Malla Nunn grew up in Swaziland before moving with her parents to Perth in the 1970s. She attended university in WA and then in the US. In New York, she worked on film sets, wrote her first screenplay and met her American husband to be, before returning to Australia, where she began writing and directing short films and corporate videos. Fade to White, Sweetbreeze and Servant of the Ancestors have won numerous awards and been shown at international film festivals, from Zanzibar to New York. Her first novel, A Beautiful Place to Die (2008), was published internationally and won the Sisters in Crime Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Novel by an Australian female author. Malla and her husband live in Sydney with their two children.

Nick Earls is the author of twelve books, including bestselling novels such as Zigzag Street, Bachelor Kisses, Perfect Skin and World of Chickens. His work has been published internationally in English and also in translation, and this led to him being a finalist in the Premier of Queensland’s Awards for Export Achievement in 1999. Zigzag Street won a Betty Trask Award in the UK in 1998, and is currently being developed into a feature film. Bachelor Kisses was one of Who Weekly’s Books of the Year in 1998. Perfect Skin was the only novel nominated for an Australian Comedy Award in 2003, and has recently been filmed in Italy. He has written five novels with teenage central characters. 48 Shades of Brown was awarded Book of the Year (older readers) by the Children’s Book Council in 2000, and in the US it was a Kirkus Reviews selection in its books of the year for 2004. A feature film adapted from the novel was released in Australia by Buena Vista International in August 2006, and has subsequently screened at festivals in North America and Europe. His earlier young-adult novel, After January, was also an award-winner. After January, 48 Shades of Brown, Zigzag Street and Perfect Skin have all been successfully adapted for theatre by La Boite, and the Zigzag Street play toured nationally in 2005. Nick Earls was the founding chair of the Australian arm of the international aid agency War Child and is now a War Child ambassador. He is or has also been patron of Kids Who Make a Difference and Hands on Art, and an honorary ambassador for both the Mater Foundation and the Abused Child Trust. On top of that, he was the face of Brisbane Marketing’s ‘Downtown Brisbane’ and ‘Experience Brisbane’ campaigns. His contribution to writing in Queensland led to him being awarded the Queensland Writers Centre’s inaugural Johnno award in 2001 and a Centenary Medal in 2003. His work as a writer, in writing industry development and in support of humanitarian causes led to him being named University of Queensland Alumnus of the Year in 2006. He was also the Queensland Multicultural Champion for 2006. He has an honours degree in Medicine from the University of Queensland, and has lived in Brisbane since migrating as an eight-year-old from Northern Ireland in 1972. London’s Mirror newspaper has called him ‘the first Aussie to make me laugh out loud since Jason Donovan’. His latest novel is Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight, co-written with Rebecca Sparrow.

Judy Nunn (born 13 April 1945) is an Australian actress and author. Judy Nunn's career has been long, illustrious and multifaceted. After combining her internationally successful acting career with scriptwriting for television and radio, Judy decided in the 80s to turn her hand to prose. The result was two adventure novels for children, EYE IN THE STORM and EYE IN THE CITY, which remain extremely popular, not only in Australia but in Europe. Embarking on adult fiction in the early 90s, Judy's three novels, THE GLITTER GAME, CENTRE STAGE and ARALUEN, set respectively in the worlds of television, theatre and film, became instant bestsellers. Her subsequent bestsellers, KAL, BENEATH THE SOUTHERN CROSS, TERRITORY, PACIFIC, HERITAGE and FLOODTIDE confirm her position as one of Australia’s leading popular novelists.

Christos Tsiolkas is the author of nine novels: Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head-On, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe,which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. He won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award, long listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for The Slap, which was also announced as the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year. Barracuda is his fifth novel. Merciless Gods (2014) and Damascus (2019) followed. He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne.

Maggie Alderson is a British-Australian author (that’s how I’m supposed to write it, but I’m not very good at talking about myself in the third person, so I’m going to can it). I was born in London, brought up in rural Staffordshire, and educated at the University of St Andrews - and then at the University of Life, Sydney campus. I spent many years covering the fashion shows in Paris, Milan, London etc which is the best people watching ever (I had to remind myself to look at the models…). An obsessed bookworm since childhood, all I wanted to do from the age of six was write books. I also hoovered up every magazine and newspaper I could lay my hands on and by the time I was a teenager was determined to edit a magazine and be a newspaper columnist. I have edited five magazines (including British ELLE) and my Style Notes column ran in the Good Weekend colour supplement for twelve years, as well as being syndicated to The Times. My first novel Pants on Fire was published in 2000 and was a bestseller in the UK and Australia. I’ve written eight more novels since, which have been translated into many languages. I’ve also published four collections of my columns and a children’s book called Evangeline, the Wish Keeper’s Helper, which was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Award in Australia. My latest novel is called The Scent of You and is the story of perfume blogger Polly, facing up to a crisis in her marriage – and her sense of who she is - told through a filter of her obsession with perfumes (and also featuring very well dressed, seriously damaged, red-hot men, which are my speciality). The book was inspired by attending perfume events in London and realising just how many fascinating people there are in that world (and a fair few brilliant nutters). You can read my heroine's blog fragrantcloud.net

Mark Dapin is the author of the novels King of the Cross and Spirit House. King of the Cross won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction, and Spirit House was long listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Age Book of the Year and the Royal Society for Literature's Ondaatje Prize. His recent work of military history, The Nashos' War, has been widely acclaimed. He is a PhD candidate at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

Craig Silvey is an author and screenwriter from Fremantle, Western Australia. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Rhubarb, was published in 2004. His bestselling second novel, Jasper Jones, was released in 2009 and is considered a modern Australian classic. Published in over a dozen territories, Jasper Jones has won plaudits in three continents, including an International Dublin Literary Award shortlisting, a Michael J. Printz Award Honor, and a Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlisting. Jasper Jones was the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year for 2010. His third novel, Honeybee, published in 2020, is an award-winning bestseller. Honeybee was the 2020 Dymocks Book Of The Year, won the Indie Book Award for Best Fiction, and was shortlisted for both the Literary Fiction Book of the Year at the 2021 ABIA Awards and the Adult Fiction Book of the Year at the ABA Booksellers’ Choice Awards. In 2022, Honeybee was voted Number 1 in the Better Reading Top 100. Runt is his first novel for Younger Readers.

Rachael Treasure lives in southern rural Tasmania with her two young children. She is passionate about encouraging non-readers to read, inspiring farmers to consider regenerative agricultural practices and animal handlers to better understand their dogs and livestock. She is a graduate of Orange Agricultural College and has a Bachelor of Arts (Communication) from Charles Sturt University, Bathurst. She has worked as a jillaroo, rural journalist, ABC radio broadcaster, professional woolclasser, part-time vet nurse, family farm manager, drover and stock camp cook. She has written 4 novels and a short story collection, all bestsellers. Follow her on facebook: www.facebook.com/rach.treasure

Alex Miller is one of Australia's best-loved writers, and winner of the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012. Alex Miller is twice winner of Australia's premier literary prize, The Miles Franklin Literary Award, first in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and again in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country. He is also an overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, in 1993 for The Ancestor Game. His fifth novel, Conditions of Faith, won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the 2001 New South Wales Premier's Awards. In 2011 he won this award a second time with his most recent novel Lovesong. Lovesong also won the People's Choice Award in the NSW Premier's Awards, the Age Book of the Year Award and the Age Fiction Prize for 2011. In 2007 Landscape of Farewell was published to wide critical acclaim and in 2008 won the Chinese Annual Foreign Novels 21st Century Award for Best Novel and the Manning Clark Medal for an outstanding contribution to Australian cultural life. It was also short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, the ALS Gold Medal and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Alex is published internationally and widely in translation. Autumn Laing is his tenth novel.