Alice Pung is a writer, editor, teacher and lawyer based in Melbourne. Born a month after her Chinese parents fled from Cambodia to Australia as asylum seekers from Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge Regime, Alice has used her shared family’s experiences to write memoir and fiction. In 2007 she won Newcomer of the Year in the […]

Phil Spencer has worked professionally as a writer, performer, director and creative producer. He was the recipient of the Peggy Ramsey Foundation Award for Writers and has been shortlisted for the Philip Parsons Playwright Award not once, not twice, but thrice (he still hasn’t won it – he’s pretty sure it’s rigged). Phil was the […]

C.S. Pacat is the best-selling author of the Captive Prince trilogy and the comic series, Fence. Her first novel began its life as an original web serial, which attracted viral attention before being acquired by Penguin USA. The Captive Prince trilogy went on to become a USA Today bestseller after being published worldwide to commercial […]

Barbara Brooks has published short memoir, essays and fiction, and an acclaimed biography, Eleanor Dark: A writer’s life. Her essays and stories have been published in Europe, Asia and the US as well as Australia. She is a highly regarded teacher of writing and has taught at a number of universities, including teaching non-fiction writing […]

Davina Bell is a children’s book editor and a writer for young people of many ages. Her award-winning picture books include Under the Love Umbrella, The Underwater Fancy-dress Parade, Oh Albert! and Hattie Helps Out. A former senior editor at Penguin Books, she now works on the children’s list at Affirm Press in Melbourne. A […]

Brook Emery has published five poetry collections, including and dug my fingers in the sand, which won the Queensland Premier’s Prize. Along with Misplaced Heart and Uncommon Light, it was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Prize. Collusion was shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Prize. Have Been and Are was published in 2016. Individual poems […]

Hilary Bell is a multi-award-winning playwright and lyricist. Her work, including plays, radio drama, musicals, song cycles and opera has been produced nationally by theatre companies including the Sydney Theatre Company and Griffin, as well as internationally. She was the 2003-04 Tennessee Williams Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of the South in Tennessee, and 2012’s […]

Gillian Polack has six novels published and 18 short stories. Her most recent novel, The Wizardry of Jewish Women, was shortlisted for the 2017 best novel in the Ditmars. Her second novel, Life Through Cellophane/Ms Cellophane, was also shortlisted in 2010. Her study of how writers use history in fiction was shortlisted for the William […]

Anna Campbell has written 10 multi-award-winning historical romances, all set in the first quarter of the 19th century. She has also independently released 17 bestselling novellas. Her work is now published in 18 languages. Since selling her first published novel at auction to HarperCollins US in 2006, she has written full-time. Anna regularly mentors other […]