Author of speculative fiction, based in Brisbane.
Aiki Flinthart published the 80AD series in 2011: the series followed two characters trapped in various levels of a videogame, each of which explored a different culture in the same year. In 2015, she published the first in her Kalima Chronicles, which was set on a world without iron or fossil fuels, entrenched in a feudal society, until they uncover mineable iron ore. In 2018, she released the first in her Ruadhan Sidhe novels, an urban fantasy series set in Australia: the companion mosaic novel, Blackbirds Sing, was shortlisted for both the Norma K. Hemming Award and Aurealis Award for best collection.
Flinthart also published short stories, a number of which were collected in Worlds in Words, and edited multiple anthologies, including collections from the Springfield Writers Group, and, in early 2021, Relics, Wrecks & Ruins, her final work, which collected short stories from Australian and international writers.
As well as an author, she was a swordswoman and archer, which formed the basis for her non-fiction work Fight Like a Girl, which provided resources on writing fight scenes for female characters.
Aiki Flinthart died in February 2021. She endowed the Flinthart Writing Residency, with Queensland Writers Centre, which was inaugurated in 2021 and provided ten weeks of dedicated writing time, including mentoring and a stipend, for one writer a year: in addition, her Blackbelt in Writing articles, originally published on her blog, formed the basis for an online writing course of the same name, developed and run by Queensland Writers Centre.
