Australia's literary community has paid tribute to award-winning spoken word artist and activist Candy Royalle, who has died aged 37 after suffering from ovarian cancer.

Announcing her death on Facebook on Sunday, her family wrote she died on Saturday afternoon, "after years of struggling with her illness".

"For those of you lucky enough to know Candy or see her perform, you would know that her strength, power, conviction and all-encompassing love was beyond anything that can be described, so we will not try now," the post said.

The Lebanese-Palestinian Australian queer storyteller, who was a tireless advocate for improving the visibility of female artists of colour, was a mainstay of Sydney's performance poetry scene for over a decade.

Malaysian Australian slam poet and author Omar Musa, Arab Australian poet Omar Sakr and journalist Julia Baird were among those who paid tribute to Royalle on Twitter.

"What a powerhouse of love, what a force of nature," Musa said. "She lived love, emanated love."