Internationally Acclaimed Authors

Author of The Dry

Jane Harper

Jane Harper is the internationally bestselling author of the The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and The Survivors. Her books are published in forty territories worldwide, and The Dry has been adapted into a major motion picture starring Eric Bana. Jane has won numerous top awards including the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, the Australian Indie Awards Book of the Year, the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel, and the British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Book of the Year. Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK, and now lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children.

Author of Barefoot Investor

Scott Pape

Scott Pape is a radio commentator and author of the bestselling Barefoot Investor, and his second book, Barefoot Investor for Families, is a financial self-help book which has sold copies worldwide. Pape has been awarded OAM and was a New York Times bestseller for his book. Pape is also recognised in the UK for his books.

Author of A Room Made of Leaves

Kate Grenville

Kate Grenville has published sixteen books, many of which have won prizes, three have been adapted into film, and one had made sell-out runs at Adelaide and Edinburgh Festivals as a play. All have been published internationally and translated into many languages. Her most recent book is A Room Made of Leaves.

Artist, Author, Song Writer

Gregg Dreise

I love being an Author, come take a look,

I love to sit and create, another little book.

I love to retell stories, from Dreamtime to new,

I love to give imagery, tell a yarn is what I do.

I love to sit and paint, while I am creating,

I love to work to relax – not for a rating.

I love to build up a picture, through my hands,

I love to create imagery, from my lands.

I love to create music, from my guitar,

I love to sing and dream, of being a star.

I love to play the drums and the didgeridoo,

I love to create music, about me or you.

Author and broadcaster

Benjamin Law

Every week, Benjamin Law co-hosts ABC RN’s weekly national pop culture show Stop Everything and interviews public figures for Good Weekend. He also co-hosts online startup and tech TV show That Startup Show, and you can catch him on TV shows like Q&A (ABC), The Drum (ABC), The Project (Ten), Filthy Rich and Homeless (SBS) and the ABC’s two-part feature documentary on Chinese-Australian history, Waltzing the Dragon. He has also written for over 50 publications in Australia and beyond—including the Monthly, frankie, Guardian, Monocle and Australian Financial Review.

He’s the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East (2012), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017), and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). Benjamin created and co-wrote three seasons of the award-winning SBS TV series The Family Law, based on his memoir, and his sold-out debut play Torch the Place (Melbourne Theatre Company) ran February–March 2020. In 2019, he was named one of the Asian-Australian Leadership Summit’s (AALS) 40 Under 40 Most Influential Asian-Australians (winning the Arts, Culture & Sport category) and one of Harper’s Bazaar’s Visionary Men. He has a PhD in creative writing and cultural studies from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Author of Tomorrow, When the War Began

John Marsden

John Marsden is best known as the author of the Tomorrow, When the War Began series. His books have been translated into eleven languages.

Marsden first began as a children’s author, with his first book, So Much to Tell You, published in 1987.

Tomorrow, When the War Began has had a movie adaption.

Author of Peace

Garry Disher

Garry Disher grew up in South Australia and now lives on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. He is the author of more than fifty novels and has won numerous awards, including the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction twice. He is a three-time winner of the German Crime Prize and in 2018, he won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Ned Kelly Awards.

His latest book, Consolation, takes us back to the world of Constable Paul Hirschhause, hero of the best-selling novels Bitter Wash Road and Peace.

INTERVIEW: Group Texts: Hit List: Australian Crime Writing (video)

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author

Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks is the Australian-born author of the bestselling novels Caleb’s Crossing, People of the Book, Year of Wonders and March, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of the acclaimed non-fiction works Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence. A graduate of Sydney University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Brooks was a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in Bosnia, Somalia and the Middle East.

Author of Terra Nullius

Claire G. Coleman

Claire G. Coleman is a writer from Western Australia. She identifies with the South Coast Noongar people. Her family are associated with the area around Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun. Claire grew up in a Forestry settlement in the middle of a tree plantation, where her dad worked, not far out of Perth.
She wrote her black&write! fellowship-winning book Terra Nullius while travelling around Australia in a caravan. The Old Lie is her second novel.

Author of My Place

Sally Morgan

Sally Morgan is an indigenous author and artist, who’s first book, My Place, has been acclaimed internationally. Sally Morgan has also published children’s titles including: Little Piggies, and Hurry Up Oscar. She has also collaborated on children’s titles such as: Dan’s Grandpa, and Curly and the Fent.
Sally is a professor at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at the University of Western Australia.

Jennifer Rowe / “Emily Rodda”

In her native Australia, Jennifer Rowe is widely recognized as an acclaimed novelist and a former editor of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Before creating the Tessa Vance series with Suspect, she wrote four crime novels featuring TV researcher Verity “Birdie” Birdwood, as well as several stand-alone suspense novels. Ms. Rowe has been called the “Agatha Christie of Australia”—and with good reason; she shares Dame Agatha’s passion for complex, puzzle-driven stories populated by vividly depicted heroes, suspects, and villains. Under the name Emily Rodda, Jennifer Rowe has also written stories for children—five of which have won the (Australian) Children’s Book of the Year Award.

Emily Rodda has won the Australia’s Children’s Book of the Year Award five times as well as Australia’s prestigious Dromkeen Medal. She has been a stateside bestseller with her Deltora Quest, Deltora Shadowlands, and Dragons of Deltora series. Her title The Key to Rondo has recently been published in the United States to critical acclaim.

She has been a full-time writer since 1994. “I feel very lucky to have a job I love so much,” she says. Her four children, including twin boys, have given her plenty of inspiration over the years. “None of the characters in my books are exactly like anyone I know, but all of them have things in common with people I know. Everyone writes from his or her own experience. I look at people I know and listen to them and when I am trying to think of a new character, these things come back to me.”

Author of Smart Ovens for Lonely People

Elizabeth Tan

Elizabeth Tan is an academic at Curtain University and author of Smart Ovens for Lonely People, and Rubik. Rubik had been adapted by Berlin Syndrome for screen adaption and has sold into the US and UK.

Tan is also the co-editor of In This Desert, There Were Seeds; an anthology and collaboration between Margaret River Press in Western Australia, and Ethos Books in Singapore.

Illustrator, Designer and Author

Dan Marshall

Dan is a designer, illustrator and writer who has been drawing since he was a young child. It never fails to surprise him that as a grown-up that’s what he’s now paid to do.

Author of Dark Emu

Bruce Pascoe

Bruce Pascoe has published widely in both adult and young adult literature. He has won numerous awards, including the New South Wales Premier’s Book of the Year Award in 2016 for Dark Emu (Magabala Books 2014) and the Prime Minister’s Literature Award for Young Adult fiction for Fog a Dox (Magabala Books 2012) in 2013.

His children’s titles Mrs Whitlam (Magabala Books 2016) and Young Dark Emu (Magabala Books 2019) have been shortlisted in the Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards. In 2018 Bruce was awarded the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. He has worked as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, fencing contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker and editor. Bruce is a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man, and currently lives on his farm in Gippsland, Victoria.

Author of The Old Kingdom

Garth Nix

Garth Nix was born in 1963 in Melbourne, Australia. A full-time writer since 2001, he previously worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve.

Garth’s books include the award-winning young adult fantasy novels Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen and Clariel; the dystopian novel Shade’s Children; the space opera A Confusion of Princes; and a Regency romance with magic, Newt’s Emerald. His fantasy novels for children include The Ragwitch; the six books of the Seventh Tower sequence; the Keys to the Kingdom series; and the Troubletwisters series and Spirit Animals: Blood Ties (co-written with Sean Williams). More than five million copies of his books have been sold around the world, his books have appeared on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, the Guardian and the Australian, and his work has been translated into forty languages. He lives in a Sydney beach suburb with his wife and two children.

Poet

Maryam Azam

Maryam Azam is a Pakistani-Australian writer and teacher who lives and works in Western Sydney. She graduated with Honours in Creative Writing from Western Sydney University and holds a diploma in the Islamic Sciences.

She is a recipient of the WestWords Emerging Writers’ Fellowship and has performed her work at the Sydney Writers’ Festival and the Emerging Writers Festival.

She is a member of Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement. Her debut poetry collection The Hijab Files (Giramondo, 2018) was shortlisted for the Anne Elder Award and the Mary Gilmore Award.

Author and Editor

Alice Pung

Landscape Author

Di Morrissey

Di Morrissey AM is one of the most successful and prolific authors Australia has ever produced, publishing twenty-seven bestselling novels. She trained as a journalist, working in newspapers, magazines, television, film, theatre and advertising around the world. Her fascination with different countries, their cultural, political and environmental issues, has been the catalyst for her novels, which are all inspired by a particular landscape.

Di is a tireless and passionate advocate and activist for many causes. She is an avid supporter of Greenpeace, speaking out on issues of national and international importance. She established The Golden Land Education Foundation in Myanmar (Burma), and is an Ambassador for Australia’s Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children. Di also publishes and edits a free community newspaper, The Manning Community News.

In 2017, in recognition of her achievements, Di was inducted into the Australian Book Industry Awards Hall of Fame with the prestigious Lloyd O’Neil Award. In 2019, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia.

Author of The End Times Trilogy

DBC Pierre

DBC Pierre is the author of the End Times Trilogy, and won the Man Booker Prize for his debut novel, Vernon God Little. His works have been translated into forty languages worldwide and have been produced by four theatre companies.

Pierre has also won the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman Prize and the James Joyce Award.

Author of Schindler's Ark

Thomas Keneally

Thomas Keneally was born in 1935 in country New South Wales. In 1958 he entered the seminary but left before being ordained. He published his first book, The Place at Whitton, in 1964. He won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for Bring Larks and Heroes (1967) and Three Cheers for the Paraclete (1968), and was shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize before becoming the first Australian ever to win it: for Schindler’s Ark, in 1982. Keneally has written over thirty books, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as plays and essays.

Author of Remembering Babylon

David Malouf

David Malouf is the internationally acclaimed author of novels including Ransom, The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ prize and the Prix Femina Etranger), Remembering Babylon (winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), An Imaginary Life, Conversations at Curlow Creek, Dream Stuff, Every Move You Make and his autobiographical classic 12 Edmondstone Street. His Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award. His most recent books are A First Place and The Writing Life. He was born in 1934 and was brought up in Brisbane.

Author of The Clockmaker's Daughter

Kate Morton

Kate Morton is an international bestselling Australian author who has sold more than 11 million books in 42 countries. She is considered one of Australia’s biggest publishing exports. Her books have been translated into 32 languages.

Morton’s book, The House at Riverton was a Sunday Times #1 bestseller in the UK and a New York Times bestseller in the US. It was also nominated for Most Popular Book at the British Book Awards.

Kate Morton has also been a #1 bestseller in Australia, Spain and Canada. She has won General Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book
Industry Awards (2007, 2009 & 2011) and Most Popular Book at the British Book Awards (2008)

Her latest book is The Clockmaker’s Daughter

Author of the Illuminae Files

Amie Kaufman

Amie Kaufman is the New York Times and internationally bestselling co-author of the award-winning Starbound trilogy and The Illuminae Files trilogy. Her multi-award winning work has been published in 24 countries, and described as “a game-changer” (Shelf Awareness), “stylistically mesmerising” (Publishers Weekly) and “out-of-this-world awesome” (Kirkus).

Amie had the good fortune to be raised just one block from her local library, and took full advantage of that fact growing up. She and her sister spent their childhood summers re-creating their favourite books by camping in the back yard, mapping their neighbourhood, climbing trees, stepping through magical doors and sailing the local seas. Raised in Australia and Ireland, she has kissed the Blarney stone six times, thoroughly cementing her gift of the gab.

As she grew older (but not up), she continued her education, and graduated with honors degrees in history, literature and law, and a master’s degree in conflict resolution. After working as a mediator for seven years, these days she’s a full time writer, working from her home in Melbourne when she’s not on the road in the US, Europe and Asia. A few of her top travel moments include camping in the Sahara overnight, climbing a mountain in Vietnam, standing on the Great Wall of China and cycling the Loire Valley, but she has a huge list left to cover.

Author, Illustrator, Concept Artist

David Woodland

David Woodland (Woody) lives in Sydney, Australia, working as a children’s book author and illustrator and a concept artist for film and television.

David has had 20 years experience as a concept designer and environment artist on feature films, including ‘Lord of The Rings’, ‘Happy Feet’, ‘Moulin Rouge’, ‘Thor’, ‘Pacific Rim’, ‘Legend of the Guardians’ and the ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ arena production. His experience includes the building and supervision of art department teams.

David has a creative history as an exhibiting artist, animator, character/production designer for contemporary dance and puppet theatre.

His awards include a VES film award, Cannes Lions Grand Prix, and a prestigious Churchill Fellowship.

David is regularly commissioned by international clients and is currently in production of his second picture book for children.

Author of Two Secret Cities

Matthew Reilly

Matthew Reilly is the international and New York Times bestselling author of Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves, Seven Ancient Wonders, Five Greatest Warriors, The Tournament, The Great Zoo of China, Four Legendary Kingdoms, Three Secret Cities, and The Secret Runners of New York, which were all bestsellers in their year of publication. Many more of his novels are also international bestsellers.
Matthew Reilley’s books have been publishes in over twenty languages, and many have been considered for screen adaptions.

Crime Writer

Candice Fox

Illustrator, Designer and Author

Shane McGowan

I’m an illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. These days I spend most of my time illustrating picture books and I’ve also written a few too which I find a bit more challenging but I have a crack.. I’ve also drawn for magazines and newspapers all over the world.

Author of Nine Perfect Strangers

Liane Moriarty

Liane Moriarty is the internationally acclaimed author of the New York Times Bestsellers The Husbands Secret, Big Little Lies, Truly Madly Guilty, and more recently Nine Perfect Strangers. Moriarty’s books have sold over fourteen million copies worldwide.

Screen rights have been sold for a number of Moriarty’s books including: Three Wishes, The Last Anniversary, What Alice Forgot and The Hypnotist’s Love Story.

The Secret Husband has been a number one bestseller in the UK, and has been named an Amazon Best Book of 2013 and translated into more than forty languages.

Author of Evil Genius

Catherine Jinks

Catherine Jinks was born in Brisbane in 1963 and grew up in Sydney and Papua New Guinea. She studied medieval history at university and her love of reading led her to become a writer. Her books for children, teenagers and adults have been published to wide acclaim all over the world, and have won numerous awards. Catherine’s most recent titles include the City of Orphans series the bestselling Evil Genius series and her paranormal spoofs, The Reformed Vampire Support Group and The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group. Catherine lives in the Blue Mountains in NSW with her husband, journalist Peter Dockrill, and their daughter Hannah.

Author of Boy Swallows Universe

Trent Dalton

Trent Dalton is a journalist for the Weekend Australian Magazine and a former assistant editor of The Courier-Mail. He’s a two-time winner of a Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, a four-time winner of a Kennedy Award for Excellence in NSW Journalism and a four-time winner of the national News Awards Features Journalist of the Year. 

His debut novel, Boy Swallows Universe, published by HarperCollins in 2018, is a much-loved national bestseller and critically acclaimed, winning the 2019 Indie Book of the Year Award, the MUD Literary Prize, the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and the People’s Choice Award at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. In addition, at the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards, the book won a record four ABIA Awards, including the prestigious Book of the Year Award. Boy Swallows Universe has been published across thirty-four English language and translation territories. 

Trent Dalton returns with All Our Shimmering Skies – a glorious novel destined to become another Australian classic.

Author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Richard Flanagan

Richard Flanagan is the author of the award-winning books Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould’s Book of Fish, The Unknown Terrorist, Wanting, and The Narrow Road to the Deep North. They have been published in forty-two countries. Flanagan won the Man Booker Prize in 2014 for The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Author of the Happiest Refugee

Anh Do

Anh Do is one of Australia’s leading comedians. He has also acted in television series and films, written screenplays and is a sought-after keynote speaker. His unique and inspirational experience leaving Vietnam as a toddler and growing up in Australia is the subject of his bestselling and award-winning memoir, The Happiest Refugee.

Author of the Treehouse Series

Andy Griffiths

Andy Griffiths is a popular Australian children’s writer and author of more than 20 books, including New York Times bestselling Treehouse Series. Griffiths has won more than fifty children’s choice awards, has been adapted into a cartoon series, and has sold over five million copies worldwide.

Andy Griffiths is best known for his JUST! series, The Day My Bum Went Psycho, and the Treehouse series. Andy has long collaborated with illustrator Terry Denton, who also works on the Treehouse series.

Griffiths is an ambassador for the Pyjama Foundation and The Indigenous Literary Foundation.

Author of The Book Thief

Markus Zusak

Markus Zusak is the international bestselling author of novels including The Book Thief and Bridge of Clay. His books have been translated into more than forty languages and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a decade.

Zusak has been awarded numerous literary prizes and reader choice awards around the world. The Book Thief was made into a major motion picture in 2013, and was voted to be one of America’s favourite books of all-time.

Illustrator, Artist and Author

Cate James

Cate James is an illustrator, artist and author based in the beautiful Northern Beaches of Sydney, Australia. She moved from Edinburgh, Scotland in 2015 and loves the sunshine. She has been working as a full-time freelance illustrator since 2010 and has a background in printmaking. Cate works mostly in children’s publishing on picture books and illustrated texts.

Author of Old Pig

Margaret Wild

Margaret Wild is one of Australia’s most highly respected picture-book creators whose award-winning children’s books are loved by children all over the world. Margaret has published over seventy picture books for young children and she has been the recipient of the Nan Chauncy Award and the Lady Cutler Award for her contributions to Australian children’s literature. Her books are published around the world and have won numerous awards.

Miles Franklin Award and Stellar Prize Winner

Alexis Wright

Alexis Wight is an Indigenous Australian author and winner of the Miles Franklin Award for her novel Capentaria in 2008. She also won the Stellar Prize in 2018 for Tracker– a collective memoir of Leigh Bruce “Tracker” Tilmouth. Wright’s books are published widely in China, the US, the U, Italy, France and Poland.

Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation in the Southern Highlands of the Gulf of Capentaria.

She is the only author to win both the Miles Franklin Award and the Stellar Prize.

Master Storyteller

Kate Forsyth

Kate Forsyth wrote her first novel at the age of seven, and has since sold more than a million copies around the world. Her books include Bitter Greens, a retelling of Rapunzel which won the 2015 American Library Association Award for Best Historical Fiction; The Wild Girl, the story of the forbidden romance behind the Grimm Brothers’ famous fairy tales, which was named the Most Memorable Love Story of 2013; and The Beast’s Garden, a retelling of ‘The Singing, Springing Lark’ set in the underground resistance to Hitler in Nazi Germany. Recently voted one of Australia’s Favourite 15 Novelists, Kate Forsyth has been called ‘one of the finest writers of this generation’. She has a BA in literature, a MA in creative writing and a doctorate in fairy tale studies, and is also an accredited master storyteller with the Australian Guild of Storytellers.

Author, Illustrator, Educator

Anne Ryan

Anne Ryan is an author, illustrator, artist and art educator living in Melbourne, Australia. Through school visits, artist in residence programs, workshops and Visual Arts specialist teaching, she has enjoyed sharing her creative processes and storytelling with young children for many years.

As an author/illustrator, her first picture book was Unforeseen Circumstances. Anne participated as an illustrator on the Australian creator’s stand at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy 2017and 2018 with her illustrated picture book Shadowcat written by Julia Louise. Her recent illustrated releases include Moonfish written by Harry Laing, and Salih written by Inda Ahmad Sahri. Anne has just finished illustrating a poetry book also written by Harry Laing called Rapper B due for release soon.

Author of Obernewytn

Isobelle Carmody

Isobelle Carmody is one of Australia’s most highly acclaimed authors of fantasy. At fourteen, she began Obernewtyn, the first book in her much-loved Obernewtyn Chronicles, and has since written many works in this genre. Her novel The Gathering was joint winner of the 1993 Children’s Literature Peace Prize and the 1994 CBCA Book of the Year Award, and Greylands was joint winner of the 1997 Aurealis Award for Excellence in Speculative Fiction (Young Adult category), and was named a White Raven at the 1998 Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

Isobelle’s work for younger readers includes her two series, The Legend of Little Fur, and The Kingdom of the Lost, the first book of which, The Red Wind, won the CBCA Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers in 2011. She has also written several picture books as well as collections of short stories for children, young adults and adults.

After living in Europe for more than a decade, Isobelle now divides her time in Australia between her home on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, and Brisbane, where she is working on a PhD at the University of Queensland. She lives with her partner and daughter, and a shadow-black cat called Mitya.

Author of The Power of One

Bryce Courtenay

Bryce Courtenay is the bestselling author of many titles including The Power of One, Tandia, April Fool’s Day, Solomon’s Song, Smoky Joe’s Cafe, The Night Country, Brother Fish, The Silver Moon, and many more. The Power of One is also available in a young reader’s edition, and was adapted for film. Another bestselling novel of Courtenay’s, Jessica, has also been made into an award-winning miniseries for television.

Author of Nevernight

Jay Kristoff

Jay Kristoff is a New York Times and international bestselling author of science fiction and fantasy. He grew up in the second most isolated capital city on earth and fled at his earliest convenience, although he’s been known to trek back for weddings of the particularly nice and funerals of the particularly wealthy. He spent most of his formative years locked in his bedroom with piles of books, or gathered around dimly-lit tables rolling polyhedral dice. Being the holder of an Arts degree, he has no education to speak of.

His Lotus War trilogy was critically acclaimed in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, nominated for the David Gemmell Morningstar and Legend awards and won the 2014 Aurealis Award. Jay’s new series, the SciFi thriller The Illuminae Files, was co-authored with Amie Kaufman. Book 1, Illuminae, became a New York Times and international bestseller, was named among the Kirkus, Amazon and YALSA Best Books of 2015 and won the 2016 Aurealis Award and an ABIA Book of the Year award. Illuminae is currently slated to be published in twenty five countries, and film rights have been acquired by Brad Pitt and Plan B Entertainment.

Jay’s new fantasy series, The Nevernight Chronicle, commences with book 1, Nevernight, from St Martins Press/Thomas Dunne Books and Harper Voyager in 2016. A new YA series, LIFEL1K3 has also been acquired by Knopf/Random House Kids, and commences publication in early 2018. A new series with Amie Kaufman, The Andromeda Cycle, begins in Fall 2018 with Knopf/Random House Kids. Jay is as surprised about all this as you are. He is represented by Josh Adams at Adams Literary.

Author of Bliss

Peter Carey

Peter Carey was born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, and now lives in New York. He is the author of fourteen novels (including one for children), two volumes of short stories, and two books on travel. Amongst other prizes, Carey has won the Booker Prize twice (for Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang), the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize twice (for Jack Maggs and True History of the Kelly Gang), and the Miles Franklin Literary Award three times (for Bliss, Oscar and Lucinda and Jack Maggs). He is an officer of the Order of Australia and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Author, Advocate, Scholar

Anita Heiss

Anita is a proud member of the Wiradjuri nation of central New South Wales, but was born in Gadigal country and has spent much of her life on Daharawal land near La Perouse. She is one of Australia’s most prolific and well-known authors publishing across genres including non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial fiction and children’s fiction. She is also a marathoner!

In 2004 Anita was listed in The Bulletin magazine’s ‘Smart 100’. Her memoir Am I Black Enough for You? was a finalist in the 2012 Human Rights Awards and she was a finalist in the 2013 Australian of the Year Awards (Local Hero).
As an advocate for Indigenous literacy, Anita has worked in remote communities as a role model and encouraging young Indigenous Australians to write their own stories. On an international level she has performed her own work and lectured on Aboriginal literature across the globe at universities and conferences, consulates and embassies in the USA, Canada, the UK, Tahiti, Fiji, New Caledonia, Spain, Japan, Austria, Germany and New Zealand. Anita is a Lifetime Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, and a proud Ambassador of Worawa Aboriginal College, the GO Foundation and the Sydney Swans.

She is on the Board of the State Library of Queensland and lives in Brisbane.

Author of Cloudstreet

Tim Winton

Tim Winton has published twenty-nine books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). He lives in Western Australia.

Author of The Trip of a Lifetime

Monica McInerney

Monica McInerney is the author of a number of international bestsellers including A Taste for It, Upside Down Inside Out, Spin the Pottle, The Alphabet Sisters, Family Baggage, Those Faraday Girls, and at Home with the Templetons.

McInerney wo General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2008 Australian Book Industry Awards for her novel Those Faraday Girls, and her collection of short fiction under the name All Together Now, was shortlisted for the same award in 2009.
At Home with the Templetons was shortlisted for the Popular Fiction category of the Irish Book Awards in 2010 and the Romantic Elements category in the Australian Romantic Book of the Year in 2011.

Her latest book is The Trip of a Lifetime.

Children's Author and Illustrator

Nicky Johnston

Nicky Johnston is an Australian award-winning children’s book author and illustrator. She has several bestselling children’s book titles published in Australia and overseas, including Grandma Forgets, At the End of Holyrood Lane, Under the Same Sky and Coco Big City Kitty. Her first picture book, Go Away, Mr Worrythoughts!, was adapted into a theatrical production that toured throughout Australia.

Nicky’s illustration style is often described as whimsical, playful, narrative, emotive and colourful. She loves to work in watercolour, ink, pencils and pastel. Her love of teaching sees her busy with school visits and presenting at workshops and conferences.

Nicky lives by the beach with her husband and four sons.

Writing Mentor

Valerie Khoo

Valerie Khoo is an award-winning feature writer who is also CEO of the Australian Writers’ Centre. She writes for a range of corporate and consumer publications and was previously a regular writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age for over 15 years. Valerie is also the author of seven books. Her latest books are So you want to be a writer (co-authored with Allison Tait) and Power Stories: The 8 Stories You MUST Tell to Build an Epic Business.

She mentors feature writers who want to carve out a freelance writing career, and entrepreneurs and thought leaders who want to showcase their expertise in their own business book.

Valerie has worked at the three publishing giants – ACP Magazines (now Bauer Media), Pacific Magazines and EMAP – and currently works as a freelance editor for several consumer and corporate publications. Her work has also appeared in publications such as Voyeur, Silver Kris, Australian Financial Review and The Age.

Along with Allison Tait, Valerie co-hosts the popular top-rating podcast “So you want to be a writer“.

Author of Possum Magic

Mem Fox

Mem Fox is Australia’s most highly regarded children’s picture book author after having published Possum Magic. Possum Magic is the best selling children’s book in Australia to date. Her books Time for Bed and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge have sold over a million copies each in the USA, with Time For Bed featuring on Oprah’s twenty best children’s books of all time list.

Mem has written over thirty children’s books and five adult non-fiction books, and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for sixteen weeks in 2008-2009.

Some of Mem’s latest books include I’m Australian Too, and Bonnie and Ben Rhyme Again.

Science Educator

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki AM just loves science to pieces, and has been spreading the word in print, on TV and radio and online for more than thirty years. The author of 45 books, Dr Karl is a lifetime student with degrees in physics and mathematics, biomedical engineering, medicine and surgery. He has worked as a physicist, labourer, roadie for bands, car mechanic, filmmaker, biomedical engineer, taxi driver, TV weatherman, and medical doctor at the Children’s Hospital in Sydney. Since 1995, Dr Karl has been the Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at the University of Sydney. In 2019 he was awarded the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularisation of Science, of which previous recipients include Margaret Mead, David Attenborough, Bertrand Russell and David Suzuki.

Author of The Slap

Christos Tsiolkas

Christos Tsiolkas is the author of five novels: Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head-On, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe, which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. He won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award, longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for his novel, The Slap, which was also announced as the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year. He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne.

Illustrator, Author and Teacher

Penelope Pratley

Tasmanian-born illustrator Penelope Pratley has been drawing and mucking about with paint for as long as she can remember, starting with a spontaneous mural in red lipstick at the age of three on her Nan’s bedroom wall. Her first job was as a fairy before waving her wand to become an Art Teacher. Penelope loves spending her days illustrating books that inspire children to find their place in the world. When she’s not working in her garden studio, really a shed with lofty ideals, you’ll find her tucked in a cosy nook with her nose stuck in a book.

Author of Too Much Lip

Melissa Lucashenko

Melissa Lucashenko is a Goorie author of Bundjalung and European heritage. Her first novel, Steam Pigs, was published in 1997 and since then her work has received acclaim in many literary awards. Too Much Lip is her sixth novel and won the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Stella Prize, two Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, two Queensland Literary Awards and two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Melissa is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside. She writes about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead.

Author and editor

Davina Bell

Davina Bell is an award-winning author of books for young readers of many ages. She writes picture books (including Under the Love Umbrella and All the Ways To Be Smart), as well as junior fiction, middle-grade fiction and YA. Davina lives in Melbourne, Australia, where she works as a children’s book publisher. She talks to kids and adults around the country about the enchanting world of books and ideas.