Our committee
Krishna Sen
Chair
Krishna Sen grew up in India. She completed a BA honours in History and a MA in International Relations in Kolkata, before moving to Australia to do her PhD in Political Science at Monash University. She has published extensively on contemporary Indonesia, as well as serving in various management positions and boards in the Higher Education sector. Throughout most of her adult life, Krishna has been actively involved as a donor and activist for a number of human rights and international aid organisations.
Dan Midalia
Treasurer
Dan Midalia has been a Commonwealth and State public servant for over thirty-five years, working mostly in the archives, records management and statistics sectors. He is the author of Collections in Perth: A Guide to Commonwealth Government Records (2000). For several years, he worked as an independent researcher and assisted with the collation of data for the Bibliography of Australian Literature and the AustLit database. He has a long-held interest in social activism.
Robin Bower
Coordinator, Writers in Prison
Robin Bower is a writer and editor who has worked in publishing in Australia and internationally. She was managing Editor for a Hong Kong magazine where she reported on the diamond industry in Asia and Europe. In Perth, she taught Writing, Editing and Publishing at Curtin University and holds qualifications in arts, education and publishing, and a master of Creative Writing from the University of Canberra. She has a keen interest in promoting freedom of expression in all forms, particularly for writers who have been unjustly detained.
Luisa Mitchell
Committee member
Luisa Mitchell (Shaw) is a Whadjuk Nyungar Anglo-Australian writer, filmmaker and arts producer, originally born and raised in Rubibi/Broome and now living in Boorloo/Perth. After combining her passions for story, art and social justice with a BA in International Relations and Screen Arts, and co-founding a youth anthology and film festival (Pulch Mag and The Uni Goonies Film Festival), she began work at the arts and social impact organisation Centre for Stories. There, Luisa co-facilitates the First Nations Writers Program with Ballardong editor Casey Mulder, and works more broadly on truth-telling and storytelling projects with First Nations communities across Western Australia. Luisa’s own short stories and poems feature in Westerly, Liquid Amber Press, Sweatshop, and more. Her debut poetry collection will be released with Fremantle Press in 2026.
Hélène Jaccomard
Committee member
Emerita Professor Hélène Jaccomard migrated to Australia in the 1980s where she pursued her tertiary education at The University of Western Australia while working as a professional translator. Over the span of 30 years, as a speaker and learner of European and Asian languages, she has taught and researched French Studies and Translation Studies at The University of Western Australia. Her publications cover literary criticism of French HIV/AIDS narratives and migrants’ stories, and analyses of translations. She has also published French translations of novels and plays, and the French translation of a handbook on translation theories. She has been a committee member and occasional board member of many organisations involved in social justice and human rights for women.
Vivienne Glance
Committee member
Vivienne Glance (photo by Sophie Minissale) is a prose writer, poet, performer and producer, who has Anglo-Indian heritage. Her first novel, ‘Semblance’, was shortlisted for the 2023 Dorothy Hewett Award and the 2020 Green Stories Competition in UK. Her plays have been produced, developed and awarded in Australia and internationally. She has published two poetry collections and other poems are published in anthologies and literary magazines. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from The University of Western Australia and has been awarded writing residencies in Australia, UK and USA. Vivienne works with Sudanese writer, Afeif Ismail, co-transcreating his poems and plays into English, including the 2011 AWGIE-nominated ‘The African Magician’. Vivienne has worked as a conservation campaigner and an activist, and she brings her passion for the environment and writing together through her creative practice and workshops.
Patron and honorary member
Peter Greste
Peter Greste is an academic, film maker, journalist and author. He is currently professor of journalism at Macquarie University and executive director of a not-for-profit advocacy group, the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom. He came to academia in 2018 after 30 years as an award-winning foreign correspondent for the BBC, Reuters, CNN and Al Jazeera, in some of the world’s most volatile places. He is best known for becoming a headline himself, when he and two colleagues were arrested in Cairo on terrorism charges while working for Al Jazeera. In letters smuggled from prison, Peter described their incarceration as an attack on press freedom.
His campaign for freedom earned him numerous human rights and freedom of speech awards. Now, as an academic, he leads a research program investigating the impact of national security legislation on public interest journalism. Peter is the author of The Correspondent about his experiences in Egypt, and the wider war on journalism. The book has since been turned into a movie starring Richard Roxburgh.
penperth.com 