Mykaela Saunders is a Koori writer, teacher, and community researcher. Of Dharug and Lebanese descent, and working-class and queer, Mykaela belongs to the Tweed Goori community. Mykaela has worked in Aboriginal education since 2003, and at the tertiary level since 2012. Her research explores trans-generational trauma and healing in her community. Mykaela's work has won the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, the National Indigenous Story Award, the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize, the Grace Marion Wilson Emerging Writers Prize for creative non-fiction and the University of Sydney's Sister Alison Bush Graduate Medal for Indigenous research. Mykaela is working on two short story collections and a novel, Last Rites of Spring , which was shortlisted for the David Unaipon Award in 2020.