Peter Clynes wrote his first poem when he was eight years old; his grandmother told him she loved it so he took that as a sign of good things to come. He started writing again more seriously later in high school.

Zenobia Frost is a Brisbane-based writer and critic with a PhD in burning the candle at both ends. Since 2009, she has released two chapbooks and toured both interstate and overseas. She travelled with the 2012 Queensland Poetry Festival Regional Roadshow, before whipping a full-length manuscript into shape at Varuna, the writers’ house.

I was once an emerging poet. Judging the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets has reminded me of what that meant, how it felt to be sparkling with eager hope while stumbling around in the dark, somewhat fearful of the Poetry Furies – their testing glare and rejection slips, their unattainable approbation.