Abigail Nathan is a freelance editor who has run Bothersome Words Editing & Writing Services for more than twelve years. She specialises in fiction (including genre — fantasy, science fiction, horror, crime, suspense, romance etc.) for adults, young adults and middle grade, and works with major Australian and UK trade publishers including HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Hachette and Gollancz; as well as small presses in the USA. She has edited a range of authors for these publishers, including Karen Miller, Traci Harding, Alastair Reynolds and James Barclay. In addition, she works regularly with emerging and self-publishing writers including authors such as Mitchell Hogan and Maria Lewis. Abigail was a committee member and website coordinator for Editors NSW for over ten years and occasionally presents workshops on editing, self-publishing and freelancing.

Leonie Tyle has been dedicated to children’s literature as a librarian, reviewer, speaker, editor and publisher. She was Children’s & Young Adult Publisher at University of Queensland Press and established Woolshed Press, a children’s literary imprint for Random House Australia. Both lists have won many awards including the inaugural Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Literature.

She is currently a Partner in Tyle&Bateson Publishing, a multi-faceted publishing services enterprise. Leonie does sessional teaching at Queensland University of Technology. She is the currently one of 3 judges for the Rosanne Fitzgibbon Editorial Award & a judge for the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Award.

Leonie has worked with many of Australia’s finest authors and illustrators including Steven Herrick, James Moloney, Brian Caswell, James Roy, Gregory Rogers, David Mackintosh, Stella Danalis, Anthony Eaton, Bill Condon, Christine Bongers, Nette Hilton, Samuel Wagan Watson, Celeste Walters and Doris Pilkington Garimara. She has a passion for literature and believes in encouraging and providing an environment for her authors and illustrators to produce their most imaginative and creative work.

Diana Giese has worked for publishers large and small, including Macmillan, Oxford University Press, HarperEducational and Brandl & Schlesinger, in Australia and overseas. She has collaborated with many writers to help them develop their best possible work, and produced and promoted prize-winners and excellent sellers. She is the author of six books, including Astronauts, Lost Souls and Dragons (University of Queensland Press), Beyond Chinatown (National Library of Australia) and A better place to live (Freshwater Bay Press). She has also worked as a literary journalist for major newspapers and ABC radio, and served on writers’ festival and prize committees. A recent mentoree placed his first book with a major international publisher. Diana will help you produce memoirs, fiction and history.