Sarah Rose-Cherry (McKenzie)
Sarah Rose-Cherry (McKenzie)
Writer. Poet. YA fiction nerd.
[Image description: Sarah is smiling at the camera in a selfie shot. She has green glasses with a black-and-white pattern; a silver nose ring; long, wavy brown hair; and a broad-brimmed hat. She sits on a swing and the metal chain is visible, with t…

[Image description: Sarah is smiling at the camera in a selfie shot. She has green glasses with a black-and-white pattern; a silver nose ring; long, wavy brown hair; and a broad-brimmed hat. She sits on a swing and the metal chain is visible, with trees and wood chips in the background.]

 

Sarah ROse-Cherry

Sarah Rose-Cherry is a writer, poet, Young Adult (YA) fiction nerd, and bi-fierce queer based on Yaegl Country. She loves reading and writing about queer identities, radical women, and community activism. She is also partial to herbal tea, misty oceans, and rabbit cuddles.

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 (2021). Two of Sarah’s short stories were top 10 finalists in Stories From The Clarence Valley, a literary project based in her hometown of Yamba, northern NSW on Yaegl Country (2019 and 2018). Sarah’s free verse poetry has been published in Leaf Pile zine (2020), Baby Teeth Journal (2020 and 2019), and the Never Heard Of Them anthology (2019).

 
 
 

STORIES

[Image description: Passage of text from ‘Once, I Was Lily’, beginning with the date ‘12:40am, Monday 23rd November 2009’ and the paragraph ‘I think I need to write what happened. Lily, you need to remember.'‘]

[Image description: Passage of text from ‘Once, I Was Lily’, beginning with the date ‘12:40am, Monday 23rd November 2009’ and the paragraph ‘I think I need to write what happened. Lily, you need to remember.'‘]

  • ‘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. Please note that this story deals with confronting themes, including mental illness, self-harm, and sexual assault.

[Image description: The cover of To The Island 2019 – Stories From The Clarence Valley is white with a border of blue curved shapes with lines and dots around them, resembling islands or rock pools.]

[Image description: The cover of To The Island 2019 – Stories From The Clarence Valley is white with a border of blue curved shapes with lines and dots around them, resembling islands or rock pools.]

  • ‘Island Girl, Unwritten’ (2019) is a queer Australian YA short story about family, grief, losing home, and finding it again. It was one of the top 10 finalists in a short story competition for emerging writers from the Clarence Valley, northern NSW on the lands of the Yaegl, Gambaynggirr, and Bundjalung people. The 2019 theme was ‘To the island’ and the shortlisted entries were published in an anthology of the same name.

 

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. Read my review!

  • 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. Read my review!

 
 

Articles

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