Creative Producer
Natalia Figueroa Barroso is a writer of Uruguayan descent with Charrúa, Yoruba and Iberian bloodlines. Raised between her birthland and motherland on Dharug Ngurra, she is a member of the Sweatshop Literacy Movement. Her literary debut novel, Hailstones Fell Without Rain (UQP, 2025) has been longlisted for the 2026 ALS Gold Medal and the 2026 Voss Literary Prize and has received strong reviews from publications including The Guardian Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald and The NZ Herald. Her short story, ‘Abuela’s Mark’ (Sweatshop, 2018) was selected as a study text for NSW Stage 4 English students and her essay, ‘A Guide to the Colonisation of my Mother Tongues’ (Overland Journal, 2022) has been featured in university courses in Berlin. She has also worked in writers’ rooms for the award-winning television series, Bump, where she pitched her ideas and was a script translator and cultural advisor. Natalia’s poems and stories have won, been shortlisted and/or longlisted for prizes including Red Room Poetry’s 30in30 for Poetry Month 2024, KYD’s 2025 Flash Fiction Prize, the 2015 Lane Cove Literary Award, the 2021 Newcastle Poetry Prize, the 2022 SBS Voices Emerging Writers’ Competition and the 2022 Palette Emerging Poet Prize. Natalia is the editor of Veins Open, Hands Closed: Australian Stories from the Latinx Diaspora (Sweatshop, 2026).
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