Yazmin is a 26 year old writer based in Western Sydney on Dharug Land.

She has wanted to be a lot of things in her life: a time-travelling veterinarian, the Vampiric Queen of Hell, a voiceless muse dying of consumption in a 19th century aristocrat’s tepid gothic horror…but since she first stepped on stage to play Marta in the critically acclaimed performance of The Sound of Music at Rooty Hill RSL back in 2006, she wanted to be a creative. At first it was a writer when she won the extremely rare and prestigious Minchinbury Public School Writing Competition (the Western Sydney equivalent of the Hugo award) for her short yet surprisingly long-winded story about dragons in Year 5. Then, returning to her musical roots, she wanted to be an actor, and so she went to Newtown Performing Arts high school. When she realized art and politics were inseparable she went on to complete a double degree in International Relations and Media (Screen and Sound Production) at the University of New South Wales. From there she fell into the Australian Film industry for a few years before suffering such sick burnout that the guys who do wheelies in the abandoned lots near her house would be ashamed.

And after all that she’s back to where she started. She is currently studying her Masters of Creative Writing at Macquarie University, she works in a bookstore and at a library, and, since she can’t morph her body into an actual book Kafka-style, it’ll have to do. Since a child she has loved anything related to death, dragons (duh), witches and the macabre. She always felt like one day she was going to be plucked from her suburban front lawn and transported to a world where she would be the long-lost fabled princess of all the night creatures with ungodly powers. This never happened to her but she felt certain that something of the sort should, and so she was a very weird and strange kid. Naturally this led to weird and strange writing.

She has lived in Western Sydney most of her life except for the time when she lived in France and came away with lactose intolerance and liver damage and she still remembers the day she shed her internalized classism the way a snake sheds its skin. She added explorations of class to her literary soup (feminism would be added after a culture shock visit to the USA) and it became a scrying bowl where a face looked back at her and Her eyes were dark and glittering.

Artistically, she likes to say that she is a servant to the Crone, to Death and to Alchemy. It means she’s constantly in a state of flux and rebirth and whilst it’s painful, it’s intrinsically linked to the kind of person she is which she has been told is very intense. (She has learned over the years to take this as a compliment). Despite the constant recalibrations and shifts, Yazmin continues to write and explore the dark and mystical corners of her mind. 

She can usually be found badgering the staff at Circa Espresso, popping Champagne bottles for her aunties in the backyard, or discussing Tarot with her partner.

She is deeply appreciative of you visiting her page and so is she (pic below).

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