StoryBoard is proud to present our captivating team of authors & illustrators. With unique creative backgrounds, they offer an array of exciting workshops and presentations. Click on an author's name to find out more about their programs, expertise and passions.

Shel (Michelle) Sweeney is a freelance editor, writing mentor, counsellor and teacher. She works with children, young people and adults throughout the Northern Rivers region. Shel has facilitated many StoryBoard workshops across the Northern Rivers alongside many authors and illustrators, for 20-30 school children per group, helping build students’ creative confidence, self-worth and writing skills.

Shel begins her days with her journal, capturing dreams, making observations of inner feeling life and noting shifts in her emotional landscape. It is a reflective activity that ensures she grounded and connected to self. Her counselling style is collaborative, a journey of exploration, enquiry and curiosity about the life and circumstance in order to identify ways that might help others find peace, understanding and more empowered paths forward.

Shel has a Diploma of Counselling from the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors and is a registered member of the Australian Counsellors Association. She also has a Bachelor of Education (Primary and Secondary), a Bachelor of Arts (Literature), a Master of Arts (Professional Writing) and is trained in Steiner education.

Sarah Temporal is a poet, performer and lapsed English teacher, who loves helping people of all ages to find their voice through writing. She facilitates school workshops and directs Poets Out Loud Youth Program and Youth Slam.

Siboney is a writer, editor, and teacher. She has been running workshops for children, adolescents, and adults for over 25 years, and is passionate about fostering creativity and encouraging writing.

Siboney’s workshops cover everything from creative writing skills to discursive writing to developing extended writing skills across the secondary curriculum. She also offers Professional Development workshops for teachers (with most being NESA registered) and Extension English for HSC students.

Siboney worked for 15 years as a freelance journalist and has written extensively for educational institutions and publishers. She has had works of short fiction published and has been long and short-listed for a number of writing programs. Siboney has a Master of Philosophy in Creative Writing (UQ). She has presented at Teacher Conferences and Literary Festivals and has been a HSC marker of both Extension 1 and Extension 2 English.

Asphyxia is an artist, writer and public speaker. She is the author of Future Girl, which has been shortlisted for numerous awards, as well as the much loved junior fiction series, The Grimstones. Asphyxia has also been a circus performer and puppeteer. 

An avid art-journaler, she loves to share her process to help others benefit from this amazing tool for self-expression, problem-solving, planning, goal-tracking and self-esteem. 

Deaf since the age of three, Asphyxia learnt to sign when she was eighteen, which changed her life. She is now a Deaf activist, sharing details of Deaf experience and raising awareness of oppression of Deaf people and what we can do to change this. Her free online Auslan course (asphyxia.com.au) has over 15,000 students.

Asphyxia is kept busy with her small farm where she combines food growing with art – creating a magical aesthetic with plants and natural elements.

Míša Alexander is a mother of three boys, one of whom is on the Autism Spectrum. Inspired by the need for more inclusive schools and communities, she co-created and illustrated Fergus & Delilah, a children’s book changing a generation’s view on disabilities.

Míša is Canadian born but has lived in the Northern Rivers of NSW since 1997. She has worked as a graphic designer & illustrator for over 20 years. As a workshop illustrator for StoryBoard, Míša has inspired many students and provided  them with a diverse range of creative skills. 

She has opened up her private studio in Bangalow for children and adult art classes. Míša’s art classes are packed with fun, inspiration and encouragement.

Sarah grew up in a family with no television, which meant she was a voracious (if fairly indiscriminate) reader, and she was determined, from an early age, to be a writer. This led her to study journalism, and she joined ABC Radio Current Affairs where, in 1993, she won a Walkley Award. Later she became a researcher and field producer on ABC TV’s Foreign Correspondent. In 1997 she resigned from the ABC and moved to the hills outside Byron Bay to devote herself to writing fiction. 

Her first novel Salt Rain was published in 2004. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Miles Franklin Award, the Queensland Premier’s Literary Prize and the Dobbie Literary Award. She went on to publish two more novels for adults, and in 2022, the first novel in a series for readers aged 8 – 12.

Tristan Bancks tells stories for the page and screen. His books for kids and teens include Two Wolves, The Fall, Detention, the Tom Weekly series, Nit Boy and Ginger Meggs, a 100th anniversary book of brand new short stories based on characters created by his great-great uncle, Jimmy Bancks, in 1921. His books have won and been shortlisted for many awards, including a Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour Book, the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards amongst many others. His new release for July 2022 is Cop & Robber, a crime-comedy for age 10+.

You can find out more about Tristan’s books, play games, watch videos, join his Young Writer’s StorySchool and help him try to change the world at tristanbancks.com

Laura Bloom is the bestselling and acclaimed author of many novels for adults and children. She has worked in youth policy, restorative justice and health promotion, and has travelled widely. She now lives in a small town near Byron Bay with her family. 

Her books for young people include the Dream Riders series (written with co-author Jesse Blackadder), Mika and Max and Augustine’s Lunch, which was one of the most borrowed books in NSW school libraries for three years running and hailed by teachers as a favourite with reluctant-reader boys. 

Laura is a popular and well regarded presenter who has presented at the Sydney Writers Festival, Byron Writers Festival and the Vivid Festival. She has extensive experience conducting writing workshops for young people and adults, and as a writing mentor for young people and adults.

Tiff Bollhorn is an environmental educator and storyteller, with a deep appreciation and understanding of the natural world. She offers a unique and uplifting perspective on our relationship to the vast world around us, with a passion to inspire an earth kinship in children. 

She has recently written Wonder Earth with esteemed children’s author Zanni Louise, which is all about the wonders of the world and deepening understanding of our binding connections to it. 

With a Masters degree in Environmental Education and over 15 years experience teaching in the field, Tiff is excited to explore with children the power of story to hear and heal our relationships with the land. 

Share in a workshop about celebrating life, weaving creative exploration with scientific explanation, strengthening young hearts and minds into the future!

Michelle has illustrated 4 published texts for children and young teens. Her first book, How Weird is That written by Gyan Evans, was nominated for the Crichton Award for Best New Illustrator. Another release, Let’s Go To Sleep written by Margaret Wild, was selected by The Australian Publishers Association and Books Illustrated to participate in an exhibition showcasing Australian illustrators at the prestigious 2014 Bologna Book Fair. Her most recent book Fluke written by Leslie Gibbes was released in August 2017.

Siboney is a writer, editor, and teacher. She has been running workshops for children, adolescents, and adults for over 25 years, and is passionate about fostering creativity and encouraging writing.

Siboney’s workshops cover everything from creative writing skills to discursive writing to developing extended writing skills across the secondary curriculum. She also offers Professional Development workshops for teachers (with most being NESA registered) and Extension English for HSC students.

Siboney worked for 15 years as a freelance journalist and has written extensively for educational institutions and publishers. She has had works of short fiction published and has been long and short-listed for a number of writing programs.

Siboney has a Master of Philosophy in Creative Writing (UQ). She has presented at Teacher Conferences and Literary Festivals and has been a HSC marker of both Extension 1 and Extension 2 English.

Inspired by the mythic beauty and wildness of being a barefoot kid exploring the creeks and mountains of the Tweed Caldera, Melaina Faranda grew up to write over fifty Young Adult and Children’s books, published nationally and internationally.

A highly engaging, energetic, and empathic presenter and facilitator, Melaina is passionate about sharing inspiring, practical, and fun (!) creative writing, editing, and storytelling skills with students and helping to foster their talent. Having taught and facilitated in numerous primary and secondary schools for over two decades, she easily connects and creates joyful experiences and enchantment for young people of all ages. Along with being an author she is also an Emerson College storytelling graduate and has personally trained with many oral storytelling luminaries.

While frequently out in the sunshine of real-life adventure, Melaina equally enjoys hanging out in the moonlit anatomy of the imagination, exploring the wonderment and connective tissue of story.

Benjamin Gilmour is an award-winning poet, author, film director and ambulance paramedic. His books include the best-selling Paramedico, Warrior Poets and The Gap. He is the writer / director of three feature films. His latest film Jirga won the AACTA Award for Best Independent Film and the CineFestOz Award for Best Film and was the Australian entry to the 2019 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.

Benjamin’s focus is on mental health, conflict and politics and the topics of moral injury and restorative justice. What excites him most is sharing his knowledge of ‘guerilla’ filmmaking and inspiring young people to write and make art. He is also the author of an illustrated children’s book The Travel Bug.  His work can be viewed at benjamingilmour.com

An experienced English teacher and passionate author, Hakea has lived and worked around Australia including in remote Aboriginal communities. Hakea is committed to literacy and the promotion of reading for pleasure with a particular focus on story as learning and empowerment.

Hakea often works in collaboration with her partner Carl Merrison. Their acclaimed work includes the book Black Cockatoo, and the manuscripts Tracks of the Missing (2019) and Dirran (2022). Hakea and Carl have two picture books contracted to Lothian in 2021 and 2022.

Zacharey Jane is a writer, teacher and painter. Her two publications are The Lifeboat, released internationally, and the children’s picture book, Tobias Blow. 

She has been an author and tour manager on the Byron Writers Festival regional tour, Writers on the Road, since 2014. 

Zacharey is senior on-staff writer for Coastbeat magazine and has contributed to various academic and literary journals.

Zanni Louise has been writing stories since she was little, growing up in country NSW. Six-year-old Zanni used to get in trouble for staring at people and making up stories about having a donkey. 

Grown-up Zanni has turned her love for people and fairytales into a writing career.

Author of over twenty kids’ books, including bestselling picture book series like HumanKind and Errol, Zanni writes and draws every day and hopes she will keep going until she’s too old to hold a pen! 

Lucas Proudfoot is a multi-platform storyteller, sharing stories through his music, books, live performances, and TV appearances, and is on a mission to inspire and educate as many children across the nation as possible. 

Known for his fast wit and cheeky sense of humour, Lucas’s live show & writing workshops will have students of all reading levels completely engaged from start to finish.

Cementing himself as one of the nation’s most versatile children’s performers, Lucas Proudfoot has been playing guitar, didgeridoo and stomp box to over 120,000 kids each year. He has been touring the country with his cultural show, Circular Rhythm for over 10 years, delivering an entertaining and contemporary Indigenous Australian music experience.

Lucas is a proud member of the Tweed Coast Aboriginal/Islander community, Bundjalung nation.(lucasproudfoot.com  /   theproudfoots.com.au)

Samantha Turnbull is a children’s author and podcast producer with the ABC. Her books include Fierce Girls, Remember the Rainbows and The Anti-Princess Club series.

She is also a qualified primary teacher and loves competing in poetry slams.

Sam’s ‘day job’ is as a journalist with the ABC where she writes, films, edits, presents and produces content for TV, radio and online. She has won a long list of journalism awards and has been a finalist in The Walkleys.