Ben Hobson is a teacher of English and Music, and an author, based in Brisbane. In 2014 his novella, If the Saddle Breaks My Spine, was shortlisted for the Viva La Novella prize. To Become a Whale, his debut novel, was released in 2017. It was longlisted for the ABIA Debut Fiction award, and shortlisted for…

Dr Lee Kofman is a Russian-born, Israeli-Australian author of three fiction books and two memoirs, including Imperfect (Affirm Press, 2019), which was shortlisted for the Nib Literary Award, and The Dangerous Bride (Melbourne University Press, 2014), co-editor of Rebellious Daughters (Ventura Press, 2016) and editor of Split (Ventura Press, 2019), which was longlisted for the…

Lauren Chater is the author of three historical novels – The Lace Weaver (2018), Gulliver’s Wife (2020) and The Winter Dress (2022), all published by Simon & Schuster. In 2018 she was awarded a grant by the Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund to visit The Netherlands to research her third book. She is currently completing…

Anna McFarlane is a publisher of books for children and young adults at Allen & Unwin. Anna has recently published novels by Malla Nunn, Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, and Karen Foxlee and Freda Chiu. She’s also published numerous graphic novels and picture books including the award-winning Do Not Lick this Book by Idan Ben-Barak…

Fiona Wright is a writer, editor and critic. Her book of essays Small Acts of Disappearance won the 2016 Kibble Award and was shortlisted for the 2016 Stella Prize. Her poetry collections are Knuckled and Domestic Interior, and her most recent essay collection is The World Was Whole.

Laura Elvery is a writer from Brisbane. She is the author of two short story collections, Trick of the Light (2018) and Ordinary Matter (2020), both with UQP. Ordinary Matter was inspired by the lives of female Nobel Prize-winning scientists, and won the USQ Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection at the 2021…

Ceridwen Dovey is a writer based in Sydney. She’s the author of several acclaimed works of fiction (Blood Kin, Only the Animals, In the Garden of the Fugitives, Life After Truth and the Audible bestseller Once More With Feeling) and non-fiction (On J.M. Coetzee: Writers on Writers and Inner Worlds Outer Spaces). Her non-fiction essays…

Deborah Robertson is a West-Australian born writer and teacher, now based in Melbourne. Her first book, Proudflesh, won The Steele Rudd Australian Short Story Award, and her first novel, Careless, received the Nita B. Kibble Award for Women Writers and the Colin Roderick Award. It was also shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, The Age…

Malla Nunn is the author of four internationally published Emmanuel Cooper crime novels. A Beautiful Place to Die, Let the Dead Lie, Blessed Are the Dead and Present Darkness have, between them, received two Edgar Award nominations, a Davitt Award and two Antony Award nominations. The series is currently being developed for television by Goalpost pictures. Malla’s debut…

Miles Allinson is a writer from Melbourne. His first novel, Fever of Animals won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2014 among other prizes. His second novel In Moonland was published in September 2021. He is a former Creative Fellow at the State Library Victoria and a former writer in residence at the University of…

Italian Australian author Elise Valmorbida won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2019 for her acclaimed fourth novel, The Madonna of the Mountains (Faber), published internationally in several languages. Other published work includes essays, articles, short stories, poetry, and three non-fiction books. Her latest is The Happy Writing Book, a guide to creative writing and wellbeing,…

Oscar Schwartz is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. His award-winning longform journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, and The Monthly. His debut poetry collection, The Honeymoon Stage, was shortlisted for the 2018 Queensland Literary Prize for Poetry.

Gregory Day is a novelist, poet and musician from the Eastern Otways region of Victoria, Australia. He is also an essayist and literary critic. Gregory has published five novels and his work has won many prizes, including the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, the Elizabeth Jolley Prize, the Manly Artist Book Award and the Alfred…

Emily O’Grady is a writer from Brisbane. Her debut novel, The Yellow House won the 2018 Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2019 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. Her work has been published in Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, The Big Issue fiction edition, and New Australian Fiction 2021.  She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Queensland University of Technology,…

A former columnist of the year, Richard Cooke is the author of Tired of Winning and On Robyn Davidson. He is a contributing editor to The Monthly magazine, and its former US Correspondent. He has been published by many others, including the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, WIRED and…

Mirandi Riwoe is the author of Stone Sky Gold Mountain, which won the Queensland Literary Award for Fiction and the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her novella The Fish Girl was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Mirandi also writes as M.J. Tjia…

Peter Polites is a novelist from Western Sydney. He has written two queer noirs, Down the Hume and The Pillars, which won the 2020 NSW Premier’s Multicultural Literary Award. He also won the 2020 Woollahra Digital Literature Prize for Fiction. In 2021 he was the ACT Writer in Residence at UNSW Canberra and he is…

Declan Fry has written for the Guardian, Overland, Australian Book Review, Liminal,  Westerly and elsewhere. His Meanjin essay “Justice for Elijah or a Spiritual Dialogue with Ziggy Ramo, Dancing” received the 2021 Peter Blazey Fellowship. His poetry has been shortlisted for the Judith Wright Poetry Prize and selected for The Best Australian Science Writing 2021….

Pip Smith is a writer of poetry, fiction, literary criticism and punk songs. She was named an SMH Best Young Novelist of 2018 for her debut novel, Half Wild, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Voss Literary award, the Davitt Award, and longlisted for an ABIA Best Debut Fiction award. Her first collection of poetry, Too Close…

Richard Skinner is the author of three novels, all published by Faber & Faber, three books of non-fiction and three poetry collections. His work has been nominated for prizes and is published in eight languages. His most recent novel, The Mirror, is two short novels set side by side, described by the Daily Telegraph as…