Acknowledgement

We respectfully acknowledge that Byron Writers Festival takes place on the traditional lands of the Arakwal Bumberbin Peoples of the Bundjalung Nation. We pay respects to Elders past and present, and acknowledge them as the original storytellers of the lands and waterways of this Country.

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Writer

Merinda Dutton

Merinda Dutton is a Barkandji and Gumbaynggirr woman, mother, lawyer, and co-founder of Blackfulla Bookclub on Instagram, whose creative practice explores kinship, country, and justice through poetry and storytelling. Her work has appeared in Sydney Review of Books, Griffith Review, Australian Poetry Journal, the Suburban Review and she contributed to the anthology Words to Sing the World Alive. Merinda won the 2025 Ooodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize for her poem titled, Amnesia.

Beyond Colonial Literature