Claire Cao is freelance writer from Western Sydney. She recently graduated with a Bachelors of Law/Arts from UNSW, majoring in Media, Culture and Technology. On screen, she is a screenwriter and associate producer for the Screen Australia-funded feature anthology HERE OUT WEST, which is currently in post-production. Her film criticism, essays and fiction have been published in publications such as The Big Issue, Filmmaker, SBS Voices, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, among many. She is a part of the published anthologies Sweatshop Women Volume One and COLLISIONS (Pantera Press). In 2019, she was part of Melbourne International Film Festival’s Critics Campus and was the runner up for the Liminal Fiction Prize. In 2020, she was a WestWords fellow, and was mentored by award-winning author Melina Marchetta.
She is passionate about uplifting emerging artists from diverse backgrounds, and has taken mentorship/editorial positions in the past through the magazine Voiceworks and Express Media’s Left to Write program.