Our Presenters for 2026
We have a fabulous line-up of presenters across genres and involved with workshops, mentoring, pitching and other sessions listed on the Participation Page.
Bob Abbot
Bob Abbot is an electrician by trade, a musician at heart and a politician by choice. He is former Mayor for Noosa and the first Mayor of the Sunshine Coast LGA was undefeated in ten consecutive elections, retiring in 2012 after 30 years in local government. Bob is a politician who wears his heart on his sleeve, and with his passion, quick wit and his ability to think outside the square he has earned a formidable reputation in Queensland politics. He has also been a fisherman, a labourer, a black smiths striker, a musician, a singer, a cook, a barman and a bouncer. Bob prides himself on being a man of the people!
Ali Almond
Ali Almond is a journalist, producer and self-described Professional Media Manipulator whose career has spanned journalism, public affairs and political communications across Australia and New Zealand.
As a Media Advisor to The Hon Bob Katter MP and The Rt Hon Winston Peters, and later working alongside The Hon Christopher Pyne, Ali has helped shape political campaigns, government communications and national media coverage.
She later joined the ABC, where she produced and reported across news, sport reporting, long-form sports feature writing and podcasts, telling stories from local communities to the international stage.
Ali is also the creator of the critically acclaimed autobiographical podcast The Foster Files, which draws on her own Queensland government records to uncover the extraordinary story of growing up in foster care, identity and belonging.Whether she's covering politics, profiling elite athletes or exploring deeply personal stories, Ali is passionate about finding the human story behind the headline.
Renee Barnes
Renee Barnes is an Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Her research focuses on how and why and how people engage with the news and the broader information ecosystem. A recent project examined political news avoidance behaviours of citizens in liberal democracies and authoritarian nations. She is the cief investigator on an Office of National Intelligence funded project that is examing what makes Australian vulnerable to political deepfake videos .Prior to joining academia, Renee was a journalist of more than fifteen years Renee has worked for numerous media organisations including the ABC, The Age and Australian Associated Press. She is the author of two books, Fandom and Polarization in Online Political Discussion: From Pop Culture to Politics (Palgrave 2022) and Uncovering Commenting Culture: Trolls, Fanboys and Lurkers, (Palgrave Macmillan 2018).
Jacqueline Blanchard
Jacqueline Blanchard is an award-winning book editor with more than 25 years' experience working collaboratively with Australian writers to develop and refine manuscripts. She has held senior editorial roles at leading publishing houses in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and now leads the editorial team and internship program at UQP. Her work spans adult literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, supporting both emerging and established authors. She has edited books by Matthew Condon, Larissa Behrendt, Ian Kemish and Sally Piper. An alumna of the APA Residential Editorial Program, she received the inaugural Rosanne Fitzgibbon Award and is co-curator of Beyond the Margins: Australian Editors in Conversation, a project that champions the work of book editors.
Anna Campbell
Brisbane-based author Anna Campbell has written over 50 bestselling historical romances which have been published in 23 languages. In April 2026, she celebrated 20 years since her debut Claiming the Courtesan sold at auction to HarperCollins in New York. Anna's books offer a rich, sensual exploration of the glamorous world of Regency Britain. Her books have won numerous awards, including Australian Romance Readers' Favourite Historical Romance of the Year (5 times) and Novella of the Year from Romance Writers of Australia. Anna regularly conducts training and mentorships for many local organisations including the Queensland Writers Centre. Her website is www.annacampbell.com.
Dr Suzanne Campin
This is Dr Suzanne Campin's second year as Festival Director. She has a background across sectors including the arts. She lives in beautiful Eumundi and is the President of the Eumundi Residents Association of which the Eumundi Writers Festival is one project. Suzie is also an art guide at QAGOMA and a would-be emerging writer. She takes great delighting in curating a festival that is all about writers and inspiring conversations that matter.
Dominic Cleary
Dominic Cleary is a 22-year-old economics and arts student at the University of Queensland, with interests spanning anthropology, history, rock climbing and travel. His studies have encouraged a broader curiosity about how societies organise themselves and how cultures develop. Combined with an appetite for adventure, this curiosity has led him to spend his university breaks backpacking through the Balkans, the Caucasus and, most recently, West Africa with his dad. A highlight of the trip was an unforgettable, if freezing, journey through the Sahara in an empty iron ore wagon.
Simon Cleary
Simon Cleary is a writer and barrister who grew up in Toowoomba before studying literature and law. Simon's most recent book, Everything is Water - a finalist in the Queensland Literary Awards Work of State Significance Award for 2025 - is a work of creative non-fiction, shaped by his 344 km journey by foot along the banks of the Brisbane River from its source to Moreton Bay. It considers our complex relationship with nature and explores the ways rivers connect people, landscapes, ecologies, histories, communities and myth. Simon is also the author of three acclaimed novels.
The Comfort of Figs (2008), set during the construction of the Story Bridge in Brisbane, explores the changes to landscape that come with the creation of cities. Simon's second novel, Closer to Stone (winner, People's Choice Award at the Queensland Literary Awards, 2012) is a quest that takes readers deep into the Sahara and deals with consequences of extreme beliefs. The War Artist (2018) set in the aftermath of the Afghanistan war, interrogates the human cost of war for communities as well as for soldiers, and explores the regenerative power of love. Simon's work has featured in artistic and musical collaborations and adaptations, and includes poetry and shorter fiction.
Sarah Clutton
Sarah Clutton lives in a storybook village in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales on Gundungurra and Tharawal country. She is a refugee advocate, mother and writer of uplifting fiction who has previously dabbled as a judge's associate, insurance claims supervisor, litigation lawyer, philanthropic foundation manager and ghost-writer. In 2018 she was the national recipient of the Dymocks/McIntosh Commercial Fiction Scholarship. Her bestselling novel The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains pays homage to her early years on a farm in Northwest Tasmania. The Bookshop of Buried Pasts, an emotive mystery spanning continents and decades, is her fourth novel.
Sarah Cochrane Ridout
Sarah Cochrane Ridout's first novel Le Chateau, was published after selection for the QWC/Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Program. A Katherine Susannah Prichard Fellow, Sarah has a First-Class Honours Masters in Creative Writing from University College Dublin (UCD). Her Creative Australia grant for Sisters in Arms included First Nations Cultural Sensitivity Report and editing by Barkindji woman Dr Allanah Hunt.
Sarah always wanted to write about her grandmother's activism in the 1967 Referendum and lifelong friendship with Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker). Sisters in Arms is that book. It was written with the full permission of her grandfather, Bob Cochrane, and Denis Walker, Oodgeroo Noonuccal's son.
Roslyn Copas
Roslyn Copas has been a professional editor for over 30 years. She is a long-time member of the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd), Queensland Writers Centre, and Plain Language International. She also holds a Master of Arts in Writing, Editing and Publishing, and has maintained IPEd Accredited Editor (AE) status since 2008. Roslyn specialises in supporting teams writing publications for Asia-Pacific aid and development programs, and she has also assisted authors of diverse works of local history, memoir, children's fiction, and professional and personal development. She is dedicated to making the editing process a reassuring and empowering experience for writers.
Dr Jodi-Maree Cronin
Dr Jodi-Maree Cronin is the director of Dogz 4 Life and founder of Canine Integrative Relational Therapy. A retired doctor, medical manager and educator, she now specialises in assistance dog training and animal-assistance therapy.
With qualifications spanning medicine, counselling and animal behaviour, Jodi brings an empathetic, evidence-based approach to supporting people impacted by trauma and life challenges. Her work is guided by a deep belief in the healing power of the human-animal bond.
As the author of Benni: The best medicine has paws, Jodi-Maree is becoming a strong advocate for the power of the human-animal bond.
Jo Edgar-Baker
Jo Edgar-Baker is a qualified graphic designer and local writer of historical and speculative fiction. She loves to combine her two passions, designing book covers for author clients and her own self-published stories. Festival Director's Note: This is Jo's second year contributing to the creative direction and strategy behind the image and presentation of our festival with her generous involvement as an inspiring and talented volunteer.
Kerry Davies
Kerry Davies has been a professional editor for more than 45 years, much of it freelance, and was manager of Indigenous publisher Magabala Books in its early days. She established her freelance business in Sydney in 1996, later moving to Brisbane. The rise of self-publishing led to an increasing demand for her services from independent authors, predominantly in fiction, with a smattering of memoir, narrative non-fiction and academic theses. She has been heavily involved with IPEd and Editors Queensland since 2010. Kerry is also a judge of the English-Speaking Union's Roly Sussex Short Story Competition (2026 competition is now open).
Ezekiel Davis
Ezekiel Davis is a Kabi Kabi traditional custodian and representative of the Sunshine Coast Mooloolah people . Zeke was born and raised om the Sunshine Coast and has been performing Aboriginal song and dance since the age of one with his father's dance troupe Gubbi Gubbi Dance . He is and now presenting cultural programs within our local schools and community. Zeke is proud to be able to share local Kabi Kabi language history and cultural storytelling. Promoting our shared responsibility of caring for country and custodianship.
Laura Elvery
Laura Elvery is the author of Trick of the Light and Ordinary Matter, which won the 2021 USQ Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection, and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance and the 2022 Barbara Jefferis Award. Laura has won the Josephine Ulrick Prize for Literature, the Margaret River Short Story Competition, the Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize and the Fair Australia Prize for Fiction. Her first novel, Nightingale, won the People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award at the 2025 Queensland Literary Awards and was shortlisted for the Fiction Book Award. Laura has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies from QUT. She lives in Brisbane.
Kylie Fennell
Kylie Fennell is an Australian and Gumbaynggirr storyteller of spellbinding tales infused with big love and infinite magic. Stitched with heart, heritage and a wicked twist of humour, her romantic fantasy books are fast-paced, emotionally rich and full of wonder, wit and fierce heroines who don't wait to be saved. Whether she's conjuring secrets in Victorian ballrooms or creating magical versions of the modern world, Kylie weaves unforgettable stories of love, power and destiny. Off the page, Kylie lives in Meanjin/Magandjin (Brisbane) with her husband, son and too many pets.
Kári Gíslason
Kári Gíslason is a writer and academic who teaches creative writing and literary studies at QUT. He is the author of The Promise of Iceland (UQP, 2011), which told the story of return journeys he's made to his birthplace, and the novels The Ash Burner (UQP, 2015) and The Sorrow Stone (UQP, 2022). He is also the co-author, with Richard Fidler, of Saga Land (HarperCollins, 2017), which won the Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2018. His most recent book, the memoir of fatherhood Running with Pirates, was released with UQP in August 2024.
Magnús Gíslason
Magnús Gíslason is a student who is currently completing Year 12 in Brisbane. In 2022, he took part in his father Kári's journey to Greece that is featured in the family memoir Running with Pirates (UQP, 2024).
Lisa Hill
Lisa Hill has been a professional academic editor for over 12 years, specialising in doctoral theses and academic research publications across the humanities, arts and social sciences. She has a PhD in media studies, a diploma in professional editing, and 13 years' experience teaching and researching media and communications in Australian universities. She is a full member of the Institute of Professional Editors and coordinator of the Sunshine Coast sub-group of Editors Queensland. Lisa is passionate about clarity and consistency in academic writing and considers it a privilege to help clients achieve their academic and publishing goals.
Declan Humphreys
Declan Humphreys is a philosopher of technology, who lectures in ethics at the University of the Sunshine Coast. His current area of research focuses on how artificial intelligence (AI) affects our ethics, culture, and society today and what it means for our future. He has written and talked about AI bias, deathbots, and human-AI relationships among other things. In 2025 he was a winner of the ABC's prestigious TOP5 media residency, and has since produced and appeared on a number of programs on Radio National. He is also host of a new independent philosophy podcast currently in production.
Ian Kemish AM
Ian Kemish AM is a former Australian diplomat who served as ambassador to Germany, high commissioner to Papua New Guinea, international adviser to the Prime Minister, and head of the consular and crisis management service. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his leadership of the emergency response to the 2002 Bali bombings.Ian's first book, The Consul (UQP, 2022), offered a Australia's foreign affairs challenges over two decades - spanning personal perspective on hostage diplomacy, natural disasters and evacuations from war zones. His first work of fiction, Two Islands (UQP 2026) draws on both his diplomatic work in the Balkans in the mid-1990s and his recorded very strong sales and attracted glowing reviews for the way it highlights the power of human kindness in standing up to Evil.
Robyn Kent
Robyn Kent is a professional editor with more than 10 years'experience across freelance and in-house editing roles. She is currently senior editor at R.I.C. Publications. In her first career as a teacher in early childhood and special education, Robyn often adjusted texts to meet the needs of her students. After completing a Graduate Certificate in Editing and Publishing (USQ), she attained IPEd accreditation in 2012. She is a professional member of IPEd. Robyn has edited fiction, non-fiction, academic projects, research theses, government documents and educational content (print and digital). Her clients appreciate her clear communication and collaborative approach.
Ellenie Faith Kirkman
Ellenie Faith Kirkman is a nineteen-year-old Australian artist. She has been oil painting for the last three years but has been drawing almost every single day since she was a child. In 2024 Ellenie had her first solo exhibition, "Gifts from Artemis' Table" which was a celebration of the transition into adulthood expressed through her art. At the start of 2025 she began working with the Brisbane based Aspire Gallery, which has represented her at events such as the Affordable Art Fair in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, Towers and Downlands art shows. Earlier this year, she was awarded the Mary Snow Emerging Artist award by Fairholme Art Prize. She draws inspiration from her childhood, the beauty of human connection and romanticising the little things in life and tries to focus on this in her work.
Todd Maguire
Todd Maguire spent 27 years with the Queensland Police Service - undercover operations, major crime investigations, tactical operations, counter-terrorism, bomb detection and work across the state. He helped put away traffickers, violent offenders and major criminal networks.
He's received a Certificate of Recognition and a Commissioner's Citation for his work infiltrating organised crime groups and helping bring more than 500 charges across major operations.
But behind the medals and commendations was a bloke carrying more than anyone knew.
Shelby Matheson
Shelby Matheson is a multi-genre author from Hervey Bay, Queensland, currently publishing in the middle-grade and young-adult space. Her debut series, Elsewhere, is a middle-grade historical fantasy trilogy set in WWI, published by Wombat Books. She is a member of the exclusive Rhiza Shorts writing group, run by Rhiza Press, producing accessible novellas for reluctant teen readers. Shelby has a Bachelor in journalism and creative writing, and a graduate diploma in editing and publishing from USQ. She has been writing full-length novels since she was fourteen and has always known that being an author is the only career for her. In her spare time, she enjoys video games, drawing, crochet, collecting books (and even reading them), but her greatest passion will always be writing and escaping to the worlds in her head.
Rosanna Natoli
Rosanna Natoli was elected Mayor of the Sunshine Coast in March 2024, but has served the Sunshine Coast community for almost three decades. Her focus now is to help create a better Sunshine Coast for the people who live here currently, and the generations to come. She began her career as a journalist and presenter for Seven News and has been a familiar face on television screens across Queensland. She has worked extensively with community groups and charities covering news and creating events that celebrate life on the Sunshine Coast. Rosanna has also worked as a university academic, researcher, and lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast for 25 years, in the communications school. Rosanna has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Queensland, a Graduate Diploma in Communication from QUT.? She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has co-authored four journal articles published in peer reviewed journals.
Roxanne McCarty-O'Kane
Roxanne McCarty-O'Kane is a multi-award-winning ghostwriter, author, writing mentor and former journalist who has helped hundreds of aspiring authors bring their nonfiction books to life. Roxanne is best known for her Ignite & Write Author Community and her internationally embraced book trilogy, which guide writers from mindset to manuscript to publication with confidence and purpose. Her workshops and presentations are filled with practical tools and down-to-earth, inspiring storytelling that removes the mystery from the writing process.
A passionate advocate for everyday storytellers, Roxanne's Ignite & Write is fast becoming a global hub for writer support and guidance. She continues to empower people everywhere to ignite their stories and share them with the world.
Laura Jean McKay
Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country - winner of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. The French translation, Les animaux de ce pays, won the 2025 Prix Gargantua. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia, and her latest collection is Gunflower. She was the 2025 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Fellow to Cork, Ireland, and teaches Creative Writing at Massey University.
Paula McLean
Paula McLean is immediate past Deputy Chair of the Stella Prize and a NSW Ambassador. She splits her time between Sydney and the historic village of Berrima in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. Her career has spanned book publishing, freelance editing, cultural advocacy and philanthropy. Her family foundation, McLean Foundation, supports literature, conservation, education and domestic violence programs. She is Patron of the domestic violence day centre Pop In, a member of the national She Gives Advisory Group, and founded the Nature Writing Prize. In 2022 she received Philanthropy Australia's Life Time Achievement Award. The One Remaining is her debut novel.
Sue McPherson
Sue McPherson: Sue is a Freescribing Storyteller who lives on the Sunshine Coast. As a writer Sue enjoys making change, pushing boundaries and challenging her readers and audience.
Currently Sue writes for TV, Film, Scripted Podcasts and for Young Adult fiction. She loves meeting people from all walks of life, they are her inspiration.
Steve MinOn
Steve MinOn was an internationally awarded advertising copywriter before becoming a writer of fiction and children's picture books. Born in North Queensland, he now lives in Magandjin/Brisbane. Steve's debut novel, First Name Second Name (UQP 2025), was shortlisted for the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the 2026 MUD Literary Award and won the unpublished manuscript award at the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards. It was also nominated for the 2026 Dublin Literary Award. His children's picture book, Make Them Say Poo (Affirm 2026) was published under his pen name, Stephen and was illustrated by Rudi de Wet.
He has written often about outsiders and his family's mixed-race ancestral history and his articles and stories have been published in SBS Voices and various newspapers, journals and anthologies.
Kristina Olsson
Kristina Olsson is an award-winning writer of fiction, non-fiction and journalism. Her 2009 novel The China Garden won the Barbara Jefferis Award and was shortlisted for the Kibble Prize. Her 2013 memoir, Boy, Lost, garnered multiple awards including the Queensland, New South Wales and West Australian Premiers awards for non-fiction and the Kibble Prize. Her most recent novel, Shell, launched the legendary Scribner Australia literary imprint and was shortlisted in several major literary awards. She is currently working on a memoir set in Sweden and northern Norway that tracks the life of another lost child.
Jayne Osborne - Pan MacMillan
Having spent much of my career so far working in commercial fiction, including at a digital-first publisher, I am a great reader and fan of almost all types of commercial fiction. Now I am delighted to commission more broadly, including book club and upmarket fiction and narrative non-fiction, but a rich and propulsive storyline is still a non-negotiable for me.
Sweeping sagas, laugh-out-loud rom-coms, twisty psychological suspense, gritty crime, sharp contemporary fiction - I am here for it all. I especially love anything with a unique voice, a spectacular sense of place or a killer hook. Please note that my list is adult only, and while I enjoy a light-touch speculative element, I am not the right reader for deep genre science fiction or fantasy. In terms of non-fiction, I am looking for engaging memoir and thoughtful approaches to social and environmental issues, with a focus on intersectionality.
Clancy Overell
Clancy Overell is a much loved satirical Outback journalist who claims to have over forty years experience in rural newspapers. He is always based out of Betoota in Queensland's Channel Country. Between his many different desks at The Betoota Advocate, he also claims to have worked as a ringer, tent boxer, roo-shooter and fencer - before becoming the editor of Australia's famed The Betoota Advocate.
David Shield
David Shield is Vice Chair of the Queensland writers centre and an award winning writer and literary translator. He writes works in genres such as children's, fantasy and historical fiction and has an abiding love affair with classical Japanese literature. When he is not writing David is a Japanese English medical interpreter and tutor in business communications at the University of Queensland.
Jack Roney
Jack Roney is a retired Queensland police officer and former detective. His crime fiction is influenced by real experiences. His latest novel 'Black Gully' was shortlisted in the Plaza Crime Prize and Hawkeye Manuscript Development Prize. His first novel 'The Ghost Train and the Scarlet Moon' was the runner up in the Hawkeye Prize and book 1 of his Detective Jarrod O'Connor series 'The Angels Wept' was shortlisted in the Watpad Awards. He co-hosts the Genre Fiction Podcast and is currently studying a Masters degree in Writing Editing and Publishing at University of Queensland.
The Honorable Dr. Kevin Rudd AC
The Honorable Dr. Kevin Rudd AC is a leading international authority on China. He currently serves as Global President and CEO of Asia Society. Rudd is also Founding President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, a "think-and-do tank" focused on U.S.-Asia relations, and the Founding Chair of its Center for China Analysis. Dr. Rudd returned to lead Asia Society in March 2026 following three years as Australia's Ambassador to the United States under the Trump and Biden Administrations. He previously served as Australia's 26th Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010 and as Foreign Minister from 2010 to 2012, before returning as Prime Minister in 2013. He has published two books on U.S.-China relations, On Xi Jinping (2024) and The Avoidable War (2022), which have been translated into more than seven languages.
Edwina Shaw
Edwina Shaw is a Queensland author and editor of fiction, memoir and screenplays. She is the author of Dear Madman, A Guide Through Grief, Thrill Seekers, In the Dark of Night and over 40 short pieces that have appeared in literary journals and anthologies including Best Australian Stories. She is the editor of Bjelke Blues and Hard As, and co-editor of Queersland and Our Inside Voices. She has been teaching creative writing at UQ and in the community for over 20 years. She also runs Relax and Write Retreats and is co-director of Transformational Writing Retreats. Dear Madman is the story she was born to tell. www.edwinashaw.com
Sheridan Stewart
Sheridan Stewart is an author and radio broadcaster known for her insightful, inspiring, and relatable style. Plus, she brings the fun! A popular former FM presenter (Triple M), music journalist, comedy producer and speaker before joining the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 2014, Sheridan can be heard on ABC Radio Queensland (Sunshine Coast) when she's not swimming or writing!
Sheridan's first non-fiction book, I Am Enough - a 90-Day Challenge to Find Contentment, was released in the UK, AUS/NZ and the US in 2023, and her fiction has been published in the Chicago Quarterly Review.
Learn more at www.sheridanstewart.com
Follow Sheridan https://www.instagram.com/sheridan.stewart/
Joni Scott
Joni Scott is a local Sunshine Coast writer with five published novels. Three form the historical fiction Sisters Time Trilogy set 1900 to 1950 based on a true story and set in Sydney and Europe. Two of these Joni wrestled back from a publisher to self-publish herself. Joni's other two novels are contemporary romance, The Last Hotel set in France and Colour Comes to Tangles set locally on Buderim Mountain. Joni has also published short stories with Stringybark Stories and was shortlisted for Minds Shine Bright. She describes her style as sweet, romantic and literary. Publishing- wise, she's tried them all, traditional, hybrid and self-publishing, learning a few tricks along the way. Although Joni is a biochemist and maths/science tutor, she loves history which she lectures in for U3A. Her website joniscottauthor.com features not only her book details but an ongoing blog mostly on history topics. You can find Joni's books in local bookstores, Eumundi Book Barn, Annie's Books at Peregian, Rosetta's Books and The Bookshop at Caloundra.
K. M. Steele
K. M. Steele has four published novels, holds a PhD in English Literature/ Creative Writing from Macquarie University and teaches Creative Writing at Southern Cross University. She designed Jumpstart your Writing to be accessible and inspirational. Students are guided through the basics of setting, plot, character, theme, point of view, dialogue and critical reading. All hands-on activities are guided, but voluntary. Students have the opportunity to write in the workshop and are encouraged to think about creativity and inspiration in everyday life, and each participant receives a printed handbook with activities and references. The workshop is very popular and receives positive feedback - participants leave feeling inspired and ready to write!
Roland (Roly) Sussex
Roland (Roly) Sussex "retired" from being Professor of Applied Language Studies at The University of Queensland in 2010. Since then he has been conducting research, especially on pain, communication and intercultural communication, supervising research students, and broadcasting and writing on language, especially since 1997 with ABC radio in Brisbane. He gives numerous talks each year to academic conferences and community organizations on language and communication.
He enjoys working on his acreage to the west of Brisbane, riding bikes seriously in lycra for fitness and fun, reading, listening to classical music, and being a father to his two grown-up children, and grandfather to his two grandchildren.
Dr Faith Valencia-Forrester
Dr Faith Valencia-Forrester is a writer, educator, and Associate Professor at Charles Sturt University, where she leads Work-Integrated Learning. She holds a PhD in the field and has spent years helping writers and students think more clearly, write with integrity, and navigate new tools with confidence. Faith is a practitioner of ethical AI collaboration in her own creative and critical work, and brings warmth, curiosity, and practical wisdom to everything she facilitates.
Anna Valdinger - HarperCollins
Anna started her publishing career in London as an editor first for a literary agency and then at Pan Macmillan. After moving to Australia in 2008 she joined HarperCollins in 2009 to take responsibility for developing the local commercial fiction list. As Fiction and Voyager Publisher she looks after a wide list of Australian authors including Dervla McTiernan, Fleur McDonald, Nicola Moriarty, Tara Moss, Dinuka McKenzie and Belinda Alexandra, as well as international authors such as Karin Slaughter, Maggie Alderson and Daniel Silva. Her focus is on engrossing, page-turning fiction with strong characters and fabulous storytelling.
Anna is always looking for all kinds of good adult commercial fiction (except sci-fi, short stories or novellas), with a strong plot and characters to love.
Yvette Kirby Waters
Yvette Kirby Waters is creatively independent after a long career in technical and marketing communication for Seattle's Fortune 100 companies. Bored with ghostwriting think pieces for executives, Yvette parlayed professional experience in the games industry and stage and film production into founding Minerva Interactive, under which she published a proof-of-concept "illuminated novel", Playing Pride & Prejudice An Austen Armoire. Yvette is deep in the skunkworks of writing her first science fiction novel. She grew up in Hawaii, speaks French, and loves astronomy, travel, street food, and classic tales of romantic adventure… And now you know what her novel is about!
Gillian Wills
Gillian Wills writes for ABR, Limelight and InReview and has published with The Australian, Courier Mail, Griffith Review, Artist Profile, ArtsHub and other publications. Gillian is the author of Big Music, a novel set in a music conservatorium which was inspired by her 9-year term as the first female dean of music at the Victorian College of the Arts. Big Music was featured as a notable book in The Australian in 2024 and won the Golden Able Award for Best Fiction in 2025. Her short stories have been published by Hare's Paw Literary Journal, Dillydoun Review, Bewildering Stories, Underground Writers, The Dewdrop and The Antonym. In 2023, her short story Snake reached the semi-finals of Button Eye Reviews' Creative Fiction Award. This year a new edition of her memoir Elvis and Me: How a musician and a broken racehorse rescued each other (Hawkeye Publishing) was released on the 1 August. Gillian has held several senior roles in Australia and also overseas, including the role of National Music Officer on the Gulbenkian Funded Arts in Schools Project directed by Sir Ken Robinson. She is an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for distinguished services to the music industry.
Dr. Kevin Wilson
Dr. Kevin Wilson has been as a gallery director and curator since the 1990s. He has directed public galleries in Melbourne, Albury, Noosa, and Brisbane. From 2012 he was principally a curator developing a range of innovative social history, fine arts and craft and design exhibitions at the State Library of Queensland, QUT Art Museum and artisan. For the last 4 years he has been coordinating the Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre. He was the creator of The Linden Postcard Show and The Floating Land art and environment biennial. He regularly writes essays for artists and reviews and teaches artists how to write about their own work.
Michelle Worthington
Michelle Worthington is an award-winning Australian author, producer, editor, and advocate whose work champions diversity, inclusion, and authentic storytelling. Best known for her internationally published children's books, she explores themes of belonging, resilience, disability, family, and self-discovery. As an autistic creator and parent of neurodivergent children, Michelle brings a unique perspective to conversations about creativity, identity, and the human condition. She is the founder of Clann Productions, an independent production company dedicated to inclusive storytelling. Through her writing, filmmaking, and mentoring, Michelle helps create stories that foster empathy, connection, and understanding.
Vivienne Wynter
Vivienne Wynter is a journalist, publisher and creative writer. She read the news for ABC and commercial radio and has published news features in several capital city newspapers. She taught journalism and writing at Queensland universities for 20 years. Vivienne's creative writing has been published in several anthologies. Her short story, I want Candy, was broadcast on ABC Radio's Sunday Story. Vivienne publishes The Pineapple, an independent, constructive news and creative writing platform based in Queensland. Hawkeye Publishing will release Vivienne's autofiction novel, Sunny, about leaving your family and keeping them at the same time, in 2027.
