Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer and poet of Afro-Caribbean descent. She is the author of the Indie and ABIA award-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil (2014). Her most recent poetry collection Carrying The World won the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry. Maxine is the author of the CBCA winning picture book The Patchwork Bike (a collaboration with Melbourne artist Van T Rudd) and her critically acclaimed memoir The Hate Race is being adapted for stage for Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre. She writes for the Saturday Paper.