Our Top 50 countdown continues with more incredible Australian authors making our Australia’s Favourite Author poll, so here are numbers 40 to 31!

This month we asked you to nominate your favourite Australian authors and we had over 1000 authors nominated – incredible! Next came the voting rounds over three weeks in the Heats and Finals. We’ve collated all your votes and are ready to announce your Top 50 Favourite Australian Authors for 2018.

We received thousands of votes, so thank you all for taking the time to do so. Your authors thank you, and hopefully they’ll pen another book as a sign of their gratitude.

Today we take a look at your favourite authors, 40-31. Congratulations to all the authors who have been voted into the Top 50! Scroll down and you’ll see amazing Aussie authors like media phenomenon Rosie Waterland, rock’n’roll legend Jimmy Barnes and prolific author Peter FitzSimons, bringing Australian history to life.

This week we’ll be counting down your Favourite Australian Authors, all leading up to the big reveal on Thursday, where we’ll be announcing your Top 10 and… your #1 Favourite Australian Author!

Check out the authors who were ranked 50-41 here.

Check out the authors who were ranked 30-21 here.

Check out the authors who were ranked 20-11 here.

So without further ado, meet the authors ranked 40-31:

Australia’s Favourite Australian Authors: 40-31

40. Alison Lester

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.

Her picture books include Running With the Horses, One Small Island, Sophie Scott Goes South, and Kissed by the Moon.

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. Visit Alison’s Booktopia author page.

39. Garth Nix

Garth Nix was born in Melbourne, Australia. He previously worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve.

Garth’s books include the award-winning young adult fantasy Old Kingdom series; 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 Trouble Twisters series and Spirit Animals: Blood Ties (co-written with Sean Williams). Garth’s has recently released Goldenhand (2016), the next in The Old Kingdom Series. Garth chats about this latest book, Frogkisser!, on the Booktopia podcast.  Visit Garth’s Booktopia author page.

38. Shaun Tan

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. Visit Shaun’s Booktopia author page.

37. Kate Forsyth

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

Her most recent children’s book is Battle of the Heroes. She completed a doctorate in fairytale retellings and her books have been published in 17 countries. She lives in Sydney, with her husband, three children, a rambunctious Rhodesian Ridgeback, a bad-tempered black cat, and many thousands of books.

Listen to Kate’s podcast with us on her latest book Beauty in Thorns. Visit Kate’s Booktopia author page.

36. Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks is an author and journalist who grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney. She worked as a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald for three years as a feature writer with a special interest in environmental issues.

Geraldine has won many awards over the years, including the Greg Shackleton Australian News Correspondents scholarship to the journalism master’s program at Columbia University in New York City, the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of the Gulf War and 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 best sellers. Her first novel, Year of Wonders, is an an international bestseller, translated into more than 25 languages. She is also the author of the non-fiction works Nine Parts of Desire, Foreign Correspondence and The Idea of Home. 

Her latest book is The Secret Chord. Visit Geraldine’s Booktopia author page.

35. Jimmy Barnes

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. 

Jimmy has sold over 12 million albums and he has been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame twice. Jimmy has released a two-part memoir of his life. The first, Working Class Boy, all about his rough childhood and the second, Working Class Man, about his life after he joined rock’n’roll band Cold Chisel.

Listen to our podcast with Jimmy on Working Class Boy and Working Class Man. Visit Jimmy’s Booktopia author page.

34. Peter FitzSimons

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. His latest history book is Burke and Wills and you can listen to his podcast with Booktopia here. He has also recently released The Great Aussie Bloke Slim-Down, you can listen to his podcast here.

Visit Peter’s Booktopia author page.

33. Isobelle Carmody

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, and has since written many works in this genre. 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, the first book of which, The Red Wind, won the CBCA Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers in 2011. She has also written several picture books as well as collections of short stories for children, young adults and adults.

Isobelle’s latest book is book 3 in The Kingdom of the Lost series, The Ice Maze. Listen to our podcast with Isobelle on this series.

Isobelle was voted Australia’s Favourite Author in 2016! Visit Isobelle’s Booktopia author page.

32. Rosie Waterland

Rosie Waterland is a media phenomenon. 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’. Her Facebook page hit 20,000 likes in its first week. The Bachelor recaps she wrote 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.

Her latest memoir is Every Lie I’ve Ever Told, check out her podcast with us on her latest hit. Visit Rosie’s Booktopia author page.

31. Kate Grenville 

Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s best-known authors. She’s 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. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Award. Several of her novels have been made into major feature films, and all have been translated into European and Asian languages.

In March 2010 Kate Grenville was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of New South Wales and in November 2012 she was awarded the same honour by the University of Sydney.

Kate’s latest book is The Case Against Fragrance. Visit Kate’s Booktopia author page.

Check out the authors who were ranked 50-41 here.

Check out the authors who were ranked 30-21 here.

Check out the authors who were ranked 20-11 here.

Return tomorrow for the next round of results: Australia’s Favourite Australian Authors (30-21)

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About the Contributor

Bronwyn Eley

Before entering the exciting world of books, Bronwyn served in the Royal Australian Air Force, travelled extensively and worked (still does!) as a barista on the weekends. Books are her true passion. Bronwyn's debut fantasy novel Relic is coming out in 2019 with indie publishing house Talem Press. They are to publish her entire trilogy called The Relic Trilogy. In her spare time, Bronwyn writes, reads and enjoys keeping fit (which she undoes by eating loads of chocolate) with Martial Arts and personal training. She can't answer what her favourite book is but she has a soft spot for Peter Pan (J.M Barrie), Outlander (Diana Gabaldon), Stardust (Neil Gaiman), The Illuminae Files (Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman) and Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo). Fantasy, sci-fi and YA make up the majority of her bookshelves.

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