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 the son of Arab and Turkish Muslim migrants. He is the author of three poetry collections, including The Lost Arabs (UQP), which won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, and a novel, Son of Sin (Affirm Press, 2022) due out in the UK this October with the87press. His latest book, Non-Essential…

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…

Simmone Howell is a Melbourne-based award-winning writer of books for young adults (Notes from the Teenage Underground, Girl Defective, Take Three Girls). Her non-fiction is regularly published in the Age/SMH. She recently completed a PhD at La Trobe University, researching life writing and the teenage experience. www.simmonehowell.com.au

Katherine Kovacic is the award-winning author of the Alex Clayton art mysteries, historical true crime, The Schoolgirl Strangler, and TV tie-in, Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, Just Murdered. Katherine’s latest book, Seven Sisters, was published by HarperCollins in January 2023. When she’s not writing crime – or thinking about it – Katherine works in the…

R.W.R. McDonald (Rob) is an award winning author. His debut novel, The Nancys won Best First Novel in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards, as well as being a finalist in the Best Novel category.  It was shortlisted for Best First Novel in the 2020 Ned Kelly Awards, and Highly Commended for an Unpublished Manuscript in the 2017…

Jane Novak is a literary professional with over twenty years’ experience in bookselling and publishing. She is passionate about Australia’s local industry and the creation and promotion of Australian books and writers. Her agency represents writers across many genres and her clients include Helen Garner, Kate Grenville, Liz Byrski, David Malouf and Tim Flannery.

Patti Miller is the author of ten books, including Australia’s best-selling life writing texts, Writing Your Life, The Memoir Book and Writing True Stories (A&U) as well as a novel Child (A&U) and The Last One Who Remembers (A&U) Whatever The Gods Do (Random House), the critically acclaimed The Mind of a Thief (UQP), long and…

Gretchen Shirm is the author of a collection of short stories Having Cried Wolf, for which she was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist. Her first novel Where the Light Falls, was shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Her fiction has been published in…

James Bradley  is an award-winning writer and literary critic. His books include the novels Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist and Clade, a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus, The Penguin Book of the Ocean, The Change Trilogy for young adults and his latest novel, Ghost Species which was published in 2020. His articles and reviews have appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian,…