Kate Mildenhall is the author of Skylarking (Black Inc., 2016). She is a writer and teacher who has taught in schools, RMIT University, State Library Victoria, and with Teachers Across Borders in Cambodia. Skylarking is her debut novel, based on the true story of Kate and Harriet, best friends growing up on a remote Australian cape in the 1880s, and the tragic event that befalls them.  Skylarking was named in Readings bookstore’s Top Ten Fiction Books of 2016 and longlisted for Debut Fiction in The Indie Book Awards 2017.  Kate lives in Hurstbridge, Victoria, and is currently working on a new novel.

Melissa Lucashenko is a multi-award winning Goorie novelist and essayist. Her work is about a better Australia for all.

Ashley Hay’s work has been praised for its “intelligent scrutiny of the human psyche”,  “a tenderness that is deeply compelling” and its “simple grace”. Her latest novel, A Hundred Small Lessons, was published to critical and popular acclaim earlier this year. Her previous book, The Railwayman’s Wife, received the Colin Roderick Award from the Foundation for Australian Literary Studies, and was voted People’s Choice in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. It was shortlisted for the NSWPLA’s Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and long-listed for the Kibble and Miles Franklin awards. It was also published in the US, the UK, and in translation.  An essayist, journalist and reviewer, Ashley’s words have appeared in Griffith Review, The Monthly, Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Short Stories and Best Australian Science Writing, the 2014 anthology of which she also edited. In 2016 she was awarded the Bragg/UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing for a version of her Dahl Trust/Australian Book Review essay “The Forest At the Edge of Time”.  She lives in Brisbane.