Welcome to the voting page for the RUSSH Literary Showcase. Our judges, authors Winnie Dunn, Lamisse Hamouda and RUSSH Publisher & Editor In Chief, Jess Blanch, were moved by the quality, diversity and volume of the submissions but have decided up on the following of finalists.
These are all in the running to be awarded as our Readers' Choice Winner – as selected by you, our readers. The power is in your hands – it's time to cast your vote.
Voting closes at 12:01pm 15 April 2024.
At the clinic
About the author, Helen Nguyen
Helen is a Vietnamese-Australian lawyer currently based in Brisbane. Her writing has been published by Sydney Opera House, Hardie Grant, SBS Voices, Pedestrian TV, Sweatshop, and many more.
At the end of the world
About the author, Anthea Yang:
Anthea Yang is a Melbourne-based writer and poet. Her work has appeared in Going Down Swinging, Kill Your Darlings, Mascara Literary Review and the HEIDE+Rabbit House of Ideas: Modern Women anthology, among others. She was longlisted for the 2021 Kuracca Prize for Australian Literature, shortlisted for the 2020 Dorothy Porter Award for Poetry, and has performed her poetry at the Emerging Writers’ Festival, Melbourne Writers Festival and the 2022 Victorian Poetry Month Gala. Anthea was a recipient of the 2023 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship.
Butterfly lovers' violin concerto
About the author, Becca Wang:
Becca Wang is a writer and poet undertaking her BFA in Creative Writing at the Queensland University of Technology. She is the winner of the 2022 Spark Prize and has been published in Cordite Poetry Review. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and the 2022 Wells Festival of Literature Short Story Prize. Wang also writes about food, wine, and hospitality for Broadsheet Media.
Dear Mum
About the author, Tori Watts:
Based in Kaurna Land (Adelaide), Tori Watts is 28 years old and has been writing for half of her life. She records moments of pain and pleasure in privacy as a means for exploring experiences. She worked in various industries, and is currently studying a writing and publishing degree. She has a strong penchant for matters of social justice, for learning and for faith in forces greater than us.
Eucalyptus undom
About the author, India Turner:
India Turner is a 22 year old poet and gardener from Avalon Beach, currently in her third year of a Bachelor of Writing and Publishing. When she is not in the garden looking for Hawk-Moth caterpillars, you’ll find her paddling out for a surf at North Av. Her work has been published in Voiceworks, Meniscus Journal, and Kennings Literary Journal, to mention a few. She is on Instagram @indiaturnerr, but her poetry is on @myarchiveofpoetry.
Exhumation at sea
About the author, Z Morgan:
Z Morgan is a non-binary writer based in Brisbane. They like write and explore subjects that are tender and horrific in equal parts.
Fatal to the soul touch
About the author, Aastha Agrawal:
Aastha Agrawal is an Indian writer, illustrator and creative based in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). She is currently enrolled in the Masters of Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing at the University of Melbourne. Aastha has been published in the likes of Refinery29, Antithesis Journal, and Moody Zine, to mention a few. She won the 2021 IWD X Fashion Journal X Converse My Story Collection and was a recipient of the 2022 Artist in Residence POCC Billboard. Aastha currently works as a freelancer, and many of her endeavours can be found on her website, Enchanted Club.
The girl and the riverweed
About the author, Alisha Brown:
Alisha Brown is a writer and traveller born on Kamilaroi land in Australia. She won the 2022 Joyce Parkes Women’s Writing Prize and placed second in the Judith Rodriguez Open Section of the 2021 Woorilla Poetry Prize. You can find her work in Westerly, Griffith Review, Glassworks, Fine Print Magazine, and the Australian Poetry Anthology, among others.
The house of slugs
About the author, Mara Alice Papavassiliou:
Mara Papavassiliou lives in WA, where she is inspired by abandoned mine sites and the gothic landscape of the Great Western Woodlands. She has been published in the Centre for Stories’ Under the Paving Stones, the Beach anthology, Mona Magazine and Verge. She was a 2023 KSP Writers' Centre fellow and is writing her first novel.
I wrote this for my mother but she can't read it
About the author, Sohani Goonetillake:
Sohani is an emerging Sri Lankan-Australian writer. She recently graduated with a Bachelor of Science and Arts majoring in journalism. Currently working in a graduate role at Shameless Media as a multimedia producer, Sohani has a keen interest in any and all books. One of her proudest moments was interviewing best-selling authors Trent Dalton and R.F. Kuang.
Mother, there is a fire outside
About the author, Vahida Berberovic:
Vahida Berberovic is a storyteller who works full-time as a teacher of English and Communications at UTS College, Sydney. She is a refugee from Bosnia, and her writing investigates big themes in the small details of the lives of people like herself. She has written two novels, two novellas and several poems and short stories. Her fiction and poetry have been published in literary magazines, most recently in Cape magazine, The Academy of Heart and Mind, Quail Bell and Ariel Chart. She has been awarded a writing residency at the Vermont Studio Center and one at the Varuna Writers' House in the Blue Mountains.
Predilection & pain
About the author, Karen Leong:
Karen Leong is a Hong Kong-born writer of poetry, prose, and nonfiction. Her body of work speaks to reclamation and desire across topographies of fashion and art. She holds an English Literature and Gender Studies degree from the University of Sydney and is an Aries Sun. In 2023, Karen was awarded as a recipient of the Walkley x Meta Australian Art Journalism Grant and edited the inaugural art and culture publication for Arts Matter, A-M Journal. In 2024, she was selected as a StoryCaster with Multicultural NSW. You can find more of her work on @karen.gif.
Promised land
About the author, Anoosha Delpechitra:
Anoosha is an aspiring writer based in Melbourne. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from The University of Melbourne, where she majored in Media and Communications and minored in Creative Writing. She works full-time as a PR & communications consultant, and in her free time, she can be found reading, writing, or at the beach (sometimes all three). She is a proud second-generation Sri-Lankan Australian.
Random access memories
About the author, Syarisa Yasin:
Syarisa Yasin is a Boorloo-based aspiring filmmaker and writer. She is passionate about bringing diverse and inclusive stories to life, inspired by her Indonesian and Pakistani heritage. She aims to create work that speaks to women and femmes; to capture the complexity of their lives, identities, and dreams. Syarisa’s all-time favourite things to do include dancing, singing, and watching endless amounts of South Asian films from Bollywood to far beyond.
The rebirth
About the author, Dani Ringrose:
Dani Ringrose is an emerging author from Brisbane/Meanjin. She specialises in gothic and body horror, and won the 2021 AHWA Flash Fiction Award. She's a high school literature teacher and is currently studying her Masters of Writing, Editing and Publishing. Find her at www.daniringrose.com.
September 2022
About the author, Isabella Wang:
Isabella Wang is a writer living and working on unceded Gadigal land. She likes writing about culture, life the diasporic experience and all things in between. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Island Magazine Non-Fiction Prize.
Skinny cake
About the author, Rachel Dawson:
Rachel Dawson is a 25 year old Australian-Latin female writer living in Sydney. As a fairly new graduate with a Bachelor in Social Work, she is a case manager for children and young people. Outside of her profession, you can often find her frequenting the streets of Paddington with a Bassike shopping bag, or a sandwich and a box of pastries in hand; she also enjoys spending her weekends baking and catching whatever is new at the cinema. Rachel has been crafting fiction and non-fiction pieces for most of her life as a way to express her over-active imagination, one could say. She has recently begun her Master’s of Creative Writing and she says that prioritising her writing has been the best decision she's made - life is too short to not do what you truly love.
The string that goes unseen
About the author, Tayla Richardson:
Tayla is a disability advocate, writer and artist living on Wurundjeri land. She was an express media poetry and non-fiction toolkits creator and - as a member of Champion Health Agency, a world first ‘talent agency’ for lived experience with a chronic condition - has presented and performed at multiple Melbourne Disability Expos. She was awarded highly commended in the 2023 Writers Victoria ‘Writabilty Fellowship’ for her poetic memoir, commissioned for a spoken word poem by the City of Melbourne-SIGNAL and achieved first prize in the ‘Dreams and Debuts’ art competition through the University of Sydney, for her spoken word poetry video. Tayla’s choreography, utilising novel communication techniques as a wheelchair user, has been viewed online and onstage, including at the 2023 Melbourne Disability expo and Beyond Dance celebratory showcase. Her photographic art has been featured at Climarte Gallery, the 2024 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show and the Mayoral Art Exhibition.
Vignettes of love languages
About the author, Angelina Xu
Angelina Xu is a freelance writer, poet, photographer and editor. She works as an English and Literature Tutor. She is currently working on her first Zine of poetry and photography. Her work focuses on pop culture, Modernist literature, music and aestheticism. Her first article on Technology and Aesthetic Taste will be published by the Griffith Review in May 2024.
What am I here for?
About the author, Racheal McGuirk:
Rachael McGuirk is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. She has a Masters of Publishing and Communication from the University of Melbourne and has worked on a variety of arts, media and development projects in Australia and the Pacific.
This project has been made possible by CHANEL.
CHANEL is committed to continuing the artistic patronage initiated by Gabrielle Chanel. Gabrielle Chanel was never without books. They added to her life; they filled her life. It was from literature that she undoubtedly drew the strength to accomplish her work as a designer. It was literature that undoubtedly drove her to invent an allure that is eternal yet inscribed in perpetual modernity.
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