Nicole Hayes is an award-winning author of books for children and young adults. She is also a writing instructor who has taught with the Australian Writers' Centre for more than eight years, as well as at universities, TAFEs and schools around Australia. She currently teaches Creative Writing at Deakin University and Sports Media at Swinburne.

Her latest project, a collaboration with Adrian Beck on a Junior fiction series, Little Legends, celebrates the great game of AFL, a sport Nicole loves. Her other books include the young adult novels A Shadow’s Breath, shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award and a CBCA Notable, the INKY award longlisted, The Whole of My World, and One True Thing, winner of the Children’s Peace Literature Award, CBCA Notable Book, and shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Literary Award.

Nicole published an anthology of writing from writers and thinkers from the margins who love AFL, called From the Outer: Footy Like You’ve Never Heard It, co-edited with Alicia Sometimes. On the back of this release, Alicia and Nicole joined with friends to form the groundbreaking, award winning all-female Australian football podcast, The Outer Sanctum. The Outer Sanctum has since expanded its team, as well as its platform, including a live AFLW radio program broadcast on ABC Grandstand and Melbourne Radio for the AFLW season.

Nicole regularly speaks about writing, sport, politics and gender at festivals and literary events around the country, and has written op ed and articles for The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, and The Griffith Review. She is a Stella Prize in Schools Ambassador, has a Master of Arts in Creative Writing, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing, with a focus on Young Adult fiction.