Maya Khadem Skidmore is an Iranian-Australian screenwriter, fiction writer, journalist and First Break recipient.
As an emerging screenwriter and the daughter of an Iranian refugee, she is buoyed by nuanced, irreverent Australian stories that spotlight underrepresented Aussie voices, with a particular desire to present the intricacies of the Iranian-Australian and Middle Eastern diasporic experience in new and unexpected ways.
With an intuitive instinct for colourful human stories that make you laugh (and occasionally cry), Maya has a distinctive writing voice and keen eye for detail that has been honed over a decade-long writing career as a journalist, writer and creative strategist across Australia and in New York City.
She is trained as a notetaker and script coordinator through the 2026 First Break NSW program and studied TV writing through both AFTRS and Gotham Writers in NYC.
As well as being selected for First Break, Maya was awarded in the SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition, has had her stories featured by the likes of The Guardian, Refinery29 and Billabong Womens’, and is currently completing her first novel through a Masters of Creative Writing at the University of Sydney.
