Sarah was a journalist at the ABC where she won a Walkley Award. She’s written three novels, including Salt Rain which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Big Magic is her first novel for children and its sequel will be out in 2023. She lives in Mullumbimby with her partner, the writer, Alan Close and their young daughter.
Performing writer Miles Merrill brought poetry slams to Australia from Chicago. He is the spark for dozens of spoken word programs across the Asia-Pacific region. He has hosted an ABC TV special on poetry slams and performed solo at Sydney Opera House.
Merrill is the co-author of Slam Your Poetry- How to Write a Revolution. He publishes award- winning poetry in print, audio and video but he is best experienced live. Catch him touring music festivals, theatres, galleries, schools…everywhere, like Krakow’s Audio Art Festival and writers’ festivals in Singapore, Hong Kong, India…anywhere his word travels.
He is founder of the Australian Poetry Slam (APS), an international performing writers’ program, which sees about 1000 writers performing in 80 events across the Asia-Pacific every year. APS culminates annually in October with Story Week: a national performing writers’ celebration.
Merrill’s practice, as Creative Director of the literary arts organization Word Travels, focuses on empowering people from diverse and marginalized communities to share their stories and poems with the world. Through this role he has taught leaders of non-profits in places like Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe to monitor and evaluate their impact.
Matthew Condon has been a journalist for more than 30 years, and for almost a decade has been investigating crime and corruption in Queensland. He interviewed disgraced former Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis for over three years and had exclusive access to Lewis’ private papers. That research became Condon’s bestselling true crime trilogy – Three Crooked Kings, Jacks and Jokers and All Fall Down.
Most recently he has been investigating the fatal Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub firebombing in Brisbane in 1973. His book on the subject is The Night Dragon. In 2020/21 he released a podcast – Ghost Gate Road – on the subject. It went to #1 on both the Australian and New Zealand Apple podcast charts.
Matt currently works as a feature writer for the Weekend Australian Magazine and is an Associate Professor at Griffith University where he teaches journalism. In 2019 he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the community.
Lynda Hawryluk is a writer, poet and academic who coordinates the Associate Degree of Creative Writing at Southern Cross University. She also serves on the Byron Writers Festival Board.
Kerry O’Brien anchored the iconic ABC current affairs programs Lateline, 7.30 and Four Corners for more than 25 years. His latest book is Kerry O’Brien: A Memoir.
Jill Eddington has enjoyed a long career in the literary sector including in festivals, publishing and at the Australia Council for the Arts.
Erik Jensen is the editor-in-chief of Schwartz Media and founding editor of The Saturday Paper. He is the author of Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen, On Kate Jennings and The Prosperity Gospel. His latest book is a collection of poems, I Said the Sea Was Folded. Jensen has won the Nib Prize for Literature and been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and the Walkley Book Award. He has written for film and television. The film adaptation of his first book won the Critics’ Prize at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Chris Hanley OAM is the Founder of Byron Writers Festival and was Chair for 20 years until 2016. He is the Principal of Byron Bay First National.
Ashley Hay is an award-winning novelist and essayist whose work has been praised for its ‘incandescent intelligence and a rare sensibility’. Her prizes include the Foundation of Australian Literary Studies’ Colin Roderick Award, the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Peoples’ Choice, and the Bragg/UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing. Her books – including The Railwayman’s Wife and A Hundred Small Lessons – have been published to critical acclaim and commercial success in Australia, the US, the UK and in translation. A revised and updated edition of her popular 2002 narrative non-fiction book, Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and Their Champions, was published in late 2021.
She was the editor of Australia’s leading literary journal, the quarterly Griffith Review from 2018 until mid-2022. She lives in Brisbane.
