Bonita Wileman

Bonita Wileman is a London-based fiction writer with roots in both New Zealand and the UK. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Cardiff University and now works in children’s publishing, where endless curiosity and imagination keep her inspired. She is a fan of escaping to the sea at any given opportunity and collecting various handmade trinkets.

Bonita is currently developing a short story collection of queer people in strange worlds falling apart at the edges. Her literary interests are in the surreal, ghostly and provocative, and her writing aims to explore the complicated intersections between grief, love and identity.

Born from a PhD idea and instead unravelled through various lives and identities, the collection aims to put feeling towards, and reason with, the relationship between queerness and fluidity. It speaks to her own experience as a queer woman and invites readers to listen to their innermost gut feelings, no matter how strange they may feel.

Bonita was part of the 2024-25 cohort of A Writing Chance, on the Faber strand.