Pip Smith is a novelist, poet, songwriter and children’s author based in Sydney. Her critically acclaimed first novel, Half Wild, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2017, and her first collection of poetry, Too Close for Comfort, won the inaugural Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award in 2013. She reviews Australian literature for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian, and has two children’s picture books with Scholastic: Theodore the Unsure (2019) and To Greenland! (2022). She has judged the poetry and fiction categories for the Woollahra Digital Literary Award since its inauguration in 2017, judged the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist Award (2021), and has taught creative writing in high schools and universities. She thoroughly enjoys climbing inside works of literature in development and working out what makes them tick. pipsmith.net (@PipCSmith)

Guiding authors through the creative writing process and through the publishing/sales/marketing process is something Stuart MacDonald has been doing for several decades. His broad experience of manuscript assessment, and of assisting, mentoring and motivating writers and students of creative writing, ranges from business books, self-help and autobiography to romance, serious fiction and poetry. Stuart’s background in publishing management includes directorships with a number of publishers including HarperCollins, Woodslane, Harlequin and Dorling Kindersley. He has spoken at numerous conferences here and overseas, and has lectured for a number of publishing organisations and educational institutions including the Australian Publishers Association and Macquarie University.