Thank you for joining us in 2024.
It was wonderful to gather with so many of you in the Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden from 2 - 7 March 2024.
You can take a look back at the 2024 lineup and schedule, as well as Director Louise Adler's message. Podcasts of our 2024 sessions are now available through most podcasting platforms/apps. Please use the links below to find out more.
Nicole Abadee writes about books for Good Weekend, appears regularly at writers’ festivals and other literary events and has a books podcast: Books, Books, Books. She is also a literary consultant, helping writers to polish their work before they submit it to publishers.
Jessica Alice is a poet and writer. She is Artistic Director of Byron Writers Festival and formerly CEO of Writers SA. Jessica’s poetry, commentary, and criticism is published in the Guardian, Meanjin, Overland, fine print magazine, The Lifted Brow, Metro Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review and Australian Poetry Journal, among others.
Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned – and daring – creative pioneers. Known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist. In addition to a live streamed conversation, Anderson's work will appear in I'll Be Your Mirror as part of the Adelaide Festival.
Georgia Angus is an author, artist and nature nerd who lives on the lands of the Kulin Nation in south-east Australia. She splits her time between studying environmental science, writing and bushwalking. She has written 100 Australian Birds and 100 Australian Butterflies, Bees, Beetles & Bugs. Her latest book is Birds with Personality: A Guide to 50 of the World’s Most Beguiling Birds.
Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, researcher, and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Her Stella-prize-winning poetry collection DROPBEAR was published by UQP in 2021. She lectures in Literature and Creative Writing at Deakin University.
Tareq Baconi is president of the board of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network and former senior analyst for the International Crisis Group on Israel/Palestine. He is author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.
Julia Baird is an author and journalist. She co-hosts ABC's The Drum on ABC and writes columns for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Harper's Bazaar. Julia has written three books - Media Tarts, Victoria, her critically acclaimed biography of Queen Victoria, and multi-award-winning bestseller Phosphorescence.
Devorah Baum is the author of Feeling Jewish and The Jewish Joke: an essay with examples (less essay, more examples). She is co-director, producer and performer of the films The New Man and Husband. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Guardian, Tate Etc and the Financial Times. She is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Southampton.
Dame Mary Beard is Professor Emerita of Classics at Cambridge, and the classics editor of the TLS. She has worldwide academic acclaim. Her previous books include bestselling Wolfson Prize-winner Pompeii, Confronting the Classics, SPQR, Women & Power, Twelve Caesars and most recently Emperor of Rome. She has made numerous television series and her books have been published in over 30 languages.
Richard Beasley is a Senior Counsel at the New South Wales Bar. He is the author of five novels, including Hell Has Harbour Views, which was adapted for TV and screened by the ABC. Beasley's most recent book about the Murray Darling Basin, Dead in the Water, is his first work of non-fiction.
Ariel Bogle is an investigations reporter at Guardian Australia with a focus on technology, extremism and online culture. Previously, Bogle was a technology reporter at the ABC where she contributed to programs across the network. Her reporting has been published in The New York Times, the Guardian, The Atlantic, Australian Financial Review and Slate, among other outlets.
Mike Bowers is a photographer, a regular commentator on ABC Radio, and host of Talking Pictures on ABC's Insiders. He has spent 30 years in the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery and has published four books, including Gallipoli Untold Stories, The Big Picture: 175 Years of The Sydney Morning Herald and A Century of Pictures: 100 Years of Herald Photography. His fourth book, Armageddon: Two Men on an ANZAC Trail, was a joint venture with journalist Paul Daley.
Mark Brandi's bestselling novel Wimmera won the coveted British Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger and was named Best Debut at the 2018 Australian Indie Book Awards. His second novel, The Rip, was published to critical acclaim and his third novel, The Others, was shortlisted for the Best Fiction Prize in the 2022 Ned Kelly Awards. His latest novel is Southern Aurora. Brandi's work has appeared in The Guardian, The Age, The Big Issue, in journals and on ABC Radio National.
Judith Brett is the author of Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People and emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University. The Enigmatic Mr Deakin won the 2018 National Biography Award, and was shortlisted in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, NSW Premier’s History Awards and Queensland Literary Awards.
Ian Buruma was born in the Netherlands. He studied Chinese at Leiden University and cinema at Nihon University, Tokyo. He has lived and worked in Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, and New York. He is a regular contributor to Harper’s and The New Yorker and writes monthly columns for Project Syndicate and Bloomberg. He is a professor at Bard College and lives in New York City.
Sian Cain is deputy culture editor for Guardian Australia. She is a former literary journalist at the Guardian in London and has interviewed the likes of George Saunders, Neil Gaiman and Sally Rooney. She also previously worked at CNN and the ABC. She has judged the Gordon Burn prize and the Royal Society of Literature's Encore award.
Alastair Campbell worked as a journalist before working for Tony Blair - first as press secretary, then as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy from 1994 to 2003, and later as a political adviser. He now splits his time between writing, speaking, politics, consultancy and charity work. He has published ten volumes of diaries, two memoirs on depression and four novels. His latest book is But What Can I Do? He co-presents the UK's no 1 podcast, The Rest is Politics.
Prof the Hon Bob Carr is the longest continuously serving Premier in the history of New South Wales and served as Australia’s Foreign Minister. Since leaving politics Bob has led a distinguished career as a defacto diplomat, author and academic. He is the author of Thoughtlines, My Reading Life and Diary of a Foreign Minister and his political memoir Run for Your Life.
Jo Case is Deputy Editor, Books & Ideas at The Conversation. Jo was a co-founder of the Feminist Writers Festival and is a founding board member of the Stella Prize. Her first book, Boomer and Me: A memoir of motherhood, and Asperger’s was shortlisted for the Russell Prize for Humour Writing.
Ted Chiang is one of the most honoured writers in contemporary science fiction. His work has won four Nebula Awards, including the 1990 Nebula Award for his first published story, "Tower of Babylon", four Hugo Awards and numerous other awards. He is the author of two short story collections, Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation.
Bio for Andrew Clark coming soon.
Eliza Clark received a grant from New Writing North's Young Writers' Talent Fund in 2018. Her debut novel, Boy Parts, was released by Influx Press in July 2020, and has since been Blackwell's Fiction Book of the Year. In 2022, Eliza was chosen as a finalist for the Women's Prize Futures Award for writers under 35. Her latest book is Penance.
Jonty Claypole MBE is a writer, documentary producer and arts administrator living and working on Gadigal land. He is CEO of Red Room Poetry and author of Words Fail Us: In Defence of Dysfluency. He worked for twenty years in media and the arts in the UK, produced and directed dozens of arts documentaries, before becoming Director of Arts at the BBC (2014-21).
Hon Susan Close MP is the Deputy Premier of South Australia and the Minister for Climate, Environment and Water; Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science; and Minister for Defence and Space Industries. Before entering parliament, Susan was an executive in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and played a key role in the establishment of the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary as a community advocate.
J.M. Coetzee was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. His work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, The Master of Petersburg, Disgrace, Diary of a Bad Yea, Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons and trilogy of novels: The Childhood of Jesus, The Schooldays of Jesus and The Death of Jesus.
Chanel Contos founded Teach Us Consent, a campaign that mandated consent education in Australia. Contos was the recipient of the Australian Human Rights Commission Young People's Medal in 2021, and in 2023 she was named NSW Young Woman of the Year for her persistent efforts towards eradicating rape culture. Contos has a Masters in Education, Gender and International Development from University College London.
Dr Margaret Cook is fascinated by water and its interaction with humans, animals, and the environment over time. She writes about climate-related disasters, with a particular focus on rivers and floods, and is the author of “A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods”. Cook is a historian and is a Research Fellow at the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, and La Trobe University.
James Curran is Professor of Modern History at Sydney University. A former analyst with the Office of National Assessments, he has authored a number of books, including The Power of Speech, Unholy Fury: Whitlam and Nixon at War and David Campese: The Last of the Dream Sellers.
Trent Dalton is a two-time Walkley Award-winning journalist and the international bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, All Our Shimmering Skies and Love Stories. His books have sold over 1.2 million copies in Australia alone. His latest novel is Lola in the Mirror.
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.
Zoe Daniel spent almost three decades on the front line of news and current events, in Australia and internationally as a 3-time foreign correspondent and former ABC News United States Bureau chief. She is the author of three books, Storyteller, an insight into her life as a foreign correspondent, Angel, a novel for teens about Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and Greetings from Trumpland, an account of fragmenting trust in democracy in the USA.
Brad Darkson (Narungga) is a multidisciplinary artist currently working across various media including carving, video, sound, animation, sculpture, painting and site-specific installation. 'Cultural-revival-activism' permeates his work, focusing on connections between contemporary and traditional cultural practice, language and lore.
Robyn Davidson was born in Queensland, moved to Sydney in the 1960s, returned to Brisbane before going to Alice Springs to prepare for her journey across the Australian desert. Davidson’s first book Tracks, tells her account of this crossing, it was an international sensation. In the early 1990s, Davidson migrated with and wrote about nomads in north-west India. She is now based in regional Victoria, but spends time each year in India.
Prof Glyn Davis AC is Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. He is a political scientist who served as Vice-Chancellor at the University of Melbourne. He has served on the boards of the Queensland Theatre Company, the Melbourne Theatre Company and as Chair of Opera Australia.
Richard Denniss is the Executive Director of the Australia Institute. He is the author of several books including: Econobabble, Curing Affluenza, Dead Right: How Neoliberalism Ate Itself and What Comes Next? and Big: The Role of the State in the Modern Economy.
Patrick deWitt is the author of The Sisters Brothers, which won the Governor General’s Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Walter Scott Prize, and was adapted for a film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix and Riz Ahmed. He also is the author of Ablutions, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice, Undermajordomo Minor, and French Exit, which was adapted for a film starring Michelle Pfeiffer and shortlisted for the Giller Prize. His latest book is The Librarianist.
Ali Cobby Eckermann is a Yankunytjatjara poet residing on Ngadjuri country. The central desert influenced her first collections little bit long time and Kami. In later years her poems have been influenced by the sky. The latest release is She Is The Earth (2023).
Helen Elliott is a prominent literary critic, journalist and the editor of Grandmothers. Her writing has appeared in The Monthly, The Australian, The Age, Griffith Review, Best Australian Essays, Vogue and numerous other publications. She was the literary editor of the Herald Sun and has two children, four granddaughters and an acre of garden.
Anne Enright has written two collections of stories, one book of non-fiction, and six novels, including The Gathering (2007 Man Booker Prize winner), The Forgotten Waltz (awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction) and The Green Road (Bord Gáis Energy Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award winner). She was appointed as the first Laureate for Irish Fiction in 2015 and received the Irish PEN Award in 2018. The Wren, The Wren is her seventh novel.
Dassi Erlich is now a high-profile lobbyist, justice campaigner and advocate for sexual abuse survivors. She has endured the tricky transition from a life in ultra-Orthodox Judaism, where every move was governed by severe rules and rituals, to a secular life in Melbourne's suburbs. Given the hardships she has faced, her trajectory is extraordinary. In Bad Faith is Dassi's powerful memoir.
Sarah Ferguson is the presenter of the ABC’s 7.30. She has won four Walkleys, including the Gold Walkley in 2011, the Melbourne Press Club Gold Quill Award, four Logies for most outstanding public affairs report, the George Munster Award for Independent Journalism and the Queensland Premier's Literary Award. She is the author of The Killing Season and On Mother.
Richard Fidler is a presenter of Conversations on ABC Radio National, which attracts a large listening audience around the nation, and is the most popular podcast in Australia. Richard is also the author of several bestselling books: Ghost Empire, Saga Land (2018), co-authored with his friend Kári Gíslason, and The Golden Maze. His latest book is The Book of Roads and Kingdoms.
Carla Fitzgerald is a children's author, a recovered lawyer and mum of three, from Sydney. She studied English literature (novels!) and law (not so many novels!) at university. Before discovering the joys of making stuff up, Carla worked in a range of jobs; most recently at the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Martin Flanagan was born in 1955 and graduated in law from the University of Tasmania in 1975. He has written many books, a play and two film treatments. From 1985 to 2017, he wrote for the Melbourne Age on sport and other subjects.
Richard Flanagan has been described by the Washington Post as "one of our greatest living novelists" and as "among the most versatile writers in the English language" by the New York Review of Books. He won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the Commonwealth Prize for Gould’s Book of Fish. His most recent book is Question 7.
Patrick Flanery is the author of four novels, including Absolution, which was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary award, and a memoir, The Ginger Child. He is Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide.
Clementine Ford is a writer, broadcaster and feminist community builder living in Naarm/Melbourne. She is the bestselling author of acclaimed feminist manifestos Fight Like A Girl and Boys Will Be Boys, and a memoir, How We Love, which she adapted into a live stage performance called Love Sermon. In 2017, she won the Matt Richell Award for Best New Writer of the Year at the ABIAs. Her latest book, I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage, comes out in October 2023.
Richard Ford has published eight novels and four collections of stories. His book Independence Day was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the first time the same book had won both prizes. Let Me Be Frank with You was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in 2015. He was recently awarded the Prix Femina Étranger in France and the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature in Spain.
Miranda France is a writer, translator, editor and critic who grew up in East Anglia and Sussex. In the early 1990s, she lived in Brazil, Edinburgh and Buenos Aires. In 1996, she won the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for a piece about her time in Buenos Aires. Her first book, Bad Times in Buenos Aires, was published in 1998. She is a consultant editor for the Times Literary Supplement and a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund. Her latest book is The Writing School: A Memoir.
Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University. He is also UNESCO Professor of Silk Roads Studies at King's College, Cambridge. Frankopan is a member of the Advisory Board of the Sevgi Gönül Center for Byzantine Studies at Koç University, Istanbul. A Fellow of multiple Royal Societies, Frankopan is President of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs.
Anna Funder is the author of international bestsellers Stasiland and All That I Am, which have been published in more than 24 countries, and the novella The Girl with the Dogs. Her books have won multiple literary awards, including the Samuel Johnson Prize for Stasiland and the Miles Franklin for All That I Am. Her most recent book is Wifedom.
Nikki Gemmell is the bestselling author of seven novels and four works of non-fiction for adults, and two novels for children. Her work has received international critical acclaim. In France, she's been described as a female Jack Kerouac, in Australia as one of the most original and engaging authors of her generation, and in the US as one of the few truly original voices to emerge in a long time.
Dr Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer at the Australian National University. She served as a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and is author of Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia. Joëlle has also contributed to The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, and Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua.
Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker is a Nyungar technologist, writer, digital rights activist living on Whadjuk Noongar boodjar. They write speculative fiction, and work with creative coding and digital poetry to interrogate themes of computational histories and our relationship with machines. Their work frequently paints stories of Indigenous characters in near-future realities, and asks - what would technology look like if built from Indigenous protocols of Caring for Country and Caring for Kin?
Richard Glover has written a number of bestselling books, including Love, Clancy, The Land Before Avocado, Flesh Wounds and The Mud House. He writes regularly for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Washington Post, as well as presenting the comedy program Thank God It's Friday on ABC Local Radio.
Madison 'Maddie' Godfrey is a writer, educator, and emotional feminist. They have performed poetry at the Sydney Opera House, St Paul's Cathedral and Glastonbury Festival. Madison is a previous recipient of the Kat Muscat Fellowship, the Varuna Poetry Flagship Fellowship and was recently awarded a WA Youth Award for their 'Creative Contributions' to the state.
Georgina Godwin is Books Editor for Monocle Radio and the host of the flagship literary show Meet the Writers, and current affairs program The Globalist. She chairs events worldwide and hosts a number of commercial podcasts. She is on the board of English PEN.
Peter Goers has worked as actor, director, designer, critic, academic and entertainer. He began writing for The Advertiser in 1985 and has contributed a weekly opinion column in the Sunday Mail since 1991. Since 2003, Peter has won 11 awards as presenter of the Evening Show on ABC Radio Adelaide. In 2013, he was honoured with the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the arts, community and public broadcasting.
Peter Goldsworthy has won major literary awards across the genres of poetry, fiction, theatre, and opera libretti. His books have been shortlisted three times for the NSW Christina Stead Fiction Prize and twice for the Miles Franklin Award. Three Dog Night won the 2004 FAW Christina Stead Award, and was longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC prize. His first novel, Maestro, was voted by members of the Australian Society of Authors as one of the Top 40 Australian books of all time. His latest work is a memoir, The Cancer Finishing School.
Roanna Gonsalves is an award-winning writer and educator with an interdisciplinary practice. She is the author of the critically acclaimed collection of short fiction, The Permanent Resident. Her social-satirical radio series about contemporary India, On the tip of a billion tongues, and her essay Doosra: The life and times of an Indian student in Australia were commissioned and broadcast by ABC RN. She works as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at UNSW, Sydney.
Jonathan Green has been an editor, writer, commentator and broadcaster in a 40-year career. Jonathan has worked for The Age, Crikey and the ABC as founding editor of The Drum and as editor of Meanjin. He now presents Blueprint for Living on ABC Radio National and the ABC podcast Return Ticket. He is the author of Around Australia In 80 Days and The Year My Politics Broke.
Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. Her international bestseller The Secret River was awarded numerous prizes and has been adapted for the stage and as an acclaimed television miniseries. Her other novels include Orange Prize winner The Idea of Perfection and the bestselling A Room Made of Leaves. Her recent non-fiction includes The Case Against Fragrance and Elizabeth Macarthur’s Letters. In 2017, Grenville was awarded the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.
Dominic Guerrera (Kaurna, Ngarrindjeri) is a poet, curator and ceramicist. His writings have been published in Artlink and Cordite Review. Guerrera was the recipient of the 2021 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize. He is a co-editor of The Rocks Remain anthology.
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has become one of the country's leading voices on women in politics, environment and nature protection, media policy, and human rights. Her short book En Garde was a personal expose that helped break the silence on women’s treatment in modern Australian politics. Sarah has headed the push for a shake of media laws in Australia and a Royal Commission for media reform and diversity.
Wendy Harmer is a broadcaster, author, journalist, stand-up comedian and stage performer. She led 2Day FM's top-rating breakfast show for 11 years and was the co-host of ABC's 702 Sydney morning show from 2016 -2021. She has hosted, written and appeared in a variety of TV shows, including ABC's The Big Gig. Wendy is the author of eight books for adults, two young adult novels and multiple books for children in the Pearlie in the Park series.
Anjum Hasan is the author of three novels and two short story collections, which have been shortlisted for the Indian Academy of Letters Prize, the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Hindu Best Fiction Award and the Crossword Fiction Award, as well as being longlisted for the Man Asia Literary Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Granta, Paris Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, among many others.
Amanda Hodge is The Australian’s South East Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta. She has lived and worked in Asia since 2009, covering social and political upheaval from Afghanistan to East Timor. She has won a Walkley Award, Lowy Institute media award and UN Peace award.
Jane Howard is a Walkley award-winning journalist and Arts and Culture Editor of The Conversation. Her writing has appeared in publications including the ABC, the Guardian, Meanjin and the Sydney Morning Herald, and she sits on the board of Writers SA. Howard's artistic work explores writing in collaborative digital spaces; and her research work has primarily looked at the status of women in the arts.
Eleanor Jackson is a Filipino-Australian poet, performer, arts producer, and advocate. She is the author of Gravidity and Parity, which was the winner of the Small Press Network Book of the Year Award 2022. Gravidity and Parity was Highly Commended in the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and in the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) Mary Gilmore Award 2022.
Julian Jackson is Professor of History, Emeritus, at Queen Mary University of London and one of the foremost experts on twentieth-century France. His De Gaulle won the Duff Cooper Prize and Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, among other awards, and was a New Yorker, Financial Times, Spectator, Times, and Telegraph Book of the Year. His most recent book is France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain.
James Jeffrey is a speechwriter for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. He previously worked as the Strewth columnist and political sketchwriter for The Australian. He is the author of Paprika Paradise and My Family and Other Animus, and joined forces with Jon Kudelka to create The Wonks’ Dictionary. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Susan Johnson is an Australian author of literary fiction, memoir, short stories and essays. Her ninth novel, From Where I Fell, was published in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Voss Literary Award. She has lived in Hong Kong, Paris, London and most recently in Greece. Her latest book is Aphrodite's Breath.
Darryl Jones is a Professor of Ecology at Griffith University in Brisbane, where for over 30 years he has been investigating the many ways that people and wildlife interact. His books include The Birds at My Table, Feeding the Birds at Your Table, Curlews on Vulture Street and Getting to Know the Birds in Your Neighbourhood.
Gail Jones is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. She has received numerous literary awards, including the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the Age Book of the Year, the South Australian Premier’s Award, the ALS Gold Medal and the Kibble Award. Her work has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the International Dublin Literary Award and the Prix Femina Étranger. Her next book, One Another, is due to be published in 2024.
Jill Jones is a poet and writer whose books include Wild Curious Air, which was the winner of the 2021 Wesley Michel Wright Prize, and The Beautiful Anxiety, which won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry in 2015. Her work is widely published in Australia, Canada, Ireland, NZ, Singapore, Sweden, UK, and USA. She has worked as an academic, arts administrator, journalist and book editor. Her latest book is Acrobat Music: New & Selected Poems.
Myfanwy Jones is the author of Leap, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Miles Franklin Literary Award. She also co-wrote the bestselling Parlour Games for Modern Families, which was awarded the ABIA Book of the Year for Older Children in 2010, and her essays and short fiction have appeared in various journals and anthologies. Jones works as an editor, manuscript assessor and mentor.
Nicholas Jose has published novels, short story collection, non-fiction and an acclaimed memoir, Black Sheep: Journey to Borroloola. He was Cultural Counsellor at the Australian Embassy Beijing from 1987-1990 and Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney University and Emeritus Professor of English and Creative Writing at The University of Adelaide.
Anjali Joseph is an Indian novelist living in Britain. Her first novel, Saraswati Park, won the Betty Trask Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, and the Vodafone Crossword Book Award for Fiction. Her latest novel, Keeping in Touch, tracks the inner lives of sceptical late-thirties protagonists as they navigate falling in love. She is currently working on a novel about the Irish naval officer and archaeoastronomer Boyle Somerville.
Meena Kandasamy is an activist, poet, novelist and translator. Her books of poetry include Touch and Ms Militancy, and she is the author of three acclaimed novels, Gypsy Goddess, When I Hit You and Exquisite Cadavers. In 2022, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was also awarded the PEN Germany's Hermann Kesten Prize. Her latest published work is Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You, a political poetry pamphlet.
Sarah Kanowski co-presents Conversations on ABC Radio and podcast. She previously presented Books and Arts on ABC Radio National and joined the ABC as a producer on Late Night Live.
Meg Keneally started her working life as a junior public affairs officer at the Australian Consulate-General in New York. On returning to Australia, she joined the Daily Telegraph as a general news reporter and Radio 2UE as a talkback radio producer. For over ten years, Keneally has worked in corporate affairs for listed financial services companies, and doubles as a SCUBA diving instructor. She lives in Sydney.
Thomas (Tom) Keneally has written a considerable number of novels and non-fiction works including The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Schindler's List and The People's Train. He has won the Miles Franklin Award, the Booker Prize, the Los Angeles Times Prize, the Mondello International Prize and has been made a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library, a Fellow of the American Academy, and has been the subject of an Australian postage stamp.
Hannah Kent’s first novel, the international bestseller, Burial Rites (2013), was translated into over 30 languages and won numerous awards. All three of her books are being adapted for film. Kent is also writing screenplays for her books The Good People and Devotion. Kent co-founded the Australian literary publication Kill Your Darlings. Kent lives and works on Peramangk Country in South Australia.
Richard King is an author, critic and poet whose work has appeared in The Australian, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Independent, The Monthly, Griffith Review, The Sydney Review of Books, Meanjin, Overland, New Matilda, Australian Book Review, The Best Australian Poems, The Best Australian Science Writing and 3 Quarks Daily, for whom he wrote a regular column between 2016 and 2018). He writes regularly for Arena. His first book, On Offence: The Politics of Indignation, was published in Australia, the United Kingdom and Australia.
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.
Mike Ladd is a poet, radio producer and essayist who lives on Kaurna land. He has published nine collections of poetry and prose, the most recent, Invisible Mending from Wakefield Press. Ladd worked for ABC Radio for over 35 years and was the founding producer and editor of Poetica, Radio National's weekly poetry program, which ran from 1997 to 2015, bringing Australian and international poetry to a broad audience.
Nam Le’s poetry has been published in The Monthly, The Paris Review, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Bomb, Conjunctions, Boston Review, Lana Turner and Tin House. His short story collection The Boat received numerous major international awards. The Boat has been republished as a modern classic and is widely translated, anthologised and taught.
Cheryl Leavy is from the Kooma and Nguri Nations in Western and Central Queensland. The 2022 winner of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize, she has performed at Queensland Poetry, Brisbane Writers Festival, Byron Writers Festival, and the Queensland's Chamber Orchestra. Leavy’s first children’s book will be published by UQP in 2024.
Alison Lester AM's picture books mix imaginary worlds with everyday life, encouraging children to believe in themselves and celebrate the differences that make them special. She is involved in many community art projects and spends part of every year travelling to remote Indigenous communities, using her books to help children and adults write and draw about their own lives. In 2012, Lester became Australia's first Children's Book Laureate, a position she shared with Boori Monty Pryor. She has been awarded the Dromkeen Medal and became the first children's book creator to win the Melbourne Prize for Literature.
Sarah L'Estrange has worked in arts broadcasting on ABC Radio National for almost 20 years. She currently produces The Book Show, Radio National and has interviewed many wonderful Australian and international authors.
Jonathan Lethem is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Dissident Gardens, The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Lethem has published his stories and essays in the New Yorker, Harper‘s, Rolling Stone, Esquire and the New York Times, among others.
Kathy Lette first achieved succès de scandale as a teenager with the novel Puberty Blues. She has written 20 books which have been translated into 19 languages. Kathy is an autodidact but has three honorary doctorates. She is a TV presenter, newspaper and magazine columnist and is an ambassador for Their World, the National Autistic Society and Ambitious About Autism.
Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin writer, who grew up on the Far South Coast of NSW as part of a large and proud Aboriginal family. Growing up a massive Kylie Minogue and North Queensland Cowboys fan, Gary was always writing as a child, and continued his creative journey at film school. Gary has experience working in Aboriginal health, the disability sector and the film industry.
Édouard Louis is an author and editor whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian and Freeman’s. His first two novels, The End of Eddy and History of Violence, were translated into 30 languages and have made him one of the most celebrated writers of his generation. The stage adaptation of his book Qui a tué mon père (Who killed my father) appears in the 2024 Adelaide Festival and stars Louis himself.
Melissa Lucashenko is an award-winning Goorie author of Bundjalung and European heritage. Her sixth novel, Too Much Lip, won the 2019 Miles Franklin Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award and was shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Stella Prize. Lucashenko is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside. Her latest book is Edenglassie.
Catharine Lumby is a Professor of Media at the University of Sydney where she was founding Chair of the Media and Communications Department. Prior to entering academia, she worked for two decades as a print and TV journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC and The Bulletin magazine. She has written and co-authored ten books, including Bad Girls and Gotcha, and numerous book chapters and journal articles.
John Lyons is a three-time Walkley Award winner who has reported at home and abroad across four decades. From the Middle East he won the Walkley Award for investigative journalism for a report for Four Corners. He is currently the ABC News Global Affairs Editor. His previous roles include Associate Editor (Digital Content) at The Australian and Executive Producer of the Nine Network’s Sunday program.
Maggie MacKellar is the author of published two books on the history of settlement in Australia and Canada and two memoirs, When It Rains and How To Get There. Her latest book, Graft, describes a year on a Merino wool farm on the east coast of Tasmania, and all of the life - and death - that surrounds her through the cycle of lambing seasons.
Ruth Mackenzie CBE has more than 40 years’ experience in the arts world and in particular international festivals. A former director of Holland Festival, Manchester International Festival and Chichester Festival, Mackenzie was in charge of the official cultural program for the 2012 London Olympics and Artistic Director for the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. She is the current Artistic Director of Adelaide Festival.
Lynne Malcolm is a science journalist and broadcaster. For nine years, she produced and presented All in the Mind, a popular ABC radio program and podcast with huge national and international reach. Malcolm has received numerous media awards and contributes to media award judging panels. All In the Mind is her first book.
Una Mannion lives in the northwest of Ireland and has won numerous prizes for her work. Her debut novel, A Crooked Tree, made the Irish bestseller list and won the Kate O'Brien prize. Her most recent novel is Tell Me What I Am.
David Marr has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian and The Monthly, and has served as editor of The National Times, reporter for Four Corners and presenter of ABC TV's Media Watch. His books include Patrick White: A Life, The High Price of Heaven, Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson), Panic and six bestselling Quarterly Essays. His most recent book is Killing For Country: A Family Story.
Walter Marsh is a journalist based in Tarntanya/Adelaide with a background in history and culture. A former editor and staff writer at The Adelaide Review and Rip It Up, his writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, and InDaily. He is the author of Young Rupert: The Making of the Murdoch Empire.
Sarah Martin is a senior correspondent with Guardian Australia’s national investigations team. She has worked as a print journalist across several mastheads in Australia over the past 15 years, including as the Guardian’s chief political correspondent in Canberra.
Kate McBride is a fifth-generation farmer, born and brought up on a 500,000-acre sheep property located on the Lower Darling-Barka River. After witnessing the collapse of the river she grew up alongside, she has become a familiar face in the fight for better water policy in this country. She has been working for The Australia Institute as a researcher on rural issues such as health and services in regional Australia and climate change.
Prof Patrick McGorry is the Executive Director of Orygen, Professor of Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, and a Founding Director of headspace in Australia. McGorry has published over 700 papers, edited eight books, and is Editor-in-Chief of Early Intervention in Psychiatry. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science.
Margot McGovern is a YA and Horror author based in Adelaide, South Australia. Her debut YA novel, Neverland, was short-listed for the Text Prize and the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. Her second novel, Between Us Girls, will be published in 2024.
William McInnes is a columnist and author who writes pieces that celebrate life whilst encompassing the wide emotions and situations being human can bring. His bestselling titles are A Man's Got to Have a Hobby, Cricket Kings, That'd Be Right and The Making of Modern Australia. Yeah, Nah! is his latest book.
Nick McKenzie is one of the nation's most decorated investigative journalists, having been named Australian Journalist of the Year on four separate occasions. Over two decades, he has worked for ABC's Four Corners, Nine's 60 Minutes and The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers. He has been awarded the Walkley, Australia's highest journalism award, a record fourteen times.
Maxine McKew is Hon Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. A former ABC and Bulletin journalist as well as Federal Labor MP, McKew can rightly claim to be among the first of the modern political disrupters - having defeated prime minister John Howard in the seat of Bennelong in 2007. She has written two books: Tales from the Political Trenches and Class Act.
Rachael Mead is a novelist, poet and affiliate of the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University of Adelaide. Her work has been published widely in Australia and internationally, including in Best Australian Poems, Meanjin, Westerly, Cordite, Island, Southerly, Australian Poetry Journal and Magma Poetry UK. Her debut novel The Application of Pressure was released in 2020. Her most recent book is The Art of Breaking Ice.
Amelia Mellor began her writing career as her secondary school's resident playwright in Year 11. As part of her creative writing course at the University of Melbourne, she completed a thesis on the reinvention of the Industrial Revolution in children's fantasy literature. Her debut novel, The Grandest Bookshop in the World, has won an Australian Book Industry Award, an Indie Book Award, the NSW Premier's Literary Award and Booksellers' Choice Award.
Anne Michaels is a novelist and poet whose books have been translated into more than 50 languages and have won dozens of international awards, including the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Lannan Award for Fiction. Among many other honours, she is a Guggenheim Fellow and has served as Toronto’s Poet Laureate. Her novel Fugitive Pieces was adapted as a feature film and chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 Novels that Shaped the World. Her latest book, Held, comes out in November 2023. Anne Michaels will now be appearing via live stream.
Kate Mildenhall is a writer and teacher. Her debut novel, Skylarking, was named in Readings Top Ten Fiction Books of 2016 and her bestselling The Mother Fault was longlisted for the 2021 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year and shortlisted for the 2020 Aurealis Awards. Mildenhall lives in Hurstbridge on Wurundjeri lands, with her partner and two children. Her third novel is The Hummingbird Effect.
Lisa Millar is the co-host of ABC TV's News Breakfast. Millar returned to the ABC in Australia after finishing a decade-long posting as bureau chief in both London and Washington DC, covering some of the world's biggest stories. She began her career at the Gympie Times in 1988 and has worked in print, TV and radio. She won a Walkley Award in 2005 for investigative reporting.
Suzie Miller is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist whose award-winning work has been produced around the world. Her play Prima Facie had a sold-out season on London's West End, opened on Broadway in New York in 2023 and won the 2023 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. Miller practised human rights law before writing full time and is currently developing major projects in theatre, literature and screen. Prima Facie is her first novel.
Louise Milligan is an investigative reporter for the ABC TV’s Four Corners. Her award-winning stories for ABC’s 7.30 on the abuse allegations against George Pell led to the book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Cardinal Pell, which was awarded the Walkley Book Award in 2017 and won the 2018 Civic Choice Award for the Melbourne Prize for Literature. Her most recent book is Witness: an investigation into the brutal cost of seeking justice. Her debut novel will be published in 2024.
Natasha Mitchell is a multi-award-winning journalist, radio presenter, podcaster, and documentary maker. She is host of ABC Radio National's Big Ideas program, was founding host and producer of the radio show and podcast All in the Mind, hosted the ABC's daily social affairs program Life Matters, and was founding host and producer of Science Friction. Mitchell was recipient of a prestigious Knight Fellowship at MIT/Harvard. Her journalism has received numerous accolades.
Jazz Money is a Wiradjuri poet and artist of producing works that encompass installation, digital, performance, film and print. Money's first poetry collection, the best-selling how to make a basket was the 2020 winner of the David Unaipon Award. Their writing has been widely published nationally and internationally, and performed on stages around the world.
Susanna Moore is the author of the novels The Life of Objects, The Big Girls, One Last Look, In the Cut, Sleeping Beauties, The Whiteness of Bones, and My Old Sweetheart, and two books of nonfiction, Light Years: A Girlhood in Hawai'i and I Myself Have Seen It: The Myth of Hawai'i. She teaches at Princeton University lives in New York City.
Kate Morton is the award-winning, bestselling author of The Shifting Fog (known internationally as The House at Riverton), The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House and The Clockmaker's Daughter. Her books are published in 38 languages across 45 territories and have been bestsellers around the world. Her latest book is Homecoming.
Samuel Moyn is Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University. He is a fellow of the new Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and has written for publications including the Atlantic, Guardian, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. His books include The Last Utopia, Not Enough and Humane. His latest book is Liberalism against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times.
Dr Molly Murn is a South Australian author and poet, and manager of Matilda Bookshop. She holds a Bachelor of Dance, a Masters of Creative Arts, and a PhD in Creative Writing. Heart of the Grass Tree is her first novel. Murn’s poetry has been published in various anthologies including Overland, Transnational Literature, Social Alternatives, and Friendly Street.
Perumal Murugan is one of India's most respected and highest selling literary writers, author of eleven novels and five collections each of short stories and poetry. He has twice been longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature for One Part Woman and The Story of a Goat. His book Pyre was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2023.
Claire Nichols is the host of The Book Show on ABC Radio National, a weekly radio program and podcast that features in-depth author interviews with the best authors from Australia and around the world.
Lynette Noni studied journalism, academic writing, and human behaviour at university before venturing into the world of fiction. She is the #1 bestselling author of The Medoran Chronicles, the Whisper duology, and The Prison Healer series. To date, she has won three ABIA awards and a Gold Inky Award, and her books are published in 19 countries across the globe.
Catherine Norton writes page-turning adventures for kids who love history and a touch of magic. Her first novel for middle grade readers, Crossing, was joint winner of the Patricia Wrightson Prize in the 2015 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and a CBCA Notable Book. Her latest novel, The Fortune Maker, is set in an alternative London where people can really see the future. She lives on Kaurna country with her family.
Melanie Ostell has worked in trade publishing as an editor, publisher, educator and now literary agent. In 2002, she spent three months in-house in London and New York on a Churchill Fellowship. A senior editor at Text Publishing for over ten years, Ostell has since freelanced with all major Australian publishers and held publisher positions in Perth and Sydney. She has led writing workshops across the country and taught at several universities. Ostell's current focus is on building her client list.
Umut Özkırımlı is a Senior Research Fellow at Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals, a professor at Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University, and a Senior Research Associate at CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs). He is also the Academic Director of the Barcelona Summer School of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. He is the author of the acclaimed Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, currently in its third edition.
Jason Pamment is an author and illustrator based in Adelaide. For the past decade, he’s been designing award winning animated short films, commercials, music videos, TV shows and video games. He strives to make artwork that is broadly appealing and immersive, featuring bold colours, fun shapes and evocative lighting.
Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian, a professor of history at the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter United Kingdom, director of the university's European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. He is the author of several books and writes for, among others, the Guardian and the London Review of Books.
Prof Anne Pender holds the Kidman Chair in Australian Studies and is Director of the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice. Anne was National Library of Australia Fellow, 2021, Fulbright Senior Fellow at Harvard University in 2018, and is a former Australian Research Council Future Fellow 2012-2016.
Rachel Perkins is an Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman, with Irish and Prussian heritage. She is a multi-award-winning filmmaker, her most recent work being the documentary series The Australian Wars. Other films include Bran Nue Dae, One Night the Moon and Mabo. Her television work includes Mystery Road, Redfern Now and Total Control. She was a signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and is currently working for the National Native Title Council.
Adam Phillips is a practising psychoanalyst and a visiting professor at the University of York. He is the author of numerous works of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, including most recently On Wanting to Change, Attention Seeking, In Writing, Unforbidden Pleasures and Missing Out. He is General Editor of the Penguin Modern Classics Freud translations, and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.
Barbara Pocock is an economist and Emeritus Professor who has spent her life fighting for the rights of working people, women, and low-income workers. She has written many books and articles, worked in shearing sheds, on farms, in universities, in government and as a mother. She is passionate about action on climate change and creating a sustainable future for future generations – in a world of greater economic justice.
Annabelle Quince has forged a varied career across the legal profession (as a researcher and lecturer), film and television (as a director, producer, scriptwriter and researcher) and in radio (as a producer and presenter).
Vanessa Radnidge is Head of Literary at Hachette. She has published fiction and non-fiction and is very proud to have worked with Favel Parrett, Mark Brandi, Stephanie Bishop, Brooke Davis, Catherine Therese, Deng Adut, Michael Brissenden, Madonna King, Hilde Hinton, Miranda Tapsell, Sean Doherty, Dr Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Ellidy Pullin and Claire G. Coleman to name just a few.
Dr Yves Rees is a Naarm-based writer and historian. They are a Senior Lecturer in History at La Trobe University, co-host of the Archive Fever podcast, author of the memoir All About Yves, and co-editor of Nothing to Hide: Voices of Trans and Gender Diverse Australia.
Sam Roggeveen is director of the Lowy Institute's International Security Program. He was the founding editor of The Interpreter and is editor of the Lowy Institute Papers. Before joining the Lowy Institute, Sam was a senior analyst in Australia's peak intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments.
Jonathan Rosen is the author of two novels, Eve’s Apple and Joy Comes in the Morning, and two non-fiction books, The Talmud and the Internet: A Journey Between Worlds and The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature. His essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous anthologies. He lives with his family in New York City. His latest book is The Best Minds.
Nilanjana S. Roy is a Delhi-based journalist, literary critic, editor and author. She has written and reviewed for numerous publications including the Guardian, New York Times and Huffington Post and has a weekly column in the Financial Times. Black River is Roy's debut thriller.
Alan Rusbridger is Principal of Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford, where he also chairs the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. For 20 years, Rusbridger was editor in Chief of the Guardian. He oversaw the transformation of the paper to a world-leading digital news organisation. Under his leadership the paper became the most-visited serious English language website in the world.
Jeanne Ryckmans is a literary agent with The Cameron Creswell Agency (Cameron's Management), and a former senior publisher at Random House and HarperCollins Australia. Prior to joining the publishing world, she worked in arts television and was features editor at ELLE Magazine and books editor for Vogue Australia. She is the author of two books and is the former Artistic Director of the Canberra Writers’ Festival.
Omar Sakr is an essayist, editor and author of two acclaimed poetry collections, These Wild Houses and The Lost Arabs. The Lost Arabs won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the John Bray Poetry Award, the Judith Wright Calanthe Award, and the Colin Roderick Award. His first novel, Son of Sin, was published to acclaim in 2022. Non-Essential Work is his new collection of poetry.
Sara M. Saleh is an award-winning writer, poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been widely published nationally in English and Arabic. She is co-editor of Arab, Australian, Other and was the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review's Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Songs for the Dead and the Living is her first novel.
Leigh Sales is one of Australia’s most respected journalists. As the new presenter of Australian Story and recent host of 7.30, she has interviewed dozens of world leaders and celebrities. Sales is the winner of three Walkley Awards and the author of several books, including Well Hello and Any Ordinary Day. She is the co-host of the popular podcast Chat 10 Looks 3 with Annabel Crabb. In 2023, she was recognised with an honorary doctorate from Edith Cowan University.
Prof Rick Sarre is a human rights lawyer who retired as the Dean of the University of South Australia Law School in 2020. He taught law and criminology in the USA, Hong Kong, and Sweden during his 35 years in the tertiary sector. He is a Past President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology and has been awarded Fellow status of that society.
Ben Saul is Challis Chair of International Law at The University of Sydney and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism. He has published 20 books and hundreds of scholarly articles. Ben has taught at Oxford, Harvard, The Hague and Xiamen Academies of International Law, and in Europe and Asia; practised in international tribunals; advised governments, NGOs and the UN; worked in over 35 countries; and appeared regularly in the international media.
Kirli Saunders OAM is a proud Gunai Woman, award-winning author, multidisciplinary artist and consultant who creates to connect to make change. Kirli was the NSW Aboriginal Woman of the Year (2020). She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her contribution to the arts (2022). Her play, Going Home, is in development. She is currently writing her anticipated novel, Yaraman, assisted by AUSCO.
Clare Sawyer is Adelaide Writers' Week's Programmer for Young Readers and spoken word sessions Hear Me Roar! In 2021, she produced the documentary Recorder Queen that screened on ABC TV. Sawyer has programmed festival content for Sydney Writers’ Festival, Sydney Film Festival and Flickerfest, as well as working with the Youth Jury at the Berlinale Film Festival, Germany.
Jules Schiller has worked on many commercial radio stations in Adelaide as well as in Melbourne and Sydney. His rich and varied career in both TV and radio means Jules is now a well-established media personality throughout the country. Schiller’s is co-host on ABC Radio Adelaide’s Breakfast show.
Noah Schultz-Byard Noah is a communications professional, former ABC reporter and current director of strategic partnerships at the Australia Institute. His work has a focus on climate change, environmental sustainability, and economic inequality. He has previously worked in the Federal Senate. Hailing from Adelaide, he aims to help improve the level of conversation around public policy issues, both in SA and across the nation.
Adam Shatz is the US Editor of the London Review of Books, and has written for the New York Times Magazine, the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker. He is the host of the podcast Myself with Others, which explores the life of ideas and features guests within the arts, culture and literature. Shatz has been a visiting professor at Bard College and New York University and a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars.
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.
Avi Shlaim was born in Baghdad and grew up in Israel. He is now a Professor of International Relations at St Antony's College, Oxford. His previous books include the critically acclaimed The Iron Wall and he writes regularly for the Guardian, Middle East Eye and other outlets.
Dr Emma Shortis is Senior Researcher in the International & Security Affairs Program at The Australia Institute. Shortis is a historian and writer, focused on the history and politics of the US and its role in the world. Shortis' first book, Our Exceptional Friend: Australia’s Fatal Alliance with the United States, was published in 2021. She writes regularly for national and international outlets, and appears regularly on Australian radio and television.
Beejay Silcox is a forthright book critic, Artistic Director of the Canberra Writers Festival, and Chair of the 2024 Stella Prize judging panel. She has stories to tell. Beejay was married in Vegas (not by Elvis), escaped from quicksand (more than once), and drove to Timbuktu in a car held together with a bra-strap.
David Sly has an unceasing appetite for the great things in life and has pursued stories that explore the vast domains of food, wine, travelling and human endeavour. Through a 45-year career as a journalist and author, he has obtained a degree in gastronomy and writes and engages with music, literature, theatre, comedy and all manner of sports. He has published several biographies and history books.
Jane Smiley has published 18 works of fiction, six non-fiction books and eight novels for young adults. Her best-selling novel A Thousand Acres was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Fiction in 1992. PEN Centre USA recognised her remarkable contribution to American literary culture with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. Her next novel, Lucky, will be published in April 2024.
Lucia Sorbera is Senior Lecturer and Chair of Discipline of Arabic Language and Cultures at the University of Sydney. She studies the colonial and post-colonial history of the Arab World and Africa, decolonial and Indigenous epistemologies, with a focus on women and gender She has been awarded several international awards and fellowships for her research. Her forthcoming book is Biography of a Revolution: The Feminist Roots of Human Rights in Egypt.
Katherine Sortini is a theatre-maker, poet and all round creative. She is founder of independent award-winning theatre company Deus Ex Femina. She has worked as an actor, director, writer, producer and dramaturg in the Creative Arts and is thrilled to be performing as the SA State Finalist for the Australian Poetry Slam.
David Speers has won two individual Walkley Awards for interviewing, along with a number of other Walkley, Logie and Kennedy Awards for his journalism. He also won the Press Gallery Journalist of the Year Award. David spent 20 years working from the Canberra Press Gallery, serving three years as Gallery President and 15 years on the board of the National Press Club. His first book, On Mutiny, was published in 2018.
Tracey Spicer is a multiple Walkley Award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster. She is the inaugural national convener of Women in Media, was named the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year in 2019, accepted the Sydney Peace Prize, won the national award for Excellence in Women’s Leadership through Women & Leadership Australia and was named one of the Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence in 2018. Spicer has also been awarded the Order of Australia.
Jason Steger is the books editor of The Age and The Sunday Age. He began his career in journalism as a sports reporter in 1980 before shifting into business and journalism. He joined the Sunday Age as business editor in 1990 before moving into arts and books journalism.
Justin Stevens was appointed ABC Director of News in 2022. He heads up the biggest news team in the country, with more than 1,500 staff, including regional teams and international bureaux producing a wide variety of news and current affairs content across ABC radio, television and digital platforms. Previously, Justin was Executive Producer of the ABC’s national nightly current affairs flagship program 7.30.
Rory Stewart is the author of four books, including bestsellers The Places in Between, which describes the last section of his 6,000 mile walk across Afghanistan, and The Marches, about a walk with his father in the borderlands between Scotland and England. His books have sold over half a million copies, been translated into multiple languages, and been awarded several prizes including the Ondaatje Prize of the Royal Society of Literature.
Katrina Strickland is the editor of Good Weekend magazine, which she has helmed since June 2017. Prior to that she was editor of The Australian Financial Review Magazine and has held arts editor roles at both the AFR and The Australian.
Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge and eight other critically acclaimed and awarded novels, including The Burgess Boys, My Name is Lucy Barton, Oh William and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize. Her most recent book is Lucy by the Sea.
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.
Chris Taylor is a writer, performer and broadcaster who's best known as a member of The Chaser team, responsible for TV comedy shows such as CNNNN and The Chaser's War on Everything, as well as numerous election specials. More recently he was the creator of the award-winning drama Upright; and the writer and producer of the ABC musical comedy series Australian Epic.
Lenore Taylor is editor of The Guardian Australia. She spent almost three decades as a political correspondent and commentator based in the federal press gallery. She has won two Walkley awards and has twice won the Paul Lyneham award for press gallery journalism. She co-authored a book called Shitstorm on Australia's response to the global financial crisis.
Lisa Temple is a teacher who has taught at a range of country and city schools in both the public and private sectors. She co-edited two widely used poetry anthologies, Blue light, clear atoms and Among ants, between bees. Her focus throughout her career has been teaching poetry and literary studies. Lisa was the founding Year 12 Dean of Studies at University Senior College, Adelaide and currently teach there part-time.
Nathan Thrall is the author of A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, which was named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker, Time, The New Statesman, and the Financial Times. He spent a decade at the International Crisis Group, where he was director of the Arab-Israeli Project, and has taught at Bard College. Originally from California, he lives in Jerusalem.
Laura Tingle has reported on Australian politics for more than 40 years and has worked for the ABC since 2018, having previously held senior positions in print media. She is the chief political correspondent for 7.30. She has written four Quarterly Essays, won two Walkley Awards, and is President of the National Press Club of Australia.
Jessica Townsend lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Her pet fascinations include public transport, ancient cities, hotels, opera singers, Halloween, secret societies and gigantic cats - all of which have weaselled their way into Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, her award-winning first novel released in 2017. The Nevermoor series is the biggest-selling Australian children's debut since records began.
Polly Toynbee is a journalist and author. A Guardian columnist and broadcaster, she was formerly the BBC's social affairs editor. She has written for the Observer, the Independent and Radio Times and has been an editor at the Washington Monthly. She has won numerous awards including a National Press Award and the Orwell Prize for Journalism.
Lucy Treloar’s novel Salt Creek won the Dobbie Literary Award among others. Wolfe Island, her second novel, won the Barbara Jefferis Award. Treloar's essays and short fiction have appeared in publications including The Saturday Paper, Meanjin, The Age, Overland, Best Australian Stories and Foundational Fictions in South Australian History. A graduate of the University of Melbourne and RMIT, Treloar lives in inner Melbourne with her family.
Christos Tsiolkas is a playwright, essayist, screenwriter and novelist whose award-winning works have been adapted into feature films and television series. His bestselling fourth novel, The Slap, won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009 and the Australian Literary Society Gold. It was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and named Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards. In 2021, he won the Melbourne Prize for Literature.
Rachelle Unreich has been a journalist for 38 years, writing cover stories for The Age, Harper's Bazaar, marie claire, Rolling Stone and others. She has had regular columns in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Herald Sun and Elle magazine. Her work has appeared extensively in Australia, the US, UK and South-East Asia.
Ellen van Neerven is a writer of Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage. van Neerven's first book, Heat and Light, won the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers’ Prize. They are the author of two poetry collections: Comfort Food, and Throat, which won the Kenneth Slessor Prize, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
Amanda Vanstone presented ABC Radio National’s Counterpoint for a decade. She currently serves on the boards, councils and committees for various organisations. She hoards cookbooks and believes chatting about childhood recollections of food, sharing recipes and ideas is the greatest way to bridge ethnic, social and political boundaries. Sadly, she remains the longest serving female Cabinet minister since Federation.
Peter Varghese is currently serving his second term as Chancellor of The University of Queensland. Varghese’s extensive career in public service and diplomacy spans 38 years and includes senior positions in foreign affairs, trade policy and intelligence. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
Yanis Varoufakis is an economist and academic, a bestselling author, and the former finance minister of Greece. He is a co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025. His books include And the Weak Suffer What They Must? and Talking to My Daughter About the Economy.
Vikki Wakefield writes fiction for adults and young adults. Her novels have been shortlisted for numerous awards. After You Were Gone, a psychological thriller, was her first novel for adults and was published in 2022 to much acclaim. To the River is her second psychological thriller for adults.
Anna Walker is an award-winning illustrator and author of many picture books for children published around the world. Her books include Florette, which was a New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Book. Anna creates illustrations with watercolour, pencil, and collage. Her stories are inspired by the quiet and sometimes joyful details of life. She lives and works in Melbourne.
Bryan Washington is a National Book Award 5 Under 35 honoree and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. He received the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award for his first book, Lot. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, BuzzFeed, Bon Appétit, and GQ, among other publications. His latest book, Family Meal, comes out October 2023.
Unfortunately, Bryan Washington can no longer attend Writers' Week. Please see the online schedule for changes.
Rob Waters is Gomeroi man with deep cultural connections to the North West of NSW. He is a proud father and grandfather and now lives with his partner on Darkinjung Country. Waters is a poet, storyteller, cultural educator and spoken word artist and has been performing and sharing Story for over 20 years.
Sarah Watling was the 2016 winner of the Tony Lothian Prize for best first uncommissioned biography for Noble Savages. She holds a degree in history from the University of Cambridge and a master’s degree in historical research from the University of London. Tomorrow Perhaps The Future is her second book.
Debbie Whitmont is a journalist and author, former ABC TV Middle East correspondent and winner of two Walkley Awards and three Human Rights TV Awards as a reporter for ABC TV's Four Corners.
Marian Wilkinson is a multi-award-winning journalist with a career that has spanned radio, television and print. She has written several books, including the political biography The Fixer, on former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson, and Dark Victory, co-authored with David Marr. Her latest book is The Carbon Club.
Pip Williams is the author of One Italian Summer, a critically acclaimed memoir of her family's travels in search of the good life. Her first novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, based on her original research in the Oxford English Dictionary archives, was published in 2020 and became an international bestseller. The Bookbinder of Jericho is her second novel, a companion to The Dictionary of Lost Words.
Charlotte Wood is the author of 10 books - seven novels and three non-fiction works. She has won the Stella Prize and the Prime Minister's Literary Award, among others, and her features and essays have appeared in The Guardian, New York Times, Sydney Morning Herald, The Monthly, Saturday Paper and others. Her latest novel is Stone Yard Devotional.
Bruce Wolpe is a Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre and a regular contributor on US politics across media platforms in Australia. He has worked with the Democrats in Congress during President Barack Obama's first term, on the staff of Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and as Gillard’s chief of staff. From 1998-2009, Wolpe was a senior executive at Fairfax Media in Sydney. He is the author of several books including Trump's Australia.
Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The author of the prize-winning novels Carpentaria and The Swan Book, Wright has published three works of non-fiction: Take Power, Grog War and Tracker. Wright is the only author to win both the Miles Franklin Award (in 2007 for Carpentaria) and the Stella Prize (in 2018 for Tracker). Her latest novel is Praiseworthy, which received the Queensland Literary Award for Fiction in 2023. She is the inaugural winner of the Creative Australia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.
Tom Wright is an Australian writer and commentator. He appears on ABC radio, nationally and locally as an occasional cultural commentator. He has worked as an actor and director across Australian and as part of Edinburgh and Vienna Festivals. He was Associate Director of Sydney Theatre Company 2004 to 2012. Since 2016 he has been an Associate Artist at Belvoir.
Karen Wyld is a Martu author living south of Adelaide. Wyld writes historical fiction, poetry and narrative nonfiction. As a SA Literary Fellowship recipient, Wyld is researching archival material to creatively interpret relationships with the coast. Wyld is a co-editor of The Rocks Remain anthology.
John Zubrzycki is the author of six books on India, most recently Dethroned: The Downfall of India’s Princely States. His earlier books include, The Shortest History of India, and The House of Jaipur: The Inside Story of India’s Most Glamorous Royal Family. He has worked in India as a diplomat and foreign correspondent and has a PhD in Indian history.
