Brenda Walker (chair)
Brenda Walker is Winthrop Professor and Chair of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia. Her most recent book, Reading by Moonlight, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for nonfiction. Her novels include Poe’s Cat and The Wing of Night, which won the Nita B. Kibble Award and the Asher Literary Award.
Emily Maguire
Emily Maguire is an author and social commentator who has published several books, including the international bestseller Taming the Beast and the nonfiction book Princesses and Pornstars. She was named a SMH Young Novelist of the Year in 2010 and again in 2013. Emily’s articles and essays on sex, feminism, culture and literature have been published widely, including in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Observer and The Age.
Alice Pung
Alice Pung is a writer, editor, teacher and lawyer based in Melbourne. Alice’s book Laurinda was long listed for the Stella Prize in 2015, and her previous books include Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter. She is the editor of the anthology Growing Up Asian in Australia, and her work has appeared in The Monthly, Good Weekend, The Age, The Best Australian Stories and Meanjin.
Geordie Williamson
Geordie Williamson is chief literary critic of The Australian newspaper, a position he has held since 2008, though his essays and reviews have been appearing in newspapers and magazines in Australia and the UK for over a decade. In 2011, he won the Pascall Prize for criticism, Australia’s only major national prize awarded for critical writing. His first book, The Burning Library, is a collection of essays on neglected figures from Australian literature.
Suzy Wilson
Suzy Wilson is the founder of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. In 2010 she was awarded the Dromkeen Award for her efforts in ‘being a catalyst in changing children’s lives through literature’. She is also the owner of Riverbend Books in Brisbane, and has a background as a teacher, an education consultant with Education Queensland and a part-time lecturer at QUT.
