Aliyah Knight is an award-winning Black, queer storyteller based on Wangal land, whose works across stage, page, and screen occupy a space where the personal meets political.

Their debut play SNAKEFACE premiered at Belvoir Theatre to five stars from the Sydney Morning Herald, and was shortlisted for the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing at the 2026 NSW Literary Awards. They are a resident artist with Sydney Opera House, Performance Space, and Sydney Theatre Company.

Aliyah’s short film Consume premiered locally at AGNSW for Sydney Mardi Gras in 2025, and has screened at festivals including St Kilda Film Festival, Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Fantastic Film Festival Australia and and Byron Bay International Film Festival, where they were nominated for Young Australian Filmmaker of the Year. They were also a participant in Sydney Film Festival x For Film’s Sake’s Platform: Lab incubator in 2024, and were awarded the Queer Screen x Screen Australia Professional Development Award for their short film in progress The Swell.

Their writing appears or is forthcoming in Island, Strange Pilgrims, Kill Your Darlings, Westerly, Sans. PRESS’ Goblin Mode anthology, Rattle, and New Ohio Review among others. They are a 2027 Varuna Residential Fellow.

Aliyah is currently writing their debut novel, alongside developing new work for the stage and screen.