Going Gonzo: Immersive Research

Royce Kurmelovs is an Australian freelance journalist and author covering the intersection of class, finance and climate change. His books include The Death of Holden, Rogue Nation, Boom and Bust and Just Money. He lives in Adelaide, South Australia.

Tory Shepherd is a senior reporter at Guardian Australia. Before the Guardian, she worked for the ABC, Crikey, Cosmos Magazine, and Gourmet Traveller, and before that she spent about 16 years at The Advertiser, including a stint as the political editor commuting between Adelaide and Canberra. 

Ben Stubbs is a senior lecturer in writing and journalism at UniSA. Ben's PhD explored the relationship between travel writing and history and the New Australia colony in Paraguay. He has published 3 non-fiction books– most recently The Crow Eaters. Ben has written features and essays for the New York Times, The Guardian, Toronto Star, Rough Guides, Meanjin, Griffith Review, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Conversation.

Smriti Daniel’s longform pieces have explored the intersections of culture, politics, development and history. Daniel was a Falling Walls Science Journalism Fellow (2016), a Gabriel Garcia Márquez Cultural Journalism Fellow (2017) and a two-time winner of the Feature Writer of the Year Award from the Editors Guild of Sri Lanka. She is currently Digital Manager at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency.