Kathleen Noonan is a journalist & columnist, who has reported in South Africa, the UK and Australia over three decades. Her weekly column ‘Last Word’ has appeared in Saturday’s CourierMail for 14 years. Raised on a sugarcane farm in NQ, Kathleen did her early news reporting in the Mackay district. After working in South Africa through the dying years of apartheid and the transition to democracy, she returned to Australia, working as a senior features writer, sub-editor and section head with various newspapers. Kathleen is chair of Second Chance, the only charity in Australia that raises money exclusively for homeless women. It also supports at-risk women and children in domestic violence shelters.

Dr Susan Carland is an academic, author, and social commentator. She has a PhD from Monash University’s School of Social Sciences, where she is a lecturer and researcher at Monash University’s National Centre for Australian Studies. Her teaching and research expertise are in gender, sociology, and contemporary Australia.  Susan is a regular paper reviewer and Friday panelist on ABC TV’s News Breakfast , and also hosted the ABC Radio National Series Assumptions.   She has appeared on the Agony series, Lateline, The Project, Q and A, The Drum, Home Delivery, and has featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Instyle, Marie Claire, Dumbo Feather, and Sunday Life magazines. Her PhD was published by Melbourne University Publishing under the title Fighting Hislam in 2017, and her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Age, in academic publications, and numerous anthologies.  In 2017 she was listed on the official “Who’s Who of Australian Women”, and named by InStyle magazine as a “Woman of Style” for charity and community service. She has also been named on the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World list. Susan is an ambassador for the charity Possible Dreams International, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, and is also a certified scuba diver!

Lisa Dempster is the Director of Melbourne Writers Festival, and Chair of Right Now. Neon Pilgrim is her first memoir.

Clair Brown is Professor of Economics at University of California, Berkeley. Clair works on how our economic system can provide a comfortable, meaningful life to all people in a sustainable world. Her graduate students in Development Engineering work on technologies to improve people’s lives in low-income regions. Her undergraduate students apply Buddhist economics to evaluate financial risk of fossil fuel companies in order to push for fossil-free public pension portfolios. Read about Clair’s life and work in Eminent Economics II (Szenberg and Ramrattan, eds, Cambridge U Press). The Labor and Employment Research Association honored Clair with their Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to improving workers’ lives. She practices Tibetan Buddhism.