Sara M Saleh
Sara M Saleh is a writer, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of Palestinian, Lebanese and Egyptian migrants based on Bidjigal land. Her poems, essays and short stories have been published widely and she is co-editor of the ground-breaking 2019 anthology Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on Race and Identity. Her first novel is Songs for the Dead and the Living, which was shortlisted for the 2024 NSW Premier's Awards. Sara made history as the first poet to win both the 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the 2020 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of the inaugural Affirm fellowship for Sweatshop writers, a Neilma Sidney travel grant, a Varuna fellowship, and Amant writers residency in Brooklyn, New York, amongst other honours.
Her first poetry collection The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazal el-Banat won the Anne Elder Poetry prize, and was shortlisted for the Mary Gilmore Award and the ALS Gold Medal in 2024.