Maxine Beneba Clarke

Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent, whose work includes fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry. She is the author of over fifteen books for children and adults, notably a short story collection entitled Foreign Soil (2014), and her 2016 memoir The Hate Race, which she adapted for a stage production debuting in February 2024. Her poetry collections include Carrying the World (2016), How Decent Folk Behave (2021), It's the Sound of the Thing: 100 New Poems for Young People (2023), Stuff I'm (NOT) Sorry For: 99 more poems for young people (2025), and Beautiful Changelings (2025). From 2023-2025, Clarke was the inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence at the University of Melbourne.