Melissa Lucashenko, a Bundjalung woman, is a leading Australian novelist. Melissa is a Walkley Award winner and a founding member of prisoner human rights organisation Sisters Inside. In 2019 Too Much Lip won Australia’s most prestigious writing prize, the Miles Franklin. Edenglassie, a novel of colonial Brisbane, won eight major literary awards and in 2026 is longlisted for the international Walter Scott Historical Fiction Prize.
Bridie Tanner is the voice of Breakfast on ABC North Coast, heard Monday to Friday. She grew up in South Grafton, NSW, on Bundjalung and Gumbayngirr Country.
A passionate supporter of regional stories, Bridie has interviewed countless local authors on air and, for the past three years, has hosted conversations on the main stage at the Byron Writers Festival.
When she’s not behind the microphone, she can usually be found reading in some of the Northern Rivers’ most iconic spots by the beach or in the bush. Her favourite local author is Melissa Lucashenko.
Lesley Head is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Melbourne, where she researches the cultural dimensions of environmental issues. Lesley currently works as a writer, consultant and farmer. She chairs the Board of Climate for Change, a community organisation that empowers Australians to have meaningful conversations about climate change and take democratic action. Her latest book is Beyond Green. The social life of Australian nature.
Marele Day’s Claudia Valentine series won her a Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award for crime writing. Her most recent title is Reckless.
Lisa is the author of eight adult and young adult novels. Her young adult cosy crime novel was shortlisted for the Davitt Awards in two categories. The Pact (HarperCollins, 2026), her first adult psychological suspense novel, was inspired by walking the Camino pilgrimage. Lisa’s work has also appeared in The Guardian, the Big Issue, Griffith Review, Marie Claire UK and The Sydney Morning Herald. She has had a radio play produced on ABC Radio National and was winner of the Byron Writers Festival short story award and the ABC regional short story award. She lives in the Northern Rivers and has a PhD in creative writing.
Mirandi Riwoe is the author of Stone Sky Gold Mountain and Sunbirds and the novella The Fish Girl. The Burnished Sun is a collection of her short stories and novellas. Mirandi has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies (QUT). Her novel A Short History of Longans will be out in 2026.
Maria van Neerven is a Mununjali poet from the Yugambeh nation living in Meanjin. Maria was the winner of the David Unaipon Award in 2023 and was a Next Chapter Fellow in 2024. Two Tongues is her first poetry collection.
Sarah Temporal is a prize-winning poet, educator and producer. She has taught poetry to hundreds of people from ages 8 to 89 and directs Poets Out Loud, a community arts initiative based in the Northern Rivers. Her debut collection Tight Bindings explores the stories we tell and the secrets we keep.
Stan Munro is a national living treasure. A proud resident of Kyogle for over 20 years, Stan built an extraordinary career as a female impersonator/ drag performer and stand up comedian that has lasted a lifetime. One of the founding cast members of Les Girls in Kings Cross, Stan has performed his unique style of drag and comedy across six countries (that he remembers) and over seven decades. Along the way he became friends with Sir Robert Helpmann, Bert and Patti Newton, Denise Drysdale, Danny La Rue, John Inman and so many more. He is so very happy that his life story has been turned into a book and he is awaiting offers for a film deal.
Susanna Freymark is an optimist. She is a journalist who runs the news site indynr.com because she has a passion for telling local stories. Susanna writes fiction and published Losing February with Pan Macmillan in 2013. This year she self-published an anthology of short stories and poems titled smoke. One of her favourite sayings is — it’s not the journey or destination that matters, it is who you become along the way. Find out more at susannafreymark.com.au.
A journalist and author who lives at Deepwater on Ngarrabul Country in the New England region, Michael’s debut novel, Tank Water, and its sequel Dirt Trap (both from MidnightSun Publishing) are a rural noir storytelling cycle about homophobia and justice in the bush. An earlier memoir, Questionable Deeds: Making a stand for equal love (High Country Books), lifted the lid on familial and institutional homophobia during Australia’s marriage equality campaign. Michael’s article ‘Backwards to Bourke: Bulldust About Gays in the Bush’ was published internationally in The Journal of Australian Studies. Michael has written and edited for the Guardian, Fairfax Media and Australian Community Media. A graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art, he is a board member of BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival.
Kevin Markwell is an adjunct professor at Southern Cross University and Co-convenor of KRAW. He helped edit the manuscript for Secrets of a Show Biz Dame and toured Vintage Drag in Mint Condition, the stage version of the story of Stan’s Life, with Stan during 2023 and 2024.
Nancy Cushing is Associate Professor in History at the University of Newcastle. An environmental historian whose interests range from coal mining to human-other animal relations, she was co-editor of Animals Count: How Population Size Matters in Animal-Human Relations (Routledge 2018), author of A History of Crime in Australia (Routledge 2023) and hopes to see a New History of Australia in 15 Animals out later this year (Bloombury).
Carlie Daley lives in Lismore where she stakes time to write alongside work and solo parenting. She has had pieces published in Cordite Poetry Review, The Long Paddock, Southerly, Gargouille, Capsule, Frostwriting, northerly, and the Australian Poetry Anthology. She was the winner of the City of Stonnington Literary Festival—Poetry Open Age—Non Stonnington prize in 2018 and published her first chapbook, Blood & Bone, with Dancing Girl Press in 2019. Her second chapbook, Alluvium, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2023, exploring the aftermath of a divorce and one of the most devastating floods in modern Australian history. Her latest chapbook, From the Bowels of Molluscs, an ode to her female bloodlines, was published in 2026 by Rockwood Press.
Blood&Bone-https://dulcetshop.myshopify.com/products/blood-and-bone-carlie-daley-nekrasov?_pos=1&_sid=15d073760&_ss=r
Alluvium-https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/10006573
Molluscs-https://www.rockwoodpress.com/bookstore/p/from-the-bowels-of-molluscs
Georgia Harper is the author of What I Would Do to You, which won Best Debut Book at the 2025 Davitt Awards and was shortlisted for Best Crime Fiction Debut at the 2025 Danger Awards. Georgia has worked as a psychologist with both serious violent offenders and victim- survivors of crime. She was also the Senior Inspector Prosecutions for RSPCA Queensland. Georgia is an ambassador for the Sunshine Coast Hinterland Writers Festival and for child literacy charity Chapters for Change. She writes on Kabi Kabi land on the Sunshine Coast.
Tyree Barnette is a transplant to Sydney, originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. He moved to Sydney with his partner in 2013. Since then, they have grown their family with two boys. Tyree’s day job is working in student services at Western Sydney University. Additionally, Tyree is a member of the Sweatshop Literacy Movement, where he has written numerous pieces for SBS Voices and contributed to anthologies such as Love, This Little Red Thing and Racism: Stories on Fear, Hate and Bigotry. Tyree most enjoys writing about his experience as an African American in Australia and spending time with his two amazing boys.
William Brougham has been a writer and broadcaster in the UK and Australia for almost 30 years. Originally from London, he has called Sydney home for some years. He studied journalism at the London College of Printing and the University of Technology Sydney. As well as working as a freelance journalist he hosts a weekly music show on the Community Radio Network across Australia called It’s Time. He is also a keen YouTuber and TikToker. William says he was proud to work with Stan on his life story and found it a rewarding process. He says he looks forward to appearing at the Kyogle Readers and Writers Festival.
Leanne Murner is an author, publisher, international speaker and podcaster from the Northern Rivers who believes that every person carries a story capable of changing lives, starting with their own. A wife, mother of five boys and a passionate mentor, she guides not only authors through self-publishing journeys, but also supports individuals on their self-discovery path through reflective writing and journaling practices that honour authenticity, courage and truth.
Her work is grounded in the belief that storytelling is a powerful act of reconnection, release and transforming it into connection, education and empowerment for others. With her own story In the quite I met myself set to launch in 2026, Leanne’s mission is to help people explore their inner worlds and awaken to the power of their own voice.
Annie Barrett is a non-fiction writer and counsellor. She facilitates writing for wellbeing groups where trusting the pen on the page is like a deep listening process.
Brick walls and broken systems: One woman’s way through — Maxine Griffiths’ Story is published in 2026. This deeply moving true Tasmanian story is about survival and redemption and what motives us to save others. She wrote and compiled A School’s Journey Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School published in 2019.
Annie is grateful to live and write on Bundjalung country in Northern NSW together with ocean breezes and raucous birdlife.
Diana Jarman writes historical fiction. Twice around the world, slow travel by ocean liner with an adventurous mother, and a journey on a cattle boat to Hong Kong, all by the time she was twelve, left a lasting impression that the world is truly global and culturally diverse.
She was born on a rice farm near Leeton, NSW, schooled in Darwin in the 1950s, Melbourne and Canberra in the 60s and graduated from ANU in 1971. Teaching and Librarianship qualifications provided a career path in Goulburn and Nowra High Schools, and for twenty-five years in TAFE NSW.
A dairy farmer from 1980 Diana moved to Kyogle in 1988 with her family and herd of dairy cows. Always going to write ‘something’ took time, but she finally found that elusive writer later in life. She self-published The Philatelist’s Album in 2025.
Jasmine Anoushian is a writer and poet engaged in Australia’s literary community through festivals, event production and workshop facilitation.
She trained in Professional Writing & Editing in Naarm, where her poetry has been awarded and published, and is passionate about storytelling as a force for connection.
Currently living on Bundjalung Country, she produces community poetry nights that bring local voices together.
After a long career in education in Sydney and Lismore, Angela Szczotko reinvented herself as a written and spoken word poet from the Northern Rivers. She has been awarded, commended and shortlisted in various competitions, with associated websites and chapbooks publishing several poems.
Angela has performed at Spoken Word venues in the region and in The Australian Poetry Slam. She has co-judged Kyogle Writers Festival Poetry Competition and Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup.
