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A colourful book cover wit an illustration of a woman dressed in black hugging somebody, head down and eyes closed. The title is in colourful letters across the black of the bodies

Sara M Saleh

Sara M Saleh is an award-winning Arab-Australian author of Songs for the Dead and the Living, and The Flirtation of Girls.

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A woman with large hoop earrings and a yellow headscarf stands at an angle to the camera, smiling with closed lips

Sara M Saleh is a writer/poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of Palestinian, Lebanese and Egyptian migrants. 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 (Affirm Press, 2023). Sara has run writing workshops in countless classrooms, community spaces, and festivals across the country, and has performed nationally and internationally. She is currently co-leading the Muslim Poetry Project retreat and anthology.

Sara is the first and only 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, Varuna writers residency, and Amant writers residency in Brooklyn, New York, among other honours. Sara is based on Bidjigal land with her partner and their cats, Cappy & Lola.

Her first poetry collection is The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazal el-Banat (UQP, 2023).

Sara M Saleh

Festival Events

Newcastle Writers Festival would like to acknowledge the Awabakal and Worimi peoples, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which the festival takes place, and recognise their continuing connection to land, water and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging and extend this respect to all First Nations people attending our festival.

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