Athena Law lives and writes in the lush Queensland hinterland. She’s recently become the very first TWO TIME Not Quite Write Prize pointy trophy winner, after her piece ‘Waiting’ won the April 2026 round, following her January 2024 win for ‘It Never Rains But It Pours’. She’s also had a questionable piece of smut published in the Not Quite Write Flesh Fiction Anthology, under a pseudonym. (She’ll tell you which one is hers if you ask nicely!)

Her poem ‘a geriatric mother they write on my chart’ won the Mulga Bill Poetry Prize, her poem ‘A Rural Devotional’ won the Bookness Creative Writing Award, and her story ‘The Model Husband’ won an award in the 2023 Scarlet Stilettos. Her words have been published by MiNDFOOD magazine, the Ekphrastic Review, Sisters in Crime, FlashFlood, Sybil, Trash Cat, Rat Bag, Andromeda Literary, Micromance, and Romance Writers of Australia among others. She’s had short stories published in seven print anthologies with two more forthcoming later this year.

An expert level procrastinator, she usually avoids tackling edits (or writing any new words at all) by attempting to train her ragdoll cats to be more affectionate, listening to writing podcasts, or baking her way through her grandmother's recipe book.

From her humble beginnings as a donkey trainer and camel groomer aged just twelve, Athena has gone on to live in three countries, 40 houses and explore dozens of hobbies including medieval reenactment, experimental gardening (otherwise known as "Is It Dead?" horticulture) and enthusiastic wine tasting. Her career experience has ranged from working at a goth nightclub, a short (cold) stint as an artist’s model, corporate trainer, cellar door manager, baby sleep consultant and restaurateur. She now works in real estate, basically hanging out in charming homes chatting to nice people, which she would do for free anyway.

Athena plans to one day write about each of her many (47) strange jobs, but for now she’s creating loads of short fiction and poetry whilst mulling over the structural edit of her first novel- a heartwarming tale of tourism and second-chances- and working on her next novel, a rom com set in a Queensland country town, featuring one of her favourite characters, the ghostly publican “Gertie”.

She lives on a hill in the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Queensland with her extended family, two ragdoll cats named Tolly & Muffin, and an assortment of poultry including guinea fowl and the fat chooks Charlotte & Emily (RIP Anne). After a puzzling series of deaths in 2018 she is “no longer allowed to keep goldfish” ~ Tony at the Petshop.

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