Evelyn Araluen

Evelyn Araluen is a poet, researcher and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Her widely published criticism, fiction and poetry has been awarded the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, a Wheeler Centre Next Chapter Fellowship, and a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund grant. Born and raised on Dharug country, she is a descendant of the Bundjalung Nation. Evelyn's debut collection Dropbear won the Stella Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection and the 2022 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. It was Highly Commended for the 2021 Anne Elder Award. Her latest book is The Rot.

Shokoofeh Azar

Shokoofeh Azar is an Iranian-Australian author and journalist known for her evocative storytelling, poetic prose, and political views. Born in Iran, she began her career as a journalist but fled in 2010 due to political persecution. Her debut novel, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, translated into twelve languages, was shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Prize, the 2020 International Booker Prize, and nominated for PEN and National Awards. Her new novel, The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen, has so far been published in six countries. Her work blends magical realism with themes of religion, displacement, and resilience.

Emilie Zoey Baker

Emilie Zoey Baker is an award-winning Australian poet and spoken-word performer who has toured nationally and internationally performing and writing. She was a Fellow at the State Library of Victoria, and has previously been poet-in-residence for Museums Victoria and coordinator for the National Australian Poetry Slam. She teaches poetry and slam in primary and secondary schools and is the creative director of OutLoud Australian Poetry’s first youth slam. She is also the host and co-producer of the monthly spoken word event Better Off Said with Marieke Hardy. 

Dr Dylan Bird

Dr Dylan Bird is a lecturer in journalism at RMIT University and a broadcaster with more than ten years’ experience. He currently hosts the weekly current affairs show Future Perfect on Triple R FM. He is also a podcast producer and has won two Australian Podcast Awards for his work producing The Masterclass, which was also a finalist in the New York Festivals Radio Awards. His academic research explores the role of media in democracy, with a focus on podcasting.

Sophie Black

Sophie Black is a writer, journalist and Crikey’s editor-in-chief. She has worked in senior management across cultural and media organisations, and has written for outlets such as The Guardian and The Monthly. As The Wheeler Centre’s head of publishing, she oversaw projects such as the Walkley award-winning The Messenger podcast. She sits on the board of Melbourne University’s Centre for Advancing Journalism, and is co-chair of human rights media outlet Right Now.

Jarrod Boyle

Jarrod Boyle studied film at the University of Melbourne and the Victorian College of the Arts. In 2008, he won the Victorian super heavyweight kickboxing championship and was then drafted to what was at that time the strongest kickboxing gym in the world, Golden Glory in Breda, Holland. After being interviewed by International Kickboxer Magazine, Jarrod joined the editorial staff and wrote for IK, Blitz and Fight! Magazine. He has since retired from fighting but continues to write, having been published in The Age, Island Magazine, and The Review of Australian Fiction.  John Wayne Parr The Fighter: The Legendary Life of an Australian Champion is his first work of non-fiction.   

Bob Brown

Bob Brown is an environmental and social justice campaigner and former senator. A founding member of the Wilderness Society, from 1978 he led the successful campaign against the construction of the Franklin Dam. He served in Tasmanian state parliament for a decade, was leader of the Australian Greens, and in 1996 was elected to the federal Senate. His books include Memo for a Saner World and Optimism. After retiring from the Senate in 2012, he established the Bob Brown Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation supporting environmental causes. His latest book is Defiance: Stories from Nature and Its Defenders.

Rachael Brown

Rachael Brown is an investigative journalist with the ABC. She started her career as the ABC’s Melbourne cadet in 2002, and has since held several postings, including Europe Correspondent (2010-2013). Rachael is the creator, investigator and host of the ABC's pioneer true-crime podcast, Trace. Rachael's review of the 1980 cold case of Maria James (Trace Season 1) sparked a new coronial inquest, and she published a book on the case. Trace Season 2, The Informer, tells the story of defence barrister turned police informer, Nicola Gobbo, with whom Rachael secured the world-exclusive interview. Rachael is a three-time Walkley Award winner. She’s taken up the ABC’s inaugural role of Development Executive - True Crime, and is developing and producing projects for Podcast and Documentary.

Jane Caro

Jane Caro AM is a Walkley award winning Australian columnist, author, novelist, feminist, public education activist and social commentator. She was also awarded the B&T Women in Media Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Once upon a time, she was also a multi-award-winning advertising copywriter and an academic. These days, when not tweeting up a storm to her 184,000+ followers, she is a full-time writer, novelist, speaker, MC and TV, radio and media pundit. She has published thirteen books, including the bestselling novel The Mother. Her new novel, Lyrebird, is her second novel for adults.

Michael Cathcart

Michael Cathcart is an arts broadcaster on ABC Radio National. He is the author of The Water Dreamers (an award-winning history of water in Australia), Starvation in a Land of Plenty (a history of the last weeks of Burke and Wills), and Defending the National Tuckshop (the story of a right-wing secret army formed in Victoria in 1931). He has presented several history documentaries on ABC TV.  Michael and his wife Hannie Rayson curated the community theatre show, Hello, Queenscliffe! (2023). They have recently become residents of the town.

Jaclyn Crupi

Jaclyn Crupi is a book editor, author, event moderator and bookseller. She has written numerous books for children and adults. Her book, Garden Like a Nonno, was shortlisted for an Indie Book Award and longlisted for an ABIA. Jaclyn’s work has appeared in The Guardian, SBS Voices, At Home, The Canberra Times, PIP Magazine, Galah and Frankie, as well as the anthology Family published by Text Publishing. Her latest book is Planting for Native Birds, Bees and Butterflies.

Brigid Delaney

Brigid Delaney has worked as a lawyer, journalist, travel writer, screenwriter and, most recently, as a speechwriter for two federal cabinet ministers. She is co-creator and associate producer of the Netflix smash hit Wellmania and wrote the long-running and popular Guardian Australia column 'Brigid Delaney's Diary'. Her previous books include This Restless Life, Wild Things, Wellmania and Reasons Not to Worry, which has been published in North America and the United Kingdom and translated into nineteen languages. She also writes ‘The Chaos Era with Brigid Delaney’ Substack. Her new book is The Seeker and The Sage.

Omar El Akkad

Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager, and now lives in the United States. He is a two-time winner of both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award and the Oregon Book Award for fiction. His books have been translated into thirteen languages.

Kelly Gardiner

Kelly Gardiner writes historical fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction for all ages. Her new crime novel, Miss Caroline Bingley, Private Detective, is inspired by Jane Austen and co-authored with Sharmini Kumar. Kelly’s recent series is The Firewatcher Chronicles and her other books include 1917, shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Young People’s History Prize; Act of Faith and The Sultan’s Eyes, both shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards; and the Swashbuckler pirate trilogy. Goddess, her novel based on the life of the seventeenth-century sword-fighting, cross-dressing opera star, Mademoiselle de Maupin, is being adapted for the screen.

Alison Goodman

Alison Goodman is a Melbourne based writer of crime, fantasy and historical fiction. She is the author of nine novels including The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin, the second book in the Ill-Mannered Ladies series which was released in May 2025. The first book in the series, The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies, won the 2024 Readers’ Choice Davitt Award and was a Washington Post and an Amazon Best Mystery Book of 2023. Her novels also include the award-winning Lady Helen trilogy, and EON and EONA, a New York Times bestselling fantasy duology. Alison holds a PhD focusing on creative writing, historical research and the Regency era and is currently working on the third novel in the Ill-Mannered Ladies series. She is fuelled by strong coffee and air-fried chips, and will travel a long way for a good high tea.

Peter Greste

Professor Peter Greste is an award-winning foreign correspondent who spent 25 years working for the BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera in some of the world’s most volatile places. From Afghanistan to Latin American, Africa and the Middle East, he reported from the frontlines and beyond, although he is best known for becoming a headline himself, when he and two of his colleagues were arrested in Cairo while working for Al Jazeera and charged with terrorism offences. He has since become a vocal campaigner and advocate for media freedom – a stance that has earned him awards from Britain’s Royal Television Society, the Walkley Foundation, the RSL’s ANZAC Peace Prize, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Human Rights Medal, and the International Association of Press Clubs’ Freedom of Speech Award. Peter is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom.

Charlotte Guest

Charlotte Guest is a writer and bookseller on Wathaurong Country in Geelong. Her fiction, essays and poems have been published in national literary journals, and in 2023 she received her PhD in Creative Writing from Deakin University. She is the manager of Geelong’s independent bookshop, The Book Bird, and was shortlisted for a Bookseller of the Year award in 2024.

Kate Halfpenny

Kate Halfpenny has spent four decades telling other people's stories as an award-winning writer, editor and commentator for Who, Vogue, Marie Claire and ABC Radio. Her own plot twists include three kids, two husbands, and one mission to talk honestly about midlife as a columnist for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. Post-pandemic, Kate fled Melbourne for Ocean Grove, where she boogie boards daily and has become unafraid of magpies. Her new memoir is Boogie Wonderland.

Marieke Hardy

Marieke Hardy is a curator, screenwriter, artist, and producer.  She has penned columns for The Age, The Drum, and Frankie magazine, and written for many television shows, including Laid, Heartbreak High, The Family Law, and Seven Types of Ambiguity.  She was co-curator of international literary salon Women of Letters and a panelist on the ABC's Book Club for 11 years. She is a recipient of the 2015 Sidney Myer Fellowship and currently co-curates monthly spoken word event Better Off Said. Her podcast, Marieke Hardy Is Going To Die, was launched in 2024.

Tracee Hutchison

Tracee Hutchison has worked as a broadcaster, journalist, author, creative producer, film-maker and creative industries leader with a career spanning 40 years at the highest level in Australian and international media, from TripleJ, to ABC TV’s 7.30 Report, ABC NewsRadio, Radio Australia and 3RRR. Tracee has interviewed Prime Ministers, rockstars, filmstars, sportstars, activists and anarchists, and written extensively on politics, environment and social justice issues as an Op/Ed columnist. Tracee is currently Chair of the peak music environmental organisation, Green Music Australia.

Christine Keighery

Christine Keighery (who also writes as Chrissie Perry) is the author of more than thirty-five novels for children and Young Adults. Chrissie wrote thirteen books in the successful Go Girl! Series. Her Young Adult title, Whisper, won a White Raven, IBBY award and was shortlisted for the CBCA and the WA Premier’s Awards. Her work has been published in ten countries, including the US, UK, Spain, Brazil, Slovenia, and Korea. Her first novel for adults, a psychological thriller titled The Half Brother was published with in 2023. We’re Not Us Without You has just been released.

Hannah Kent

Hannah Kent's first novel, the multi-award-winning international bestseller, Burial Rites, was translated into over 30 languages and is being adapted for film. Her novels The Good People and Devotion have been translated into multiple languages, shortlisted for numerous awards and are being adapted for film. Her original feature film, Run Rabbit Run, was directed by Daina Reid and starred Sarah Snook. Hannah is also the co-founder of Kill Your Darlings, and has written for The New York Times, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin, Qantas Magazine and LitHub. She lives and works on Peramangk and Kaurna country.

Sarah L'Estrange

Sarah L'Estrange is a producer and broadcaster at ABC Radio National and has been steeped in books and writing for almost 20 years. As producer of The Book Show she has interviewed many Australian and international authors including Helen Garner, Christos Tsiolkas, Min Jin Lee and Salman Rushdie. She has also produced and presented special series for Radio National including Fakes and Frauds about Australian literary scandals and Banned Books which looks at the forces driving book bans worldwide. She also produced The Books that Changed Us which takes a fresh look at five influential books of the 20th century.

Marcia Langton

Melbourne Laureate Professor Marcia Langton AO, FASSA, AFTSE, a Yiman and Bidjara woman, is the Associate Provost, and Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at The University of Melbourne. She is also the Director of the Indigenous Studies Unit in Onemda, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. A prominent advocate for Indigenous rights, her research spans Indigenous health, family violence, and data governance. Widely published, her recent books include co-edited volumes with colleagues and include her chapter contributions: Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne – Vol 1 Truth (coedited with Ross Jones and James Waghorne, MUP 2024), and 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art (co-edited with Judith Ryan AM, Thames & Hudson, 2024); Indigenous Knowledge. Australian Perspectives (co-edited with Aaron Corn and Sam Curkpatrick, MUP, 2023), Law. The Way of the Ancestors (co-authored with Aaron Corn, Thames & Hudson, 2022). 

Antoinette Lattouf

Antoinette Lattouf is a fearless journalist, author, and human rights advocate, celebrated for her bold storytelling, razor-sharp wit, and her landmark win against the ABC. Named one of AFR’s 100 Women of Influence, she’s a TEDx speaker, mental health ambassador, and co-founder of Media Diversity Australia. She’s also the co-founder of Ette Media, an independent news organisation specialising in media literacy and critique. Her debut book How to Lose Friends and Influence White People was published in 2022, and she’s currently working on her second book Women Who Win. In addition to earning a host of journalism, leadership and human rights awards, Antoinette has also snagged the unofficial badge of honour as Australia’s most famously (illegally) sacked person—proving that telling the truth can get you in trouble, but it can also get you a bigger microphone and audience. 

Francis Leach

Francis Leach is a journalist, broadcaster, writer, media strategist and activist. He started his broadcast career by growing up on air at Australia’s youth radio network Triple J before goofing off for a couple of decades as a sports journalist. Along the way, he’s made a buck covering Football World Cups, toured with Pearl Jam, covered Presidential elections and shined white shoes with Scuff-Stuff for nervous debutantes hiring their first suits. More recently, he drove the campaign in Australia for the Magnitsky Human Rights legislation which became law in 2022. These days he is fighting the good fight as a media and communications strategist and working on curbing his addiction to acquiring vinyl LP’s.

Marion Lennox

Marion Lennox wrote her first romance novel as a dare while on family leave from teaching computing and statistics to undergraduates. She’s now had over 130 novels published by the giant international publisher, Harlequin Mills and Boon, with her books being translated into over thirty languages. She’s twice won Romance Writers of America’s Award for the year’s Best Traditional Romance, she’s been inducted into Romance Writers of Australia’s Hall of Fame, and has been honoured with the United States Romantic Times Career Achievement award for “a body of work which makes us laugh and teaches us about love”.

Melissa Leong

Melissa Leong is a Gold Logie-nominated TV personality, food writer, broadcaster and the first female judge on MasterChef Australia and Dessert Masters. A proud first-generation Singaporean Australian, she’s known for her sharp palate, fearless voice, and fashion icon status. Melissa has explored food from every angle, from living on an abattoir in Tasmania to chasing banh mi in Vietnam and consulting across the food media landscape. In her powerful memoir Guts: A memoir of food, failure and taking impossible chances, she dives into identity, racism, mental health, and the joy of food, encouraging readers to live boldly and authentically.

Siang Lu

Siang Lu is the 2025 Miles Franklin-winning author of Ghost Cities and the ABIA-winning The Whitewash, the co-creator of The Beige Index and the creator of #sillybookstagram. Ghost Cities was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal, the Russell Prize for Humour Writing, the VPLA John Clarke Humour Award, the Readings New Australian Fiction Prize and the University of Queensland Fiction Book Award and The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year at the Queensland Literary Awards. Siang is based in Australia and Malaysia. 

Jenny Macklin

Jenny Macklin is former deputy leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, the first woman elected to a leadership position in a major Australian political party. In the Rudd-Gillard governments, she was minister for disability reform, families, housing, community services. As minister for Indigenous affairs, she oversaw the Apology to the Stolen Generations and developed the Closing the Gap framework. She established Australia's first national paid parental leave scheme, reformed the pension, led the design and implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and helped establish the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. She served as member for the electorate of Jagajaga for twenty-three years. Her new book is Good Progress: How Good Policy Happens.

Michael McCoy

Michael McCoy is a garden designer, writer, broadcaster, International garden tour guide and host of ABC TV’s Dream Gardens.  His design work has been featured in magazines and books internationally, and Dream Gardens has been viewed worldwide.  First achieving a Bachelor of Science in botany, he then qualified as a gardener and spent ten years working in large private gardens, including a summer living and working with Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter, in East Sussex, England. Michael has written for the press for 35 years, and has authored three books on gardens and garden design.

Catherine Murphy

Catherine Murphy started her career in the sports department of Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ, before moving to Australia in 2006 to work with Fox Sports. In 2018, Catherine joined the ABC where she works as a sports presenter on TV and radio. She also hosts podcasts. The Irish Experiment, written with Zach Tuohy, is her first book. 

Brian Nankervis

Brian Nankervis has been writing, producing and co-hosting RocKwiz since 2004. He also co-hosts The Friday Revue on ABC Radio Melbourne. From 2021 to 2023 he hosted Songs and Stories, a national ABC radio show. He was a writer/performer on Let The Blood Run Free and appeared regularly on Hey Hey It’s Saturday as the poet Raymond J Bartholomeuz. 

Brian contributes regularly to The Age and radio 3RRR and is an MC and performer for public events and corporate functions. He performs a poetry show in schools.  Brian has written, performed and produced solo shows, From The Cradle To The Grav’ and Open Road for the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Brian was initially a primary school teacher. He fled the classroom in 1985 to work at Melbourne's legendary theatre restaurant The Last Laugh.

Kerrie O'Brien

Kerrie O'Brien is a senior writer at The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, specialising in arts and entertainment. A regular contributor to the Lunch With column, she has interviewed actors and activists, politicians and painters, including Joanna Lumley, Archie Roach, Michael Mosley, Esther Perel and Grace Tame. A former editor of Epicure and Spectrum, she has produced and hosted food and design shows on community radio station 3RRR, and is a contributor to the podcast Good Weekend Talks. She is particularly interested in social justice, education and literature, and is a board member with not-for-profit social enterprise ACRE.

Vanessa O’Neill

Vanessa O’Neill is a playwright, performer and teacher. She has worked for theatre companies throughout the UK and Australia. Her one-woman-show Happy With Half Your Life toured nationally and internationally. Her play In Search of Owen Roe had two seasons at La Mama Theatre and toured with Regional Arts Victoria. Vanessa was awarded a Fellowship by the University of Melbourne to research a play based on the Germaine Greer Archive. The Greer Effect was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award and received The Varuna Eric Dark Fellowship for outstanding non-fiction.

‘John’ Wayne Parr

‘John’ Wayne Parr, known as ‘The Gunslinger’ is a living legend. After cutting his teeth in the Queensland Muay Thai scene, he moved to Thailand where he became the sparring partner of Sangtiennoi ‘The Deadly Kisser’ Rungroj. Wayne built a reputation fighting and defeating some of the greatest boxers of his generation. Over the course of 150 fights and 349 stitches, Wayne has won a total of ten world titles at middleweight, finally retiring in 2022. Wayne remains active in the fight game as a coach, running his fight gym Boonchu on the Gold Coast with his wife Angie, herself a retired world champion. His memoir is The Fighter: The Legendary Life of an Australian Champion.

Tim Pilgrim

Tim Pilgrim is renowned for his naturalistic gardens. With nearly two decades of experience and horticultural training, he blends traditional and modern styles to create sustainable, climate-appropriate plantings. In his garden designs, Tim draws on the work of contemporary innovators and their ethereal styles. The outcome is a much sought-after naturalistic aesthetic, applied to the Australian landscape.  A true plantsman, his work reflects deep plant knowledge and a refined design eye. He has worked in iconic gardens including the Garden of St Erth, Sefton, Paul Bangay’s Stonefields, and has been featured in Country Style, The Design Files, Gardens Illustrated, and Gardening Australia. His new book is Wild By Design (Murdoch Books)

Hannie Rayson

Hannie Rayson is a playwright, screenwriter and columnist. Her works—including Hotel Sorrento, Inheritance and Life After George—have been performed around Australia and internationally. She has been awarded two Australian Writers’ Guild Awards, four Helpmann Awards, two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Her play Life After George was the first play to be nominated for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Her memoir Hello, Beautiful!  was adapted for the stage and performed as a one-woman show around the country. In 2023, Hannie and her husband Michael Cathcart created Hello, Queenscliffe!

Heather Rose

Heather Rose is the author of nine novels. Her most recent novel, Bruny, won the 2020 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for an Indie Book Award and Davitt Award. Her seventh novel, The Museum of Modern Love, won the Stella Prize, the Christina Stead Prize and the Margaret Scott Prize. It has been published internationally and translated into numerous languages. Both The Museum of Modern Love and The Butterfly Man were longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. The Butterfly Man won the Davitt Award, and in The River Wife won the international Varuna Eleanor Dark Fellowship. Heather has also written for younger readers under the pen-name Angelica Banks with Danielle Woods. The series has been published internationally and shortlisted twice for the Aurealis Awards for best children's fantasy. Heather’s memoir Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here was shortlisted for the nonfiction prize in the Indie Book Awards. Her new novel is A Great Act of Love.

Andrew Rule

Andrew Rule started his career on a country newspaper last century, and has worked on three metropolitan newspapers, a national magazine and in radio and television. He has written, co-written, edited and published many books, including the Underbelly true crime series and the Chopper series, which inspired the successful feature film. He wrote the best-selling biographies of businessman Kerry Stokes and of the world’s greatest racehorse, Winx. He is a columnist and feature writer with the Herald Sun, and hosts one of Australia’s longest-running true crime podcasts, Life & Crimes. He claims to be the only Australian Journalist of the Year to have ridden in a horse race.

Judith Ryan

Judith Ryan AM is a renowned curator and scholar of Indigenous Australian art. With degrees from the University of Melbourne and Oxford, she began her career at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1977, becoming Senior Curator of Indigenous Art. Over four decades, she curated more than fifty exhibitions and played a key role in shaping the NGV’s Indigenous collection. A Member of the Order of Australia, she was appointed to the AIATSIS Council in 2020. Her acclaimed book TIWI Art & Artists (2021), won gold at the 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Judith is currently Senior Curator, Art Museums & Collections, University of Melbourne, and is the co-editor, with Professor Marcia Langton of 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art (Thames and Hudson, 2024).

Tanya Scott

Tanya Scott is a writer, doctor and medical educator. With years of experience working in mental health care, she has learned more from her patients than from any textbook – not just about physical and mental health, but about humanity, resilience and the absurdity of life. She is based on Wadawurrung Country, on the Victorian Surf Coast, with her family and pets. When not writing, she can be found with her head in a book or braving the wind at the beach. Stillwater is her debut novel.

Dr Emma Shortis

Dr Emma Shortis is Director of the Australia Institute's International & Security Affairs Program. Emma is a historian and writer. In a conversation often dominated by the same voices, Emma offers a fresh perspective on international relations grounded in moral questions about how we might imagine a post-America future. Her new book is After America: Australia and the New World Order.

Craig Silvey

Craig Silvey is an author and screenwriter. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Rhubarb, was published in 2004. His bestselling novel, Jasper Jones, was released in 2009 and is considered a modern Australian classic. Published in over a dozen territories, Jasper Jones has won plaudits in three continents, including an International Dublin Literary Award shortlisting, a Michael J. Printz Award Honor, and a Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlisting. Jasper Jones was the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year for 2010. Craig's third novel Honeybee was published in 2019 and won Best Fiction for the Indie Book Awards 2021 and Dymocks Book of the Year 2020. His much-loved family favourite Runt was published in 2022 and has won multiple awards including Dymocks Book of the Year for Younger Readers 2022, Best Children's Book and Book of the Year at the Indie Book Awards 2023, Book of the Year: Younger Readers at the CBCA Awards 2023, Children's Book of the Year at the BookPeople Book of the Year Awards 2023, and Book of the Year for Younger Children at the Australian Book Industry Awards 2023. Runt was adapted into a critically and commercially successful film in 2024. His latest book is Runt and the Diabolical Dognapping.

Louise Siversen

Louise Siversen is a highly respected and accomplished actor who has worked extensively across film, television and theatre for over 40 years. Louise has appeared in many of Australia’s most respected TV shows such as All Her Fault, High Country, Love Me, The Gloaming, Five Bedrooms, Rosehaven, Utopia and Rake. Louise’s extensive theatre credits include A Very Jewish Christmas Carol, Birthday Cake, Heartbreak Choir and Noises Off. She has been included in the annually published Who’s Who of Australian Women since 2006.

Mark Smith

Mark Smith is the author of five novels: Three Boys Gone, The Road To Winter, Wilder Country, Land Of Fences and If Not Us. Wilder Country won the 2018 Australian Indie Book Award for YA and The Road To Winter is a popular text on school lists around the country. He is also an award-winning writer of short fiction whose work has been published in Australia and overseas. He is the co-curator of Minds Went Walking, Paul Kelly’s Songs Reimagined and Into Your Arms, Nick Cave’s Songs Reimagined.

Jason Steger

Jason Steger has had a varied career in journalism, beginning in the UK  as a football reporter before working as the electrics editor on a DIY magazine, and subsequently The Financial Times. He is a former books editor of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and now writes the papers' weekly book newsletter, The Booklist. He was a panellist on ABC TV's The Book Club for 11 years. 

Virginia Trioli

Virginia Trioli is a journalist, broadcaster and author. She is a two-time Walkley Award-winner and lives in Melbourne with her husband and son. She is the author of Generation F: Sex, Power and the Young Feminist, and her latest book is A Bit on the Side: Reflections On What Makes Life Delicious. 

Zach Tuohy

Zach Tuohy was a standout athlete from a young age, and made a bold leap from the rugged fields of County Laois to the high-octane arenas of the AFL when he was recruited by Carlton in 2010 at the age of nineteen. He was traded to the Geelong Cats at the end of 2016. There, he clinched a premiership in 2022 and became a fan favourite. Tuohy retired in 2024 but played a record-breaking number of games and stands as a towering figure in AFL history. He resides in Geelong with his wife and two sons. The Irish Experiment, written with Catherine Murphy, is his memoir.

Jayne Tuttle

Jayne Tuttle is the bestselling author of Paris or Die, My Sweet Guillotine and The Sea in the Metro. Trained in theatre at the École Jacques Lecoq, Jayne has worked since as a bilingual copywriter, translator, actor and voiceover artist. Paris or Die was developed into a solo theatre show which toured Australia and France from 2021-2023. She has received fellowships from the City of Paris, La Napoule Arts Foundation, Bundanon, Le Centre les Récollets, and the Varuna National Writers House, for which she was awarded the 2021 Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship.  Jayne co-owns The Bookshop at Queenscliff.

Jenny Valentish

Journalist Jenny Valentish is best known for her deep dives into the human psyche. Her new book, The Introvert's Guide to Leaving the House, is a more introspective successor to Everything Harder Than Everyone Else, which explored the fine line between hedonism and endurance, and her mea culpa memoir Woman of Substances, which was nominated for a Walkley. She writes for The Guardian, the ABC and The Age, and has pressure-tested the wellness industry with her podcast Spirit Levels.

Don Watson

Don Watson has written books, and for theatre and screen. He was Prime Minister Paul Keating’s speechwriter and adviser. He is the author of many critically acclaimed books, including Caledonia Australis, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, Weasel Words: Contemporary Cliches, Cant and Management Jargon, American Journeys, The Bush and The Passion of Private White. He has twice won The Age Book of the Year, in addition to the National Biography Award, the Alfred Deakin Essay Prize, the Australian Literary Studies Association Book of the Year, a Walkley award, the NSW Premier’s Award, the Queensland Literary Award and the Independent Booksellers Book of the Year (twice). His new book is The Shortest History of the United States of America.

Alice Zaslavsky

Alice Zaslavsky is an award-winning author, broadcaster and proud Vegelante, passionate about making food as accessible as literacy. Born in Georgia, where vegetables take centre stage, she shares this philosophy through her bestselling books, The Guardian and Good Food columns, and as ABC’s food guru. Her veg bible In Praise of Veg has been translated into six languages, sold in 14 countries, and earned international acclaim. She’s also the author of CBCA Notable Alice's Food A to Z, Better Cooking, and most recently Salad for Days—flavour-packed salads for every season. She is also presenter of the tv show A Bite to Eat with Alice.