I am a former festival director and the internationally bestselling author of Dirt Town. The novel has won a number of national and international awards, including an ABIA for General Fiction Book of the Year, a Lambda Literary award for LGBTQ+ Mystery and the CWA New Blood Dagger. I particularly enjoy one-on-one mentoring with emerging writers and I am also an accomplished MC. I have served as a judge for short story and novel prizes, including the New York-based Lambda Literary Awards. I hold a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong.
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Website: http://www.hayleyscrivenor.com/

Katherine is the author of Penguin Random House’s Her Fidelity (2022) - a comedic coming-of-age story of a young woman working in an indie record shop and trying to figure out who she is, and what really matters. It was included in The Age, The Books That Made Their Mark in 2022 list, was shortlisted for the ABA Best Commercial Cover Award, and received great critical and fan reviews, including from Annabel Crabb and Melina Marchetta. Katherine also holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Western Sydney University’s Writing and Society Research Centre.
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Rod Howard is an author, ghostwriter, copywriter and freelance journalist, with a background in arts management, media, publishing and strategic communications. In his narrative biographies, Rod has a passion for illuminating under-known and arcane corners of social history. Rod's books include The Fabulist (Random House), The Man Who Invented Vegemite (Murdoch Books) and A Forger's Tale (Arcade Publications), winner of the FAW Walter Stone Award for Biography. He has written regular columns and features in arts, travel and parenting. Rod was also founding Chair of the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival in NSW and a peer of the Australia Council.
Website: https://www.rodhowardwriter.com/

Georgina Hibberd primarily writes about sport, particular women's sport and gender. In 2021 she published Never Surrender: the inside story of the GWS Giants 2020 AFLW season, an unflinching look at the reality for women playing Australian Football at the highest level. Her pieces have appeared on ABC Sport and Siren Sport.
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Website: https://georginahibberd.wordpress.com/

Wendy Howitt has written on staff for publications such as Vogue Australia, Harper’s Bazaar and The Sydney Morning Herald, and worked as a freelancer. She has written press releases, website content and advertorials. She has self-published two young adult books and has a BA, majoring in English, and a MA in Writing.
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Website: https://www.wendyhowitt.com/

Amra Pajalić is an award-winning author, editor and teacher who draws on her Bosnian cultural heritage to write own voices stories for young people, who like her, are searching to mediate their identity and take pride in their diverse culture. She won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature's Civic Choice Award for her debut novel The Good Daughter, re-released as Sabiha's Dilemma (Pishukin Press, 2022). The anthology she co-edited, Growing up Muslim in Australia (Allen and Unwin, 2014), was shortlisted for the 2015 Children's Book Council awards and her memoir Things Nobody Knows But Me (Transit Lounge, 2019) was shortlisted for the 2020 National Biography Award. Amra has published non-fiction including opinion and analysis, reviews and memoir pieces, in ArtsHub, Kalliope, The Guardian, The Age, Southerly, Overland, AEU Magazines, Meanjin and 25 memoir pieces in SBS Voices. She writes romance as Mae Archer.
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Website: https://www.amrapajalic.com/

At about the age of eight, Belinda Murrell began writing stirring tales of adventure, mystery and magic in hand-illustrated exercise books. As an adult, she combined two of her great loves – writing and travelling the world – and worked as a travel writer, journalist and public relations consultant. Now, inspired by her own three children, Belinda is an award-winning, internationally published children’s author with a history of writing in her family that spans over 200 years. Belinda has written over 35 books including The Golden Tower and The Silver Sea, her fantasy adventure series The Sun Sword trilogy and her award-winning time-slip adventures, The Locket of Dreams, The Ruby Talisman, The Ivory Rose, The Forgotten Pearl, The River Charm, The Sequin Star, and The Lost Sapphire. For younger readers Belinda has her popular Lulu Bell and Pippa’s Island series. Her new junior fiction series, The Daredevil Princess, is about a brave and bold young girl solving mysteries in the Queendom of Blumenfeld. Belinda won the Society of Women Writers 2023 Di Yerbury award, a three month residency in the UK.
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Website: http://www.belindamurrell.com.au/

Sarah Malik is a Walkley award winning senior investigative journalist, author and broadcaster, with two decades of media experience. She is the creator and EP of the SBS podcasts My Ramadan and The SBS Book Club. She also co-hosted and co-produced Let Me Tell You (winner of the gold Best Arts/Culture podcast at the 2022 Australian Podcast awards, and honoree at the 2023 Webby Awards), and the New Writers Room podcast. Her New Writers Room interview with Larissa Behrendt and Jazz Money was awarded bronze for Best Interview at the 2022 Australian podcast awards. Her work focuses on domestic violence, asylum and in its intersection with gender and race. She has been featured in the Sydney Review of Books, New York Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian. She has also produced and presented programs for ABC Radio National and Al Jazeera. Her debut memoir Desi Girl: On feminism, race, faith and belonging was published by UQP 2022. Her second book Safar: Muslim women’s stories of travel and transformation was published by Hardie Grant. In 2023 she was a keynote speaker for International Women’s Day at UTS speaking on the power of education, intersectionality and advancing women’s rights globally.
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Website: https://sarahbmalik.com/

Author, Mentor, Developmental Editor: Jane has worked with many writers at all stages of their careers over the past thirty years. She offers mentoring, developmental editing, writing workshops, and grant writing assistance. Jane has published and broadcast works across fiction, memoir, radio drama, and scholarly essays. Her books include the novels Hopscotch, Provenance, and Night By Night. For over 15 years she led the postgraduate creative writing programs at Macquarie University.
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Website: https://janemesser.com/