2026 Trans and Gender Diverse Fellowship Recipients
We are pleased to announce the six recipients of the 2026 Trans and Gender Diverse Fellowship, now in its second year running.
Congratulations to this year’s recipients Dani Leever, Hay Elliott-Ryan, Mohammad Taha, Robin M Eames, Sally Henderson and Siofra Thomas.
Our assessors, Kaya Wilson and Cadance Bell, would also like to highlight six writers whose work that they nominated as Highly Commended: Charley Sanders, Elliott McMahon, Em Readman, Jack Jenkins, Lise Leitner and Mohammad Awad.
We look forward to welcoming the six recipients during their one-week residency with us on 3 - 10 August 2026.
Dani Leever
Dani Leever is a transmasc non-binary writer, editor and Libra based in Naarm. They are currently the Publications Manager for Archer Magazine, and they've been published in various online publications and in Fremantle Press’ anthology on OCD, 'Try Not to Think of a Pink Elephant'. Outside of their words work, Dani’s dancefloor alter ego is DJ Gay Dad. They were the 2025 recipient of Transgender Victoria's Most Influential Award, and were nominated in 2024 for the MEDEA's DJ of the Year. Their trusty carabiner of USBs has graced the decks of queer parties and major festivals all around so-called Australia. Their work-in-progress manuscript is a body horror-inspired collection of essays on transness, disability, sex and inhabiting (or more accurately, haunting) their bag of bones/body.
[Photo credit: Hailey Moroney]
Hay Elliott-Ryan
Hay Elliott-Ryan is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Naarm, with a PhD in creative writing from Deakin University. Their work centres writing as a way of making and sustaining queer community, often working with and against traditional forms. They are interested in interspecies cohabitation, refuse ecologies, and the limits of narrative.
Hay is a founding editor of Cinder and WORDLY, and performs as a tap dancer multi-instrumentalist with Leonardo’s Robot. Their work has appeared at Melbourne Fringe, Venice Biennale (2024) and in the Heima Queer Artist Residency Exhibition, and their manuscript, Garbage was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (2024). They are currently developing a multimodal project on trawling industries, climate emergency, and queerness at sea.
Mohammad Taha
Dr Mohammad Taha is a poet and researcher whose work moves through loss, remembrance, and survival. They write to slow down and look closer, within and without. Nothing is as it seems, and when we are certain we know, we are very far from knowing. Their practice sits between a fundamental understanding of how our world is put together (in a nerdy way) and art, joining observation with reflection to find stillness, connection, and the beauty in resistance, grace, and the way we sometimes travel far to find a home within ourselves. We are always constructing who we are and deconstructing, over and over, through love and heartbreak, joy and grief, in the hope that one day we are who we are and who we aspire to be at the same time.
Robin M Eames
Robin M Eames is a queercrip poet and historian living on Dharug land. Their work has been published in Overland, Cordite, APJ, and Health & History, among others.
Sally Henderson
Sally Henderson is a comic writer, illustrator and animator from Boorloo (Perth). Their comics journey began in 2017, studying at Curtin University, where they were editor of the Curtin Illustration Club’s annual comic anthology MYTH and published their first comic, Geiger Woods. In 2022 they contributed to the comic anthology Fantastic Cadaver, which made the 2023 Comic Art Awards Shortlist. At the 2023 Perth Comic Arts Festival (PCAF), they debuted the first part of self-published autobiographical comic Breaking Into Animation, following up with a second part in 2024. In 2025 they were invited to be a contributor to the PCAF’s annual comics journal TALE TOWN by the Creative Director, Elizabeth Marruffo.
Siofra Thomas
Siofra Thomas is a writer and translator living on yalukit willam country.
This fellowship is made possible by donations from Grace Projects, as well as Kate and Leigh Shane. The inaugural program in 2025 was also supported by members of our community who donated via GiveOut Day 2024, including Bronte Atlast, Stephen Blood, Karen Cornford, Kevin Doohan, Tony Duffin, Brooke Dunnell, Denise Francisco, Darren Hardman, Gaby Hartig-Franc, Kim Knight, Kate Leaver, Robyn McLean, Zac, Ava and Devin Moran, Clinton Morris, Ellie Nielsen, Jasmine Nightingale, Gemma Noon, Naomi Parry Duncan, Yves Rees, Ben Reid, S Sanders, Orlando Silver, Tim Sinclair, Veechi Stuart, Sarah Vincent and many others who elected to remain anonymous. We are endlessly grateful for your support.