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Paul Anderson

Fiction

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Paul Anderson is a freelance editor, a book reviewer, and loves to read literary fiction. He is an active member of the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd) and an Editors NSW branch committee member. He has a Graduate Certificate of Editing and Publishing from the University of Technology Sydney (2019) and occasionally publishes in The Newtown Review of Books. Paul was part of the editorial committee for the UTS writers' anthology Empty Sky (Brio Books, 2020) and was a co-editor (with Margrete Lamond) of the Reclink stories collection The Power of a Football (WestWords, 2022).
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Bill Ash

Non-fiction

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Bill is the author of Redesigning Conversations: A Guide to Communicating Effectively in the Family, Workplace, and Society and Redesigning Conversations Workbook: Self-Coaching Questions for Parents, Leaders, and Coaches. Bill's one-stop-shop books offer user-friendly skills to help you have effective conversations in your family, workplace, and society. The Workbook focuses on self-coaching questions, exercises, and case studies for parents, leaders, teachers, and coaches that are also useful for coaching others and for facilitating groups, whether around the dinner table or in workshops and work teams.
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Website: http://www.billash.com.au/

Meera Atkinson

FictionMemoirNon-fictionPoetry

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Meera Atkinson publishes creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and hybrid forms. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Salon.com, Best Australian Poems, Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, Southerly, and Griffith Review, and her hybrid memoir, Traumata, was published in 2018. Meera has also worked for many years as a university creative writing educator. She has a special interest and particular expertise in writing about traumatic experiences.
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Eugen Bacon

FictionNon-fictionPoetrySpeculative fiction

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Eugen Bacon MA, MSc, PhD is an African-Australian author of several novels and collections. She’s a British Fantasy Award winner, a Foreword Book of the Year Silver Award winner, a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, and a finalist in the British Science Fiction Association, Aurealis, Ditmar and Australian Shadow Awards. Eugen was announced in the honour list of the 2022 Otherwise Fellowships for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Danged Black Thing by Transit Lounge Publishing made the Otherwise Award honour list as a ‘sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work’. Eugen’s creative work has appeared worldwide.
Website: http://eugenbacon.com/

Kavita Bedford

FictionJournalismNon-fiction

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Kavita Bedford is an Australian-Indian writer with a background in media, anthropology and literature. She is passionate about telling stories from new perspectives that are traditionally left out of the mainstream. Her first novel, Friends & Dark Shapes, was published in 2021 in USA, Italy and Australia to critical response including reviews in The New York Times, The Guardian, and was Shortlisted for the Queensland and NSW Premiers’ Literary Awards and Small Press Network’s Book of the Year. She was the 2021 Writer in Residence at The Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. She was the Editor of The Point Magazine for MNSW, which explored countering violent extremism and she was the creative producer of a digital media project exploring diverse stories from South-West Sydney. She has worked as a research fellow for UTS on digital diasporas and she was a Churchill Fellow exploring migrant narratives between Australia and Europe. Her non-fiction and short stories have appeared in numerous publications including Guernica, The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review. She teaches across anthropology, journalism, writing, and Hatha yoga and loves focusing on issues of voice, place, authenticity, representation, writing practice and embodied creativity.
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Website: https://www.kavitabedford.com

Hilary Bell

Kids and YAStage and screen

School visits

Hilary Bell is an award-winning playwright, lyricist and librettist. Her plays and musicals have been produced nationally by Griffin, Ensemble, Sydney Theatre Company, Black Swan, the Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne, Deckchair, La Boite, State Theatre Company of South Australia, City Recital Hall, NORPA, Darlinghurst Theatre Company, National Theatre of Parramatta, NIDA and Vitalstatistix; in the US by Atlantic and Steppenwolf; in the UK by the National Theatre. Hilary has written audio-scripts for the Museum of Contemporary Art and the State Library of NSW. The recipient of awards including the inaugural Philip Parsons, the Jill Blewitt, a Helpmann and two AWGIES, and shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Hilary is co-creator of several picture books, including Numerical Street, Summer Time and bestseller Alphabetical Sydney with Antonia Pesenti. She is a member of 7-On Playwrights and a graduate of the Juilliard Playwrights’ Program, NIDA and AFTRS. She was the Tennessee Williams Fellow 2003-04 and the 2012 Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellow at the STC. She has served on boards including Griffin, ANPC and Australian Plays, and is currently a Visiting Scholar at the State Library of NSW. She loves visiting schools and running workshops around her picture books.
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Website: https://hilarybell.org/

Bronwyn Birdsall

FictionMemoirNon-fiction

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Bronwyn Birdsall is a writer and editor. Her first novel Time and Tide in Sarajevo was shortlisted for the 2023 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Bronwyn is passionate about the power of story and supporting storytellers. She has spoken at festivals, at events and on podcasts about her novel and the creative process. Bronwyn’s writing centres around contemporary life and finding meaning in the everyday, and has been selected for development programs and residencies. As well as working as an editor for over fifteen years, she has also assessed entries for mentorship programs and competitions.
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Website: http://www.bronwynbirdsall.com/

Laura Boon

CrimeFictionMemoirRomance

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Laura Boon worked in book publishing for over thirty years and is now a writer, editor and tennis coach. The stories she enjoys most include love, adventure and friendship. She has a BA in English Language and Literature and is an accredited editor with the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd). Laura is the author of two romance novels and three non-fiction books, including Tips from a Book Publishing Industry Insider. She is a hybrid author, both traditionally and indie published. Laura lives in Sydney with Beau and Arrow, a Pekingese and a Shih Tzu who rule her world.
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Website: https://linktr.ee/lauraboon66

Ally Burnham

Speculative fictionStage and screen

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Ally Burnham is an AWGIE-winning screenwriter, novelist and writer of comics. A NIDA graduate (2016, Masters, Writing for Performance), she is also the creative producer at WestWords - Western Sydney’s literature development organisation. She is best known for her feature film Unsound (2020, Netflix). The film won Best Australia Feature at the 2020 Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Best Fiction Feature Film at the 2020 ATOM Awards, and was nominated for Best Indie Feature at the 2020 AACTA awards. Ally is the lead writer for Metropius; her short film screenplay won Most Outstanding Animation at the 2022 AWGIE Awards.
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Website: http://www.allyburnham.com/

Jonathan Cant

ComedyFictionNon-fictionPoetry

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Jonathan Cant is a Sydney-based writer, poet, and musician. He won the 2023 Banjo Paterson Writing Awards for Contemporary Poetry, was Longlisted for the 2023 Fish Poetry Prize and the 2022 Flying Islands Poetry Manuscript Prize, and Commended in the W. B. Yeats Poetry Prize. Jonathan’s poems have appeared in Cordite, Live Encounters, and Otoliths. His short stories have featured in publications as diverse as Playboy to Australia’s leading flyfishing magazine, FlyLife. Over the past two decades, Jonathan has also worked as a copywriter in the advertising and not-for-profit sectors; and is available for work on a freelance/project basis.
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Shankari Chandran

FictionSpeculative fiction

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Shankari Chandran is an Australian Tamil lawyer and author of Song of the Sun God, The Barrier and Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, which won the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2023. Song of the Sun God was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award (2019) and short-listed for Sri Lanka's Fairway National Literary Award (2018). The Barrier was short-listed for the Norma K Hemming Award for Speculative Fiction (2018). Song of the Sun God is being adapted for television, starring Bridgerton’s Charithra Chandran (no relation). Her next two novels will be published in 2024. Her short stories have been published in the critically acclaimed anthologies, Another Australia and Sweatshop Women (Vol 2) by Affirm Press/Sweatshop and she is the deputy chair of Writing NSW. Shankari has spent two decades working as a lawyer in the social justice field, on national and international program design and delivery. She continues her work in social impact for an Australian national retailer. She is based in Sydney, Australia.
Website: https://shankarichandran.com

Emily Chantiri

JournalismMemoirNon-fiction

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Emily Chantiri is a Sydney journalist and best-selling author. Emily's books include The Money Club and The Savvy Girl's Guide to Money which were published by Random House and Murdoch Books. In her journalistic work, she writes across areas of business, money, IT and much more. She has interviewed many leading professionals and politicians. Emily writes for SMH, The Age, Yahoo, Forbes Business and Information Age. Emily is passionate about writing and helping others along their writing journey. She runs the Sydney Non-Fiction Writer's Group under the NSW Writer's Group. Emily mentors and chairs the monthly meetings.
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Website: https://emilychantiri.com/

Laurel Cohn

ComedyCrimeFictionKids and YAMemoirNon-fictionRomanceSpeculative fiction

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Laurel is passionate about communication and the power of words to engage, inspire and challenge. Since the late 1980s she has been helping writers of all types prepare their work for publication. With a well-honed ability to analyse and critique texts, she gets a buzz out of helping writers understand how they can lift their work to the next level of development. Laurel’s approach to giving feedback is informed by an understanding of the sometimes tricky emotional terrain of the development process, and the importance of honest, clear and practical guidance. Laurel is a regular workshop presenter for Writing NSW, Writers Victoria, Queensland Writers Centre, Writers SA, Byron Writers Festival, Society of Women Writers and Art of Writing retreats (Italy/Australia). She has a PhD in literary and cultural studies.
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Website: https://laurelcohn.com.au

Jan Cornall

ComedyFictionMemoirNon-fictionPoetryStage and screen

Collaborative projectsPublic appearanceSchool visits

Jan Cornall began her career as a writer in 1979 at the Pram Factory in Melbourne, penning the acclaimed musical Failing In Love Again. Following its success she went on to be awarded a number of grants and fellowships and has written over fifteen plays, musicals, screenplays, a novel, travel memoir, a collection of stories and poems, and three song albums. Based in Newtown, Sydney, Jan has a Masters Degree in Cultural and Creative Practice and since 2000, has taught writing at writer’s centres, community colleges, universities (UTS, WSU) and led international writing retreats. She has performed her work at numerous festivals in the Asia Pacific region and collaborated with artists, poets and musicians in Indonesia and Burma. Dedicated to nurturing the unique voice of each writer she works with Jan offers mentoring support and guidance to writers of all genres. Numerous authors working with Jan have gone on to publish with major publishing houses.
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Website: http://www.writersjourney.com.au

Timothy Daly

ComedyFictionMemoirStage and screen

Editing and proofing

Story analyst and playwright Timothy Daly is one of Australia’s most internationally-produced playwrights, with a string of national and international productions and awards to his credit. Actors such as Academy-Award winners Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush have appeared in his plays. His play, Derrida In Love, was written expressly for the 2011 & 2013 Academy Award nominee, Jacki Weaver, which she performed in a sold-out production in Sydney. His play Kafka Dances has won over a dozen national and international awards since its première, and is the most internationally-performed Australian play of all time. His play The Man in the Attic was awarded Australia’s most prestigious award for a new play, the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award. Timothy Daly’s 500-page book 21st Century Playwriting was published in 2019 by Smith & Kraus, New York’s top theatre book publisher. With over 30 years experience in writing, Timothy Daly has conducted many workshops in writing, narrative and dramatic structure on three continents, and has consulted with hundreds of writers and advised on hundreds of stories, novels, plays and scripts.
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Website: http://timothydalywriter.com

Aleesah Darlison

ComedyFictionKids and YANon-fictionSpeculative fiction

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Aleesah Darlison is an award-winning author of over 65 books for children. She is well-known for her books that empower children and champion the cause of animals and the environment. Aleesah has won or been shortlisted for many awards including the Book Excellence Awards, the Environment Award for Children’s Literature, the CBCA Awards, the Speech Pathology Book of the Year Awards, and WAYBRA. Aleesah has written numerous creative fiction and non-fiction titles for the educational and commercial markets including the Space Kids Series, the Super Sloth Series, the Endangered Animal Tales Series, Emerald, The Green Turtle’s Tale, Our Class Tiger, Puggle’s Problem, Warambi, Netball Gems, and the League of Llamas Series. Her 2024 releases include Grace the Amazing, Stella’s Bright Idea, Super Sloth Books 2 and 3, and Coral the Dolphin. She has extensive experience teaching and mentoring both adults and children in the craft of writing and is a regular presenter at schools, festivals, and libraries.
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Website: http://www.aleesahdarlison.com/

Emma Darragh

Fiction

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Emma Darragh lives and works on Dharawal Country. Her novel in stories, Thanks for Having Me, will be published by Joan Press in March, 2024. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong and her thesis, The Short Story Cycle in the Twenty-First Century, received the Examiners’ Commendation for Outstanding Thesis. Her writing has appeared in numerous Australian publications, including Cordite, Westerly, Meniscus, TEXT, and The Big Issue Fiction Edition. Emma is an experienced mentor and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Wollongong.
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Website: https://emmadarragh.com/

Danielle de Valera

FictionMemoir

Editing and proofingJournalismJudging

Danielle de Valera is an award-winning writer and the author of two novels, MagnifiCat and Those Brisbane Romantics. Her collection of stories, Dropping Out, was a finalist for the Woollahra Digital Literary Award. Her most recent novel Those Brisbane Romantics is listed in Kirkus Reviews’ 100 Best Indie Books of 2022. Formerly an editor for The Jacaranda Press, she taught fiction writing workshops at Byron College and is a member of IPed, the Institute of Professional Editors. She offers a range of manuscript development services and has been helping writers achieve their goals since 1992.
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Website: https://patrickdevalera.com/

Bettina Deda

Non-fiction

Collaborative projectsCopywritingEditing and proofingGhost writingJournalismPublic appearance

Bettina Deda is a content writer with a background in public relations and business management, specialising in architecture, design, construction, and wellness. She is the author of Downsize with Style (self-published in 2014) and Dare to Dance - a midlife memoir, commercially published in 2022. The first chapter of her memoir was also published in The Turning Point (2021) after being successful in a writing competition. She edited the business book Construction Scrum. Bettina offers writing coaching, ghostwriting and editing and helps authors get their business books published through the collaborative initiative WriteTellSell.
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Website: https://bettinadeda.com/

Lauren Finger

CrimeFictionRomance

Editing and proofingPublic appearance

Lauren is a very experienced book editor with an excellent reputation in trade publishing in Australia and the UK. She specialises in commercial fiction because she loves working with stories that entertain, engage, comfort and thrill readers – and with the writers who create them. She is approachable, supportive and constructive, making suggestions that will help tighten and lift novels so that they achieve their story goals and keep readers engaged. Lauren has worked in-house and freelance with many publishers in Australia, the UK and the USA, as well as with independent (self-publishing) authors and aspiring authors.
Website: https://laurenfinger.com/

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Paul Anderson

Bill Ash

Meera Atkinson

Eugen Bacon

Kavita Bedford

Hilary Bell

Bronwyn Birdsall

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Ally Burnham

Jonathan Cant

Shankari Chandran

Emily Chantiri

Laurel Cohn

Jan Cornall

Timothy Daly

Aleesah Darlison

Emma Darragh

Danielle de Valera

Bettina Deda

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