Amal Awad is a journalist, screenwriter, author and performer. She has contributed to ELLE, Frankie, Meanjin, Going Down Swinging, Daily Life, Sheilas, SBS Life and Junkee. As well, Amal has produced and presented for ABC Radio National and has held senior editorial roles at a number of trade publications. Amal is a public speaker, appearing at schools, universities and writers’ festivals around Australia. She presents workshops on storytelling and creativity, has been a regular panellist on ABC TV’s The Drum and was a TEDx Macquarie speaker in 2019. Amal is the author of two novels – Courting Samira and This is How You Get Better – and the non-fiction books The Incidental Muslim, Beyond Veiled Clichés: The Real Lives of Arab Women and Fridays With My Folks: Stories on Ageing, Illness and Life. She has also contributed to the anthologies Growing Up Muslim in Australia: Coming of Age and Some Girls Do …: My Life as a Teenager. Her next non-fiction book, In My Past Life I was Cleopatra, will be published by Murdoch Books in 2020. As a screenwriter, Amal has several film and television projects in development. She has also directed short films, a pursuit she continues alongside writing and performing.