My Story - Writers

Matt Blackwood is a writer, filmmaker and teacher.

He has worked on AFI award-winning films, won prizes for his short stories and screenplays, given birth to three-and-a-half disobedient manuscripts, and gluten doesn't agree with him, even though he personally doesn't have a problem with it.

He cajoled ten companies to form a mobile cinema that toured the bushfire-affected area of St Andrews, and his project MyStory gained a City of Melbourne 2010 Laneway Commission, which will showcase his own work, along with that of Barry Dickins, Cate Kennedy and Tony Birch, in digitally immersive forms.

Barry Dickins is an award-winning Australian author, playwright and artist.

From his beginnings drawing cartoons for The Age to his most recent books for Hardie Grant - Unparalleled Sorrow and Black and Whiteley - Barry has always shown an intense curiosity about people and what makes them tick. He writes with inimitable wit, humour and lyricism - and has the ability to find the ridiculous and jubilant amid pain.

Barry has regular residencies teaching Year 10 students poetry and has won the International Amnesty Award for Peace through Art.

Cate Kennedy has published two poetry collections (Joyflight, 2004 and Signs of Other Fires, 2001) and has another one in the works; as well as a travel memoir about living and working in Mexico (Sing and Don't Cry; a Mexican journal, 2005), a collection of short stories (Dark Roots, 2006) and her most recent work, a novel, The World Beneath, published by Scribe in 2009.

Her work has appeared widely, from the Big Issue to the New Yorker, and she particularly loves the short story form. She lives in rural Victoria.

Tony Birch writes short fiction, poetry and essays. His short story collections are Shadowboxing (Scribe Publications 2006) and Father's Day (Hunter Publications 2009). His fiction and poetry has appeared in publications including Best Australian Stories, Best Australian Poetry, Heat, Meanjin, Overland. Both his fiction and poetry has also appeared in anthologies both in Australia and internationally.

Tony teaches writing at the University of Melbourne.