Kodie Bedford.

When Kodie Bedford sets out to create a project or is offered a writing gig, she looks for three elements: Strong female characters, a regional setting which harks back to her childhood in country Wa, and a genre piece.

So far everything the Indigenous writer has accomplished in her burgeoning career has ticked all three boxes, with credits on Grace Beside Me, Robbie Hood and Mystery Road as well as the horror short Scout, which marks her directing debut.

“I pinch myself every day as I get to tell stories; I am living the dream,” she tells If. She turned to screenwriting after working as a cadet journalist for Sbs before moving to the ABC as a researcher on documentary series Message Sticks.

A graduate of the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Communications and a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Technology, Sydney,...