2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship Recipients
We are very excited to announce the six poets selected for the 2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship, to coincide with this year’s World Poetry Day.
In partnership with Red Room Poetry, the Red Room Poetry Fellowship is an opportunity for poets to undertake an intensive period of creative development including a residency at Varuna (in-person and remotely), mentorship, as well as a poetic commission to be published as part of Poetry Month in August. All six poets will undertake their residency simultaneously, establishing a community of practice, and encouraging new poetic connections.
This Fellowship is made possible through the generosity of supporters Bret Walker AO SC, Tim Game SC and The Adès Family Foundation.
The 2026 program received a total of 212 applications. Judges Alison J. Barton, David Brooks and DženanaVucic noted that submissions this year displayed an extraordinary range of work reflecting the breadth and vitality of contemporary poetry across the continent.
“We noticed that many submissions engaged deeply with questions of lineage, cultural knowledge, inheritance and memory, with many moving between personal and collective histories and drawing on family archives, oral storytelling, and un/historical record.”
Congratulations to the following six Red Room Poetry Fellows and the four poets who have been acknowledged as Highly Commended.
2026 Red Poetry Fellows
Sela Ahosivi-Atiola, Tauhi Vā (Tending Space) (NSW)Dakota Feirer, Spearism (Regional NSW)
Dakota Feirer, Spearism (Regional NSW)
Kerry Greer, Ghost Lover Other (WA)
Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello, Epicentre (ACT)
Rob Waters, Love Letters To Country (Regional NSW)
Misbah Wolf, What remains unsaid (VIC)
Highly Commended
Bronte Heron, Nighttime Gardener
Chloe Mayne, ningi lutha / mother tree
Kara Tuck, Reclaiming tongue
Sarah Temporal, Adaptations
We look forward to welcoming the 2026 Fellows to the house later this year in August.
ANYWHERE REMOTE FELLOWSHIP
Sela Ahosivi-Atiola
Sela Ahosivi-Atiola is a Tongan-Australian writer from Blacktown. She is a member of the Sweatshop Literacy Movement, and her children's book I Am Lupe (Hachette, 2023) is the first children's book published by a Tongan author in Australia. Her work has been published in SBS Voices, Colournary Magazine, Adda Magazine, and Story Casters. Sela was also selected for the Fresh Off the Books Fellowship with Sweatshop and NewSouth Publishing.
IN-PERSON RESIDENCY FELLOWSHIP
Dakota Feirer
Dakota Feirer is a Bundjalung storyteller, working with a diversity of mediums to address Indigenous resurgence, masculinity, ecological and cultural repair. His work consists of poems, prose, performance and sound works with a focus on Indigenous knowledge and resilience in the 21st century.
Kerry Greer
Kerry Greer is an Irish-Australian poet and writer. She received the Venie Holmgren Prize for Environmental Poetry in 2021, and placed second in the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize in 2024. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Cedar Crest College. Her debut poetry collection, The Sea Chest, was published by Recent Work Press in 2023. Kerry is currently at work on her second poetry collection.
Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello
Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello OAM is a visual artist, poet and writer of Aboriginal (Lower Southern Arrernte), Chinese and Anglo-Celtic descent. Her poetry, prose and essays have been nationally and internationally. She lives and works on the unceded lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, Kamberri/Canberra Australia.
Rob Waters
Rob Waters is a multidisciplinary artist working across poetry, storytelling, playwriting, cultural education, and spoken word. A Gomeroi man from Tamworth, now based on the Central Coast, he is a former Australian Poetry Slam Champion. With over two decades of experience, his work is powerful and culturally grounded, deeply connected to education, community, family, and activism, and he is committed to sharing stories that create understanding.
Misbah Wolf
Misbah Wolf is a poet and musician living and working on Wurundjeri Country. Her work explores embodiment, psychic mapping, and archetypal language through somatic attention and symbolic process. She draws on mystic and poetic lineages while favouring compression, restraint, and intensity over explanation.
