from Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia. Dion is an Alywarr man who was born in Alice Springs in 1991. He spent his early years in the remote community of Owairtilla, also known as Canteen Creek, before relocating to Tennant Creek.
Dion has muscular dystrophy and is deaf.
