Kaya Ortiz is a queer Filipino poet from Mindanao and lutruwita/Tasmania, exploring fluidity in borders, memory, and time. Since 2016, they’ve performed at festivals including the Emerging Writers’ Festival and Perth Festival of Literature & Ideas. Their work appears in Cordite, Portside Review, and Australian Poetry Journal. Kaya was a Hot Desk Fellow at Centre for Stories and an Emerging Writers’ Fellow under Writing Change, Writing Inclusion. Their collection, Past & Parallel Lives, won the 2024 Dorothy Hewett Award. They live on unceded Whadjuk Noongar country, where their name means “hello” in Noongar.

Photo credit Ezara Ortiz