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…

Born on Wongatha country in Kalgoorlie, Declan Fry has written for The Guardian, Saturday Paper, Overland, Australian Book Review, Liminal, Cordite, Kill Your Darlings, Westerly and elsewhere. His Meanjin Quarterly essay “Justice for Elijah: A Spiritual Dialogue With Ziggy Ramo, Dancing” received a Peter Blazey Fellowship. He has been the recipient of a Lord Mayor’s…

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…

Drusilla Modjeska has written several hybrid creative non-fiction titles including Poppy (1990), a ‘fictional biography’ of her mother, and The Orchard (1994), an auto-fictional memoir. Both books won several awards, as did Stravinsky’s Lunch (1999) which brought a contemporary eye to the lives of the Australian modernist artists Grace Cossington Smith and Stella Bowen. The…

Aviva Tuffield has worked in publishing for twenty years, including as deputy editor of Australian Book Review and a publisher at Scribe Publications, Affirm Press and Black Inc. She was a co-founder of the Stella Prize and its inaugural executive director from 2014 to 2018. She is currently a publisher at the University of Queensland…

Trent Dalton has received worldwide acclaim and many awards for his best-selling novels Boy Swallows Universe (2018) and All Our Shimmering Skies (2020). His novels have won and been shortlisted for numerous literary and industry awards including the Indie Book Awards, the International Dublin Literary Award and the Queensland Literary Awards. He is also a two-time…

Chris Hammer is the author of two non-fiction books and three crime fiction novels. His non-fiction works , The River and The Coast were published in 2010 and 2012 and constitute a blend of travel writing and narrative non-fiction. Chris’ debut crime fiction novel, Scrublands, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2018, and is a worldwide best seller. It won…

Sarah Bailey is an author and advertising executive. Sarah’s debut novel, The Dark Lake, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2017, and is a best seller in Australia, the USA and Canada. It won both the 2018 Davitt Award for Best Crime Debut and the 2018 Ned Kelly award for Best First Crime. There are two…

Craig Sisterson is the author of the non-fiction crime book, Southern Cross Crime. Craig is a features writer and crime fiction expert from New Zealand who writes for newspapers and magazines in several countries. In recent years he’s interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at festivals…

Tom Doig is an author, editor, journalist and academic. He has written two books about the 2014 Hazelwood mine fire disaster: Hazelwood (Penguin Random House,  2020; finalist in the Walkley Book Awards) and The Coal Face (Penguin, 2015, winner of the Oral History Victoria Education Innovation Award). He has also written a humorous travel memoir, Mörön…

Dr. Penni Russon is a young adult author who writes books that hover on the border of realism and fantasy, interrogating so-called reality and attending closely to the realms of the imaginary. She has recently completed a PhD in the theory and application of comics in youth mental health.

Bec Kavanagh is a PhD candidate at La Trobe University. Her research explores the homogenisation of the adolescent female body in coming of age narratives. Bec is a recognised expert in youth literature and has worked extensively in feminist literary spaces. She was the inaugural chair of #LoveOzYA and currently manages the Schools Program at…

Peggy Frew’s work has appeared in New Australian Stories 2, Kill Your Darlings, Meanjin, and The Big Issue. Her novels have been awarded the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and the Barbara Jefferis Award, shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the UTS Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing, and longlisted for…

Danielle Binks is a Melbourne-based writer and literary agent with Jacinta di Mase Management. In 2017, she edited and contributed to Begin, End, Begin, an anthology of new Australian young adult writing inspired by the #LoveOzYA movement, which won the ABIA Book of the Year for Older Children (Ages 13+). The Year the Maps Changed, Danielle’s debut middle-grade…

After more than 20 years’ experience in the book industry, Jacinta di Mase started her own agency in 2004. Jacinta has a background in book selling and publishing, and worked for ten years in two of Australia’s premier literary agencies: Australian Literary Management (ALM), and Jenny Darling & Associates. She graduated with distinction from the RMIT Graduate…

Omar Sakr is an Arab-Australian poet, born of Lebanese and Turkish Muslim migrants. His debut collection, These Wild Houses (Cordite Books, 2017) was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize, and the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. His new collection, The Lost Arabs (University of Queensland Press, 2019), was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards, the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards…

Sally Rippin has been writing and illustrating children’s books for over fifteen years. She has over forty books published, many of them award-winning, including two novels for young adults. She has taught writing for children courses at the Council of Adult Education, the Victorian Writers’ Centre and as a part of the Professional Writing and Editing…

Martine Murray writes for children and young adults. Her first novel The Slightly True Story of Cedar B Hartley was included in the White Ravens international list of outstanding children’s books, and was shortlisted for the Victorian, NSW and Queensland Premier’s Awards, and the CBCA Awards. She won the Queensland Premier’s Award for How to Make a Bird and again…