marlee jane ward

I’m a writer living and working on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land. I have published both fiction and non-fiction in the genres of speculative fiction and memoir.
My debut Welcome to Orphancorp won the Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction and the Viva La Novella Prize. The VPLA Judges report called it ‘raw and necessary.’ Author Ian MacDonald wrote that the novella was the work of ‘a writer of heart and passion, muscle and slow-burning anger.’ The sequel, Psynode, was released in 2017 and the third in the series, Prisoncorp, came out in 2019. The series was bound into a single volume and released in 2022.
You can find my short fiction in Terraform, Apex, Interfictions, Aurealis, and others. My non-fiction has been published at Overland, Scum Mag, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings and more.
I’ve developed my craft through a BCA at the University of Wollongong and acceptance into the 6-week Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle, Washington (2014), and the Novel Writing Workshop at The Gunn Centre for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas (2017).
My work has been nominated for a number of awards, including The NSW Premiers Literary Award, the Norma K Hemming Award, Aurealis Awards. I won the Ditmar Award for Best New Talent in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Readings Residency Award in 2018.
I write non-fiction under the name Mia Walsch, and my memoir, Money For Something, was released in 2020.
I have new short fiction forthcoming this year in Interzone Magazine, and a novella with Interstellar Flight Press due out in 2024.