Writers
Writers & Speakers
Alissha Darlison
Grace the Amazing
Grace Marshall is eleven years old. She’s curious, precocious, and eccentric. Her only true friend is her art teacher, Pamela. When Grace discovers that Pamela is unwell, she embarks on a journey to find a cure for Pamela using miraculous magic. While doing so she asks the big questions about life, love, friendship, and death.
Dr Judy Gregory
Dr Judy Gregory is a Brisbane-based writer, ghostwriter, editor, researcher and self-confessed word nerd. In 2020, Judy wrote and published Newbies in the Café, a book about people who have opened a café following a career doing something else. The book tells the stories of 11 café dreamers (including Judy herself) and reveals some of the factors behind café success or failure. Judy works as a ‘pen for hire’. She has written several memoirs and business books as a ghostwriter, and helped many organisations to produce public documents. Judy regularly presents writing seminars, workshops and writing retreats. She teaches professional writing at The University of Queensland. For more information about Judy, visit her website at: https://judygregorywriter.com.au.
Newbies in the Café is about Australia’s love affair with the independent café, told from the perspective of 11 people with first-hand experience of the industry.
In 2016, Brisbane-based writer Judy Gregory followed her dream and opened a word-themed café. When the café closed 26 months later, Judy’s dream was in tatters. She turned her experiences into an honest assessment of café life, written as a series of case studies.
Cody Hargreaves
Queensland Writers Centre's (QWC) Community Officer Cody Hargreaves talks through the countless projects that QWC runs across Queensland, and the many resources and opportunities QWC offers to support writers at every stage of their writing journey. He includes a summary of: membership benefits, services, competition opportunities, online workshops, and many more support resources.
Lyndell Hill
As a Wordsmith and Director of Word Fest Toowoomba, Lyndall has written a Secondary School textbook (OUP); published multicultural recipe books, a collection of high-profile Toowoomba identities and helped others through the self-publishing process. From a Poetry Slam in a boxing ring, Literary Lunches, Author Expos, Storytelling Under the Stars, writing workshops in train carriages to panels, podcasts and organisations’ histories and giving anything a go, she writes business blogs and applications under MollyB Blogging, and personal travel blogs under Travlyn.
Stephen M Irwin
Stephen is an Australian showrunner, screenwriter and novelist. He is co-creator, co-executive producer and head writer of forensic crime series Harrow starring Ioan Gruffudd. Stephen was also co-creator and head writer of Netflix series Tidelands, and wrote the original crime series Secrets & Lies. His critically acclaimed supernatural novels The Dead Path (2009), The Broken Ones (2011) and A Killer Among Demons (2013) have been published around the world.
Ian McIntosh
Ian McIntosh is a former rodeo clown who grew up in Normanton, Queensland.
Ian became an author in 2014 and has since written several books and created audio books and songs to go with some of his books.
Apart from writing and creating, Ian loves to encourage children to think and write more creatively and to let them know they have been born for a purpose.
An inspiring story about a little kangaroo who doesn't think she can do anything however, thanks to the help of a wise old emu and an exciting race, she discovers that she was born for a purpose.
Ian Mathieson
Ian Mathieson is a freelance editor and author. He’s published seven memoir, leadership and life skills books. Ian has edited well over one hundred manuscripts across several genre – fiction, memoir, family history, academic dissertations, text and illustrated childrens books, anthologies. He’s an active member of the Carindale Writers Group in Brisbane. He’s currently (kidding himself that he’s) writing the next great Australian novel. He ‘retired’ in 2017 and now passionately enjoys editing and writing.
The
Effective Leader, Vicki Bennett & Ian Mathieson Harper Collins 2002
How
to balance your mind, body and spirit at work and at home. A successful leader
accesses a wide range of strengths and skills. But the great quest of our age
is about bringing balance into our lives. How de we bring our professional
worlds and personal worlds into balance, and still provide effective leadership
and balance? This book focuses on the total person.
Steve Hinchy – A True Rowing Friend; A Tribute, Ian Mathieson RQ, 2020
A Tribute to
Steve Hinchy, rich with memories and insights into the character and nature of
an exceptional Australian. In his 80 years, he wove together passions for his
family, his profession as a doctor, and his beloved rowing. From 1964 to his death earlier in 2020, he immersed
himself in rowing. He developed an illustrious career in all facets of rowing
in Australia and internationally. He worked as Team Doctor and Team Manager for
Australian crews at many international competitions including the 1988 Seoul
Olympics. He held most officer positions in Rowing Queensland and Rowing
Australia, and was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 1994.
Sarah Todman
Author of New Year’s Eve
Sarah grew up in an outback Queensland pub surrounded by siblings (she has seven), and an ever-changing cast of colourful pub characters. It was an extraordinary childhood that gave her a love of people and their stories, as well as the ability to pour a perfect beer.
She studied journalism at university, and in a writing career that now spans more than two decades she has been a tabloid journalist, magazine editor, communications consultant, content writer, and creative entrepreneur.
Sarah loves earl grey tea, books that make her cry, and music that makes her sing (even though she can’t). She lives in Brisbane with her husband and four children (because eight seemed like too much hard work).She has published two children’s books and a collection of poetry. New Year’s Eve is her first novel.
Catherine White
Cr Catherine White - Mayor of Winton Shire, is responsible for overseeing all portfolios and advisory committees from the Corporate Plan and to actively engage with other regional roles.
Nikki Mottram
Nikki Mottram is the bestselling author of Crows Nest (UQP, 2023) and Killarney (UQP, 2024). She has a psychology degree from The University of Queensland and has worked in London and Australia protecting and promoting the welfare of children at risk of harm. She uses her background in child protection in her crime fiction. She has been shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize and the Hal Porter Short Story Competition and was a recipient of the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Writer’s Centre Fellowship. She grew up and resides in Toowoomba and brings to her work an understanding of rural communities.
Killarney - When child protection worker Dana Gibson arrives in the sleepy rural town of Killarney, she has one goal in mind: locate the whereabouts of foster child Jayden Maloney and return him to care. What she isn’t expecting is an attraction to her colleague’s younger brother Sean, or to become embroiled in their simmering family feud. When criminal allegations surface against a member of the local parish, Dana is forced to consider that Jayden’s disappearance is not simply a case of a teen on the run.
Claire Saxby
Claire Saxby writes award-winning fiction, non-fiction and poetry for children. Some of her books encompass all three. Her work includes historical novels with strong curriculum links (Haywire, The Wearing of the Green), historical picture books (My Name is Lizzie Flynn, The Anzac Billy, Meet the Anzacs), picture books about Australian animals and the worlds they inhabit (Wedge-tailed Eagle, Tasmanian Devil, Emu, Koala), Antarctica (Iceberg) and strongly rhythmic picture books (Treasure, Seadog, There Was an Old Sailor). More details can be found at www.clairesaxby.com
Can you see the forest on this misty-morning mountain? Can you see where the tree stands? It is the tallest in this forest of tall trees. This tree is older than those who find it, younger than the land it grows from. This is the world of the tree.
In the vein of Iceberg – marrying deep scientific research, lyrical language and stunning illustrations – multi-award-winning and highly acclaimed creators Claire Saxby and Jess Racklyeft return with a change in environment, from ocean to land. Their new collaboration follows a mighty tree, from the bottom of its roots up to the tips of its upper branches.
Sandra Hogan
Sandra Hogan’s true life spy story With My Little Eye has become an Australian best-seller since its release in 2022. It tells how ASIO unintentionally recruited three children as part of its Cold War espionage efforts. The children were part of the Doherty family and their parents both worked for ASIO in Sydney and then in Brisbane. The Dohertys made the highly unusual decision to involve their children in many aspects of spying work.
Based on ten years of research and interviews with family members, With My Little Eye gives a unique, child’s eye perspective on the world of Australian Cold War espionage.
Author Sandra Hogan is a Queensland writer, journalist and editor. She is working on a new book –also about family secrets.
Jack Drake
Jack Drake was introduced to the bush poetry of Banjo Patterson at age ten, in 1960. Words and verse became a part of his life. But he did not only read about the bush, he lived it.
School had few attractions for a lad who could think of little but horses, cattle, dogs and the outdoor life, and neither Jack nor the Education System were unduly concerned when they parted ways at the earliest legal age.
He was always blessed or cursed, with the ‘gift of the gab’, and from an early age announced shows, rodeos and MC’d country dances. He wrote poetry from his teenage years but would rather forget some of his early efforts. He is quite happy to admit it was only later in life that his work had any substance.
National recognition came in 2001 when he won the Australian Bush Poet of the Year Quest run by Asthma NSW and the Women’s Weekly magazine. By 2001 there was enough performance work, book and CD sales to allow Jack and Stella to concentrate on bush poetry.
Jack’s three CDs of works, The Cattle Dog’s Revenge, Dinkum Poetry and Bronco Harry's Last Ride have all gained nominations for the Australian Bush Laureate Awards. After self-publishing four books, he was picked up by Central Queensland University Press. His first professionally published book of ballads and yarns, The Cattle Dog’s Revenge was released in July 2003 and has been reprinted several times. This book won a second National Award in 2004, earning a Golden Gumleaf Trophy from the Australian Bush Laureate Awards for the Best Book of Original Verse 2004 at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
Jack Drake The Stringybark Fox
John Dickie, the Stringybark Fox, was a legend in his own time, yet time has forgotten him.Fifty plus years of meticulous research have gone into this history of a man who actively discouraged any form of publicity. His story is an Australian epic and it is scarcely believable that very, very few people in this country have ever heard of him.
As an historical Australian figure, he is to mineral exploration what Nat Buchanan was to the pastoral industry.
An intensely human story of a man made reclusive by tragedy and heartbreak, he devoted the rest of his life to prospecting. In his roaming he crossed the continent twice on horseback but the land he loved was Cape York Peninsula.
His achievements are legendary yet history has forgotten him.
Grace Elliott
Born in Winton and raised on a
local property 160km out of town, Fae le Friz daylights as one of the rural
posties and moonlights as a Fantasy and an Australiana author. A lifetime
daydreamer and lover of Fantasy and Sci-Fi, Fae started her writing career with
short original stories in 2009, which remain unpublished. This was then
followed by writing and posting One Piece and Fairy
Tail fanfiction online in 2012, later progressing to the Harry
Potter and Game of Thrones fanfictions she is now
best known for. In 2021, whilst working as the Education
Co-Ordinator for the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, Fae wrote the
children's first resource book, "The Wonderful World of Australian
Fossils", which was the winner of the International Children's
Nonfiction Book Award in 2022. After a career change in mid-2022, Fae
decided to finally pursue her life-long dream of being an author.
Indecisive over the three Fantasy ideas she had, Fae asked her younger sister
to help be the deciding vote on which one to work on first.
"None
of them, I don't like Fantasy. Write something relatable to me (a
contract fencer-musterer at Aramac), and I'll read it."
Having never written Australiana before and full of sibling-fueled spite, Fae
decided that the story would have to be centered around dalmatians, given how
much her sister didn't like her two dalmatians, Havoc and
Tempest. Fae then dusted off an idea she had wanted to use for a new Game
of Thrones fanfiction wherein the Stark family were drovers in outback
Australia. Instead of discovering Direwolves and going to war, the
Stark children discovered Thylacines (Tasmanian Tigers), and tried to bring the
megafauna back from extinction. Fae fiddled around with this
initial concept until her debut novel, "A Spot of Bother", was
born.
"A Spot of Bother"
is an Australiana Young Adult novel about a Muttaburra bush kid off at a north Queensland
boarding school. After completing some property work for a friend's
family, he is promised the pick of the litter only to later discover that his
future working stock dog is actually a dalmatian. Committed to the bit,
Richard "Dickie" Dyre decides that Bother the dalmatian will be
the start of his working stock dog team, and that they will beat
his older siblings at a dog trial. He just has to train his dally on
school grounds, in secret, without getting caught first. (Fae's sister
still has yet to read "A Spot of Bother")
Fae's current work in progress
is an Epic Fantasy series called "Steps
Between the Aether", with book one tentatively titled "The
Wishfae". Taking umbrage with the overused "dead mum
trope" in modern media, Fae wanted to play around with the idea of a
parent being able to come back after death. Sabella Oftdair is a human
mother-of-two who dies in one country, pleads her case before the various gods
of the world, and comes back to life as one of the fae in another, far flung
continent. Beholden now to the Dragonchild Chesa, Sabella has to keep the
little girl alive whilst navigating a war in kingdoms not her own, learning new
languages and new abilities, without causing insult to any of the many cultures
of Whyja country. Far across the Tarfor Sea, her two young sons are also
being swept up in a civil war - will Sabella be able to return to them before
it's too late?
Sarah Guthrie
The Guthries’ son Ford (aged 17) who died suddenly in January 2016. His mother Sarah traces his life, along with hers. The experience of writing this story was more powerful than the author imagined. Gathering the pieces of the story from memory, diaries, scrapbooks, letters and the many many emails and texts received after Ford died.
Sarah has set out to create a book with warmth, honesty and purpose. A book for some readers to relate through their own grief, for others a book that reminds them of Ford and the memories they shared.
In her daily life, she considers herself to be fortunate to have a busy and at times over-full diary; this is both good and exhausting. Sarah has kept me going, spurred on. She has found that she seeks more meaning from experiences, not just the feeling of having to do something because I should, or because someone else wants me to, but because I want to. This sense of meaning makes things seem purposeful and worthwhile for her.
This is the story of the Guthries’ son Ford (aged 17),
who died suddenly in January 2016. It traces his life and that of the author,
his mother Sarah. A series of vignettes, it captures the small and detailed
pieces of their family life together on their farm at the foot of the Grampians
in Victoria.
The illustrations and cover were designed by the
authors’ daughter Pollyanna who is a graphic designer; she’s created a close link
between the written and the visual.
Over five years the author’s story grew, encouraged by
many, but one friend shared the tears as the storyline came to life; she laced
the vingettes together, to give better clarity and meaning. There were times
the author felt she would never reach the finish line. Another friend edited
the work, adding suggestions and finesse where needed. Finally, the hurdle of
deciding on the title; so much deliberating, but always within reach was Picking
up the Pieces. The title draws its name from the author at the sheepyards
collecting over 28 years pieces of old china, and keeping them, planning one
day to create something with them. Every time it rains, more pieces come to the
surface from the story of past life. A cottage once stood near those sheepyards
and these china pieces are all that remains.
Tom Guthrie
Tom Guthrie’s Australian
history epic The Longest Drive has
attracted wide acclaim. Released in July 2014 at the 150-year celebrations of
the Guthrie family’s property Rich Avon, receiving positive reviews in
magazines and newspapers, culminating in Tom being a guest on Jon Faine’s
Conversation Hour on the Victorian ABC alongside Thomas Keneally and co-host
Beverley O’Connor.
Tom said: “It was a fantastic
opportunity to highlight the contribution made by rural people throughout
Australia’s history, a contribution which has shaped the country we enjoy
today.”
The
Longest Drive tells the story of Thomas Guthrie who arrived
in Tasmania as a fourteen year old in 1847. He settled at Rich Avon near Donald
in north-western Victoria in 1864 and in 1882 he purchased a million acres on
the Barkly tableland in the Northern Territory when it was opened up for
settlement. He named it Avon Downs after his home property. The stocking of
that property with sheep led to the longest sheep droving journey in Australian
history when in 1882 nearly 11,000 sheep set off on foot from Donald to Avon
Downs. After
16 months and 3500 kilometres of following rivers and battling drought,
crisscrossing the continent from south to north, the droving team reached its
destination. Longreach’s Stockman’s Hall of Fame called it ‘the longest ever
droving trip with sheep’.
Martin Flanagan wrote in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald (1/11/2014): “It's a big book. A Murray
River red-gum of a book. The book, of 650 pages, depicts a Scottish-Australian
dream that will appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of the
Australian pastoral industry.”
Jane Knowles
Peter and Jane Knowles owned a sheep property
south of Winton. Our daughter, Imogen, was born in a big hospital in Brisbane,
in 1988. Peter and Jane started writing the verses on the long drive home. They
continued to compose these verses for the next few years. These verses remained
in a draw for many years. In 2022 Jane got them together as she had met an
artist who beautifully illustrated the book.
W. Benjamin Lindner
W.
Benjamin Lindner practised as a Melbourne criminal barrister
for forty years. He was introduced to
the outback in the 1980s,as in-house counsel for the Central Australian
Aboriginal Legal Aid Service. Returning to the Victorian Bar to specialise in
appearing for the defence in serious indictable criminal matters, he taught
advocacy. In 2017, his article in the Victorian Bar News, Where there’s
a Will, we’ll go a Waltzing Matilda: Serendipity in Chambers, told the
story of the Last Will & Testament of Paterson’s fianceé, Sarah Riley.
Benjamin has enjoyed playing, singing and
researching folk music for more than forty years. After researching the origins
of Waltzing Matilda, he published a comprehensive history of the origins
of the song in Waltzing Matilda: Australia’s Accidental Anthem: A Forensic
History, forword by Geoffrey Blainey, Boolarong Press, 2019.
During the COVID
lockdown, his research into the history of the first building in the world
dedicated to a song, The Waltzing Matilda Centre. Without precedent, a
modest outback township, Winton, managed to pull off a coup to create a vibrant
tourist magnet. Its story had to be
told. Hence his 2019 book, Winton’s
Waltzing Matilda Centre: From a Song a Home is Born.
It was published a year after the Winton Shire Council, on the recommendation of the
Waltzing Matilda Centre’s Board, conferred upon him the title of Ambassador of
the Waltzing Matilda Centre, on 21 March, 2023.
Lindner has been
an advocate for recognition of the unsung contributor of the music to the song,
Christina Macpherson. He campaigns for a
life-size bronze statue of Christina erected alongside the statue of A.B.
‘Banjo’ Paterson on the forecourt of the Waltzing Matilda Centre.
Lindner looks
forward to further advancing Winton’s Waltzing Matilda Centre, as its proud
Ambassador.
Ian Waples
Ian Waples has a passion for researching and recording the lives of the nation's pioneers. To bring their stories out of the past and into the present, he has used station diaries, ledgers, employment records and personal interviews to provide a broad outline of the lifestyles, hardships and personalities of our forebears. He has had a wonderful journey publishing only a small portion of our history and he hopes that his readers share the same experience.
