Maxine Beneba Clarke

Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of the ABIA and Indie award-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the bestselling memoir The Hate Race, and over 12 other books for adults and children, including the Victorian Premiers Literary Award winning poetry collection Carrying the World, the illustrated poem When We Say Black Lives Matter (longlisted for the UK’s Kate Greenaway medal), and the picture book The Patchwork Bike, which won the Boston Globe Horn Award for Best Picture Book. Her most recent poetry collection is the critically acclaimed It’s the Sound of the Thing: 100 new poems for young people. She is currently the inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence at the University of Melbourne. The Hate Race, and adaption of her memoir of the same title, is her first full length work for theatre.