Juliet has been a full-time writer for about twelve years, after working as a music teacher and public servant. She was born in Dunedin, New Zealand – the most Scottish city outside Scotland itself – but now lives in Western Australia. Juliet’s novels combine historical fiction, folkloric fantasy, romance and family drama. The strong elements of history and folklore in her work reflect her lifelong interest in both fields. However, her stories focus above all on human relationships and the personal journeys of the characters.

Her books include the recently completed Blackthorn & Grim series and the Sevenwaters series, both set in early medieval Ireland, the Viking duology Saga of the Light Isles, the Bridei Chronicles, set in the kingdom of the Picts, and two series for young adults, the Wildwood books and the Shadowfell books. She has also written a stand-alone novel, Heart’s Blood, based on the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, and a collection of short fiction, Prickle Moon. Juliet’s short fiction can be found in various anthologies. Read More

Born in Auckland, Ruth Park moved to Australia in 1942. Her first novel was The Harp in the South, a graphic story of Irish slum life in Sydney, which has been translated into 37 languages. It remains her most popular novel and has never been out of print.

Ruth wrote over fifty books, and her many awards included the prestigious Miles Franklin Award for Swords and Crowns and Rings; the Australian Children's Book of the Year Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award (USA) for Playing Beatie Bow and The Age Book of the Year Award for A Fence Around the Cuckoo.

She was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1987. Ruth Park died in December 2010. Read More

Fleur McDonald has lived and worked on farms for much of her life. After growing up in the small town of Orroroo in South Australia, she went jillarooing, eventually co-owning an 8000-acre property in regional Western Australia.

Fleur likes to write about strong women overcoming adversity, drawing inspiration from her own experiences in rural Australia. She is the best-selling author of Red Dust, Blue Skies, Purple Roads, Silver Clouds and Crimson Dawn. She has two children and a Jack Russell terrier.

Her most recent novel is Suddenly One Summer which was released in 2017. Read More

Donna Hay is Australia's leading food editor and best-selling cookbook author. Her food, recipes and styling focuses on basic ingredients, simply prepared and beautifully photographed are hallmarks of her work which have set the benchmark for food publishing worldwide and inspired a whole new generation of cooks.

She lives in Sydney with her husband, Bill, and children Angus and Tom.

Her latest book is Basics to Brilliance Kids. Read More

Zoë Foster Blake has done a decade of journalism writing for titles such as Cosmopolitan, Harper’s BAZAAR and Sunday Style, as well as being the founder of all-natural Australian skin care line, Go-To.

Zoë has published four novels, Air Kisses, Playing the Field, The Younger Man and The Wrong Girl, as well as the dating and relationship book, Textbook Romance written in conjunction with Hamish Blake; and Amazinger Face, a collection of her best beauty tips and tricks.

Her latest book is a hilarious children’s book called No One Likes a Fart. Read More

Fiona Palmer lives in the tiny rural town of Pingaring in Western Australia, three and a half hours south-east of Perth. She discovered Danielle Steel at the age of eleven, and has now written her own brand of rural romance. She has attended romance writers' groups and received an Australian Society of Authors mentorship for her first novel, The Family Farm. She has followed on from its success with many more novels, all bestsellers.

She has extensive farming experience, does the local mail run, and was a speedway-racing driver for seven years. She spends her days writing, working as a farm hand, helping out in the community and looking after her two children. Read More

Fiona McCallum spent her childhood years on the family cereal and wool farm outside a small town on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. An avid reader and writer, she decided at the age of nine that she wanted to be the next Enid Blyton. She completed her final years of schooling at a private boarding school in Adelaide.

Fiona maintained her literary interests by writing poetry and short stories, and studying at TAFE via correspondence. In 2001 she realised her true passion lay in writing full-length fiction, and in 2002 completed her first manuscript.

Fiona writes "heart-warming journey of self-discovery stories". Read More

Tasmanian born Rachael Treasure gets as excited about dung beetle activity in the soil as she does by beautiful writing. By combining her love for the land and the written word, Rachael sparked a publishing boom in 2002 when her first novel Jillaroo woke the world up to contemporary women's stories beyond the city lights.

Rachael lives in Southern rural Tasmania and is a full time mother to two young humans and many eccentric animals including a budgie called Putty Plonkit. She has been dubbed an agricultural activist, farm feminist and literary pioneer and has worked as a rural journalist, radio broadcaster, truffle sniffer dog handler, professional wool classer, stock camp cook, drover, farm manager and working dog trainer. Read More

John Flanagan's bestselling Ranger’s Apprentice adventure series originally comprised twenty short stories, which John wrote to encourage his twelve-year-old son, Michael, to enjoy reading.

The series has come a long way since then. Now sold to more than twenty countries, the series regularly appears on the New York Times Bestseller List and has been shortlisted in children's book awards in Australia and overseas.

John, a former television and advertising writer, lives with his wife, Leonie, in the Sydney beachside suburb of Manly. Read More

Tara Moss is an author, journalist, TV presenter and human rights advocate. Since 1999 she has written 10 bestselling books, published in 19 countries and 13 languages, including the acclaimed Mak Vanderwall crime fiction series and the Pandora English series.

Her first non-fiction book, the critically acclaimed The Fictional Woman, was published in 2014 and became a number one national non-fiction bestseller, and her iconic cover design, featuring her face labeled with ‘fictions’ or stereotypes about women won Best Non-Fiction Book Design at the Australia Book Design Awards in 2015.

Her most recent title is Speaking Out. Read More

Alison Lester is one of Australia's most popular and bestselling creators of children's books.She has won many awards, including the 2005 Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Picture Book of the Year Award for Are We There Yet? and the 2012 CBCA Eve Pownall Book of the Year Award for One Small Island.

Alison lives on a farm in the Victorian countryside. She spends part of each year travelling to schools around Australia, helping students and teachers develop their own stories.

Her latest book is My Dog Bigsy. Read More

Garth’s books include the award-winning young adult fantasy novels Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen; the dystopian novel Shade’s Children; the space opera A Confusion of Princes; and a Regency romance with magic, Newt’s Emerald.

His fantasy novels for children include The Ragwitch; the six books of The Seventh Tower sequence; The Keys to the Kingdom series; and the Troubletwisters series.

His most recent book is Goldenhand. He lives in a Sydney beach suburb with his wife and two children. Read More

Shaun began drawing and painting images for science fiction and horror stories in small-press magazines as a teenager, and has since become best known for illustrated books that deal with social, political and historical subjects through surreal, dream-like imagery.

The Rabbits, The Red Tree, Tales from Outer Suburbia, Rules of Summer and the acclaimed wordless novel The Arrival have been widely translated and enjoyed by readers of all ages.

Shaun has also worked as a theatre designer, a concept artist for animated films including Pixar's WALL-E, and directed the Academy Award-winning short film The Lost Thing with Passion Pictures Australia. Read More

Kate Forsyth is a bestselling and award-winning author of more than twenty books, ranging from picture books, poetry, and novels for both children and adults.

Kate's books have been published in 17 countries around the world, including the UK, the US, Russia, Germany, Japan, Turkey, Spain, Italy, Poland and Slovenia. She completed a doctorate in fairytale retellings at the University of Technology, as well as a BA in Literature and a MA in Creative Writing.

She lives in Sydney, with her husband, three children, a rambunctious Rhodesian Ridgeback, a bad-tempered black cat, and many thousands of books. Read More

Australian-born Geraldine Brooks worked as a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald for three years as a feature writer and also worked for The Wall Street Journal.

She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for her novel March. Her novels, Caleb’s Crossing and People of the Book, were New York Times bestsellers. Her first novel, Year of Wonders is an international bestseller, translated into more than 25 languages. She is also the author of the acclaimed non-fiction works Nine Parts of Desire, Foreign Correspondence and The Idea of Home.

Her most recent title is The Secret Chord. Read More

Jimmy Barnes is a Scottish-born rock singer/songwriter who grew up in Adelaide. His career, both as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist of the legendary band Cold Chisel, has made him one of the most successful and distinctive artists in Australian music history. A prolific songwriter and performer, Jimmy has been a storyteller for more than forty years; sharing his life and passions with Australians of all ages at over ten thousand gigs throughout his adopted homeland.

Jimmy has sold over 12 million albums and he has been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame twice. Working Class Boy won the Australian Book Industry Award for the Best Biography of 2016 and part two of his memoir, Working Class Man has also been a bestseller. Read More

Peter FitzSimons is one of Australia’s most prominent and successful media and publishing identities. He launched his journalistic career with the Sydney Morning Herald in 1989.

Two years later he released two best-selling books and signed a contract with the Nine Network that resulted in him presenting current affairs and sports programs. His association with Foxtel commenced in 1995 and continues to this day.

In 2001, he was Australia's biggest selling non-fiction author with just under 250,000 sales. He duplicated that feat in 2004 with his book on Kokoda and had similar success in 2006 with his book on Tobruk. Read More

Isobelle Carmody is one of the world’s most highly acclaimed authors of fantasy and young adult fiction. At fourteen, she began Obernewtyn, the first book in her much-loved Obernewtyn Chronicles.

Her novel The Gathering was joint winner of the 1993 Children’s Literature Peace Prize and the 1994 CBCA Book of the Year Award, and Greylands was joint winner of the 1997 Aurealis Award for Excellence in Speculative Fiction (Young Adult category), and was named a White Raven at the 1998 Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

Isobelle’s work for younger readers includes her two series, The Legend of Little Fur, and The Kingdom of the Lost. Isobelle was voted our Australia’s Favourite Author for 2016. Read More

Rosie Waterland is a media phenomenon. Only 25 years old, she rose to fame in 2014 with her laugh-out-loud funny recaps of The Bachelor, which had people clicking onto the Mamamia website in astounding numbers. Towards the end of the season, Mamamia was seeing daily traffic of over one million hits on the days her recaps appeared. Richard Glover called what she did 'the best television writing since Clive James'. The Bachelor recaps had 6.6 million unique readers and 450,000 Facebook shares.

The Anti Cool Girl was shortlisted for the 2016 Indie Book Awards and for the 2016 ABIA Awards for Biography of the Year, and also shortlisted for the 2017 Russell Prize for Humour Writing. She was also the Winner of the 2016 ABIA Awards People's Choice for the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year. Read More

Kate Grenville was born in Sydney and worked in the film industry after graduating from university. She is now one of Australia’s best-known authors.

Kate has published eight books of fiction and four books about the writing process. Her best-known works include the international best-seller The Secret River, The Idea of Perfection, The Lieutenant and Lilian's Story. The Secret River has won many prizes, including the Commonwealth Prize for Literature and the Christina Stead Prize.

Several of her novels have been made into major feature films, and all have been translated into European and Asian languages. Her most recent book is The Case Against Frangrance. Read More

Magda Szubanski is one of Australia’s best known and most loved performers. She began her career in university revues, then appeared in a number of sketch comedy shows before creating the iconic character of Sharon Strzelecki in ABC-TV’s Kath and Kim. She has also acted in films (Babe, Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet, The Golden Compass) and stage shows.

Reckoning is her first book - heartbreaking, joyous, traumatic, intimate and revelatory, Magda tells her story. Reckoning won many awards including the 2016 ABIA Book of the Year, the 2016 ABIA Biography of the Year and the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction. Read More

Kate Morton was born in South Australia. Her book The House at Riverton was a Sunday Times #1 bestseller and a New York Times bestseller. The Shifting Fog won General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2007 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA). Her second book, The Forgotten Garden, was a #1 bestseller in Australia and Spain, and a Sunday Times #1 bestseller in the UK. It won General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2009 ABIAs and was an Amazon Best of the Month pick and a New York Times bestseller in 2009.

The Distant Hours was an international bestseller in 2010 and won General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2011 ABIAs. The Secret Keeper was a New York Times bestseller, and The Lake House, published in 2015, was a New York Times bestseller and a #1 bestseller in Canada and Australia. Read More

Richard Flanagan was born in Longford, Tasmania, in 1961 and grew up in the remote mining town of Rosebery on Tasmania’s western coast.

His novels, Death Of A River Guide, The Sound Of One Hand Clapping, Gould’s Book Of Fish, The Unknown Terrorist, Wanting and The Narrow Road to the Deep North have received numerous honours and are published in twenty-six countries. The Narrow Road to the Deep North won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

His latest book is First Person (2017). Read More

Helen Garner’s first novel, Monkey Grip, was published in 1977, and immediately established her as an original voice on the Australian literary scene. She is known for incorporating and adapting her personal experiences in her fiction, something that has brought her both praise and criticism, particularly with her novels, Monkey Grip and The Spare Room.

Garner has also written for film and theatre, and has consistently won awards for her work.

Her most recent books are Stories, a collection of short fiction & True Stories, a collection of short non-fiction. Read More

Morris Gleitzman grew up in England and came to Australia when he was sixteen. He was a frozen-chicken thawer, fashion-industry trainee, student, department-store Santa, TV producer, newspaper columnist and screenwriter.

Then he had a wonderful experience. He wrote a novel for young people. Now he's one of Australia's most popular children's authors. His books explore serious and sometimes confronting subjects in humorous and unexpected ways.

His titles include Two Weeks With The Queen, Doubting Thomas, Snot Chocolate and the series Once, Then, Now, After and Soon. Morris lives in Sydney and Brisbane, and his books are published in more than twenty countries. Read More

Judy Nunn's career has been long, illustrious and multifaceted. After combining her internationally successful acting career with scriptwriting for television and radio, Judy’s first three novels, The Glitter Game, Centre Stage and Araluen became instant bestsellers.

Her fame as a novelist has spread rapidly throughout Europe where she is published in English, German, French, Dutch, Czech and Spanish. Her subsequent bestsellers, Kal, Beneath The Southern Cross, Territory, Pacific, Heritage, Floodtide, Maralinga and Tiger Men confirm Judy's position as one of Australia's leading fiction writers.

Her most recent novel, Sanctuary, was published at the end of 2017. Read More

Jane Harper was born in Manchester in the UK, and moved to Australia with her family at age eight. She has worked for the Hull Daily Mail, the Geelong Advertiser and the Herald Sun. That inspired her to pursue creative writing more seriously, and that year she applied for the Curtis Brown Creative online 12-week novel writing course. She was accepted with a submission for the book that would become her bestselling novel The Dry.

The Dry launched Harper as an international bestseller and won her the CWA gold Dagger Award.

Her latest book is called Force of Nature. Read More

Colleen McCullough was born in western New South Wales in 1937. Before her tertiary education, McCullough earned a living as a teacher, librarian and journalist. In her first year of medical studies at the University of Sydney she suffered dermatitis from surgical soap and was told to abandon her dreams of becoming a medical doctor. Instead, she switched to neuroscience and worked at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.

In 1974 her first novel, Tim, was published in New York, followed by the bestselling The Thorn Birds in 1977 (her most well-known) and a string of successful novels, including the acclaimed Masters of Rome series. The depth of historical research for the novels on ancient Rome led to her being awarded a Doctors of Letters degree by Macquarie University. Read More

Emily Rodda’s first book, Something Special, was published in 1984. It marked the beginning of a career that has seen her become one of the most successful, prolific and versatile writers in Australia.

Emily has won the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award for a record five times. A former editor of The Women’s Weekly, Emily is also the best-selling author of adult mysteries under her own name of Jennifer Rowe. Her children’s books, for a range of ages and genres, exhibit a mastery of plot and character. She has been a full-time writer since 1994. Her four children, including twin boys, have given her plenty of inspiration over the years. Read More

Fiona McIntosh is an internationally bestselling author of novels for adults and children. She co-founded an award-winning travel magazine with her husband, which they ran for fifteen years while raising their twin sons before she became a full-time author.

Her books include The Chocolate Tin, The Perfumer’s Secret and Last Dance.

Fiona roams the world researching and drawing inspiration for her novels, and runs a series of highly respected fiction masterclasses. She calls South Australia home. Read More

Tony Park was born in 1964 and grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. He has worked as a newspaper reporter in Australia and England, a government press secretary, a public relations consultant, and freelance writer.

His novels have been acclaimed bestsellers since his very first, Far Horizon.

He is also a Major in the Australian Army Reserve and served six months in Afghanistan in 2002 as the public affairs officer for the Australian ground forces. He and his wife, Nicola, divide their time between Sydney and southern Africa where they own a home on the border of the Kruger National Park. Read More

May Gibbs (1877-1969) came to Australia at the age of four. Even as a child May drew and painted, encouraged by her parents. She studied art, both in Western Australia and in England, before settling in Sydney to follow a successful career as a writer and illustrator of children’s books.

Her most famous book, Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, was published in 1918. Her bestselling series featuring the Gumnut babies, their friends and their foes, established an enduring mythology of the Australian bush for generations raised firmly on traditional European fairytales.

In 1955, she received an MBE for her contribution to children’s literature. Read More

Jackie was the Australian Children's Laureate for 2014/15 and the 2015 Senior Australian of the Year.

She is also an historian, ecologist, dyslexic, and a passionate worker for literacy, the right of all children to be able to read, and the power of books.

Jackie's writing career spans 25 years, 148 wombats, over 140 books, 36 languages, 3,721 bush rats, and over 60 awards in Australia and overseas. Her books range from provocative historical fiction such as Hitler’s Daughter to the hilarious international bestseller, Diary of a Wombat with Bruce Whatley, as well as many nonfiction titles. Read More

Graeme Base is one of the world's leading creators of picture books. His alphabet book Animalia, received international acclaim when it was first published in 1986, and has achieved classic status with worldwide sales approaching three million copies. It has now inspired an animated TV series.

Other favourites by Graeme Base include The Eleventh Hour, My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch, The Sign of the Seahorse, The Discovery of Dragons, The Worst Band in the Universe, The Waterhole, Jungle Drums, Enigma and Uno's Garden.

Graeme lives in Melbourne with his artist wife, Robyn, and their three children. Read More

Hannah Kent is a Melbourne-based writer, born in Adelaide in 1985. Her first novel, Burial Rites, has been translated into over twenty languages and was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) and the Guardian First Book Award. It won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, the Indie Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year and the Victorian Premier's People's Choice Award, and has most recently been long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Her second novel, The Good People, is set in pre-famine rural Ireland. Hannah is also the co-founder and publishing director of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings. Read More

Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson (17 February 1864 - 5 February 1941) was an Australian bush journalist and author.

He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales where he spent much of his childhood.

He best known for his rousing folk classics The Man from Snowy River and Waltzing Matilda, is widely acknowledged as Australia’s greatest and most popular balladist. Read More

Luke Hines won the hearts of the Australian public with his healthy food revolution on the hit show 'My Kitchen Rules'. Luke is a qualified surf lifesaver, an internationally qualified personal trainer, certified functional nutritional therapy practitioner, published author and TV personality. He runs his own personal training business in Bondi and lives with his beloved black Labrador, Bailey. He was runner up in 2015’s Celebrity Men’s Health Man of The Year

Luke’s latest book is Healthy Made Easy (2017). Read More

An English teacher by trade, a supermarket owner by day, a mum 24/7, and a writer by night. In a relatively short space of time, Rachael has shown herself a force to be reckoned with, helping to bolster a new movement in Australian Romance writing.

At 17 she began writing, enlightened by the thought that she could create whatever ending she liked, and almost a decade later, after many, many attempts at writing different types of novels, she learnt about the craft, conflict, consistent characters for her books.

She lives in rural Western Australia with her husband and their three children. Read More

The Paul Jennings phenomenon began with the publication of Unreal! in 1985. Since then, readers all around the world have devoured his books. He has written over one hundred stories.

The top rating TV series Round the Twist and Driven Crazy are based on a selection of his enormously popular short-story collections.

In 1995 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to children's literature and was awarded the prestigious Dromkeen Medal in 2001. Paul has sold more than 8 million books worldwide. His latest title is called The Unforgettable What’s His Name. Read More