More Than Just Grit

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 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 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)

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.

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.