Writer. Poet. YA fiction nerd.
[Image description: Sarah is smiling at the camera in dark red lipstick. She has wavy brown hair, pink glasses, and a nose ring. She is holding a mug decorated with a gold ‘S’ and orange bunny.]

[Image description: Sarah is smiling at the camera in dark red lipstick. She has wavy brown hair, pink glasses, and a nose ring. She is holding a mug decorated with a gold ‘S’ and orange bunny.]

Sarah ROse-Cherry

Sarah Rose-Cherry is a writer, poet, and Young Adult (YA) fiction nerd based on Yaegl Country. Sarah is proudly bisexual and autistic. She often writes about queerness and adores herbal tea, misty oceans, and rabbit snuggles.

In 2023, Sarah completed a Master of Arts in Writing and Literature at Deakin University, specialising in YA and Children’s Literature. She has Honours (First Class) in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong. For her Honours project, she wrote a thesis and novella about bisexual characters in Australian YA.

Sarah’s short story ‘Once, I Was Lily’ was published by Deakin University in 2021. Three of Sarah’s short stories were published in Stories From The Clarence Valley (2022, 2019, 2018). Sarah’s free verse poetry has been featured in Leaf Pile (2020), Baby Teeth Journal (2020 and 2019), and Never Heard Of Them (2019). Sarah is a judge for the Stories From The Clarence Valley anthology.

Thoughts

This is what grief feels like: an exploration of grief in its many forms, including death, loss, heartbreak, mental illness, and neurodivergence.

 

STORIES

[Image description: The cover of Let Go – Stories From The Clarence Valley 2022 is beige with a pattern of yellow and white dandelions with green stems.]

[Image description: The cover of Let Go – Stories From The Clarence Valley 2022 is beige with a pattern of yellow and white dandelions with green stems.]

  • ‘Letters to Georgia’ (2022) is a queer short story about first love, family, and childhood trauma. It was one of the top 10 finalists in Let Go – Stories From The Clarence Valley 2022, a short story competition for emerging writers from the region.

  • ‘Once, I Was Lily’ (2021) is a short story about a young girl battling for control of her own mind. It was published by Deakin University as part of The Other Side digital anthology, B3-4 Publishing.

  • ‘Island Girl, Unwritten’ (2019) was published in To The Island 2019 – Short Stories From The Clarence Valley.

  • ‘Soul Place’ (2018) was published in The Long Way Home 2018 – Short Stories From The Clarence Valley.

 

Poetry

[Image description: The Leaf Pile tile is green and says in white writing, ‘A digital zine for queer voices – OUT NOW’. It has a border of patterned leaves and lists the names of the contributors and journal collaborators in small text.]

[Image description: The Leaf Pile tile is green and says in white writing, ‘A digital zine for queer voices – OUT NOW’. It has a border of patterned leaves and lists the names of the contributors and journal collaborators in small text.]

Sarah writes verse poetry about bisexuality, queer bodies, eco-anxiety, mental health, grief, and childhood. Click the links below to read her work!

  • ‘she / he / they. you ( I / we)’ was published in Leaf Pile, a digital zine collaboration between Baby Teeth Journal and EnbyLife (2020).

  • ‘Dust’ was featured in Baby Teeth Journal, a Wollongong-based digital arts journal, November 2020.

  • ‘At least the title is optimistic’ was published in Baby Teeth Journal’s first-ever print anthology, Never Heard Of Them (2019).

  • ‘she is’ was featured in Baby Teeth Journal, a Wollongong-based digital arts journal, July 2019.

  • ‘in-between words’ was published in the University of Wollongong’s Tertangala – Gender and Sexuality Issue, October 2018.

 

Reviews

[Image description: A stone sculpture of a woman’s face sits above Heroines: An Anthology of Short Fiction & Poetry, Volume 3. The book cover is black with a border of brown swirls and a white section in the middle.]

[Image description: A stone sculpture of a woman’s face sits above Heroines: An Anthology of Short Fiction & Poetry, Volume 3. The book cover is black with a border of brown swirls and a white section in the middle.]

  • Heroines Anthology 3: Edited by Sarah Nicholson and Lore White, the latest edition of Heroines: An Anthology of Short Fiction & Poetry, Volume 3 thrums with the heat and hidden desires of fierce girls and women across the ages. These sharp-tongued, spell-wielding heroines fiercely oppose the patriarchy in the medieval and magical worlds they inhabit.

  • Heroines Anthology 2: When girls become beasts. When mothers are monsters. When heroines fall under spells. When they fall under men. When women unleash the wild girls within, teeth bared and truths dripping from red lips.

 

Articles

Some of Sarah’s articles about queerness, community, and culture