Welcome to our Mentor’s Register, which has been broadened to include specialists in genre fiction, narrative non-fiction, journalism and lifestyle or illustration. Take a look at some of the stellar talent we have available to help you develop your work.
If you are interested in taking on a mentorship, please read the information about Mentorships here.
Ready to request a mentor? Apply here.
Mentors are listed alphabetically by surname below:
Miles Allinson
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Miles Allinson is a writer and a long-time bookseller from Melbourne, where he currently teaches creative writing. His first novel, Fever of Animals won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2014 as well as the People’s Choice at the Victorian and The Western Australian Premier’s Literary Awards. His second novel In Moonland was published in 2021 and won The Age Book of the Year Prize for Fiction in 2022. He is currently working on his third novel, which will be published by Scribe. Miles has a Bachelor of Creative Arts and a Post Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne as well as a Master’s of Fine Art from RMIT. He is a former Creative Fellow at the State Library, Victoria, and a former writer in residence at the University of Madras, in Chennai. Miles is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Adolfo Aranjuez
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Adolfo Aranjuez is an editor, writer, speaker and dancer. He has worked across periodical and book publishing for fifteen years, with past tenures as editor-in-chief of Australia’s oldest film and media periodical, Metro, and of LGBTQIA+ magazine Archer, and currently as publication editor of literary platform Liminal (including its new collection Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory). He has also edited for Hachette, RMIT, Bundanon Museum, Voiceworks and the Melbourne International Film Festival. His essays, criticism and poetry have been published widely, including in Meanjin, Right Now, Screen Education, The Manila Review and Cordite. As an independent practitioner, Adolfo has collaborated with a range of cultural, community, educational and government organisations. He has hosted and appeared on panels (Melbourne Writers Festival, Jaipur Literature Festival, The Wheeler Centre, ACMI, Samstag Museum, Writers SA); run workshops (Emerging Writers’ Festival, Djed Press, Melbourne Fringe Festival, City of Melbourne, Express Media); judged literary prizes (Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards, Darebin Mayor’s Writing Awards); acted as industry advisor (Australia Council for the Arts, Creative Victoria, UNESCO, RMIT); and performed movement and spoken word (Midsumma, ABC TV, Immigration Museum, MOD. Museum, Dance Massive, Multicultural Arts Victoria, Arts Access Victoria). In addition to English, he speaks Spanish and Tagalog. Find out more at adolfoaranjuez.com Adolfo is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Catherine Bateson
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First published as a poet, Catherine Bateson has twice won the CBCA Book of the Year for Younger Readers, and been awarded the Queensland Premier's Award, Younger Readers. She's written more than a dozen novels for young adults and younger readers. Catherine grew up in a family of writers and spent most of her childhood in Brisbane where her mother owned a second-hand bookshop. She continues to spend her life surrounded by books and loves nothing more than to talk about writing and reading. She teaches adult courses in Literature and, with Leonie Tyle, runs the partnership, Tyle&Bateson providing editing assistance to writers. She also teaches Professional Writing and Editing. She is passionate about living a creative life. In another life she believes she would have been a textile artist. Catherine offers mentees an honest appraisal of their work and a constructive and flexible approach to revision. Catherine is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
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Christina Booth is a children’s author and has illustrated over twenty books published both in Australia and overseas. Christina holds degrees in fine and visual art and teaching, with many years of experience teaching both adults and children art and writing. Several of Christina’s books have been awarded notable book awards and her picture book Kip won a CBCA Honour Book Award in 2010. Her picture book, Welcome Home, won the Environmental Award for Children’s Literature in 2014. Christina has illustrated for many of Australia’s great authors, including Colin Thiele, Max Fatchen, Christobel Mattingly and Jackie French. She has been published with Scholastic Australia/Omnibus Books, Ford Street Publishing, Windy Hollow Books, Black Dog/Walker Books, National Library of Australia Publishing and National Museum of Australia Press. Christina is a Books in Homes Ambassador, the Tasmanian SCBWI Northern coordinator and the Tasmanian ASA representative. |
Ella Carey
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Ella Carey is the international bestselling author of Paris Time Capsule, The House by the Lake, From a Paris Balcony, Secret Shores, The Things We Don’t Say, and Beyond the Horizon, all published with Lake Union Publishing, in the US. Ella’s novels have been translated into sixteen languages, and have been published by multiple publishing houses in Europe as well as with Harper Collins in Australia. Ella’s books have reached over one million readers and her novels have been shortlisted for ARRA awards. Her work has been published in the Australian Review of Fiction. Ella is represented by The Madeleine Milburne Literary, TV and Film Agency. Ella's titles were originally published online to notable success and then picked up by a major global publishing house in a multi-book print, audio and digital deal. Ella has degrees in Music, majoring in classical piano and in Arts, majoring in nineteenth century women’s fiction, as well as graduate studies in teaching, and has many years experience teaching and mentoring. Ella has studied the craft of writing for the last twenty years, and always has a book on writing in hand. For testimonials from her current writing students, please visit: http://www.ellacarey.com/mentoring-with-ella-carey/ Ella loves working with writers across all genres of adult fiction, helping them to discover and develop their voices. She is able to help authors prepare their work for submission for both the Australian and international markets, and works closely with writers to help bring their manuscripts to a publishable standard. Ella is also available for the First Ten Pages three hour consultation. |
Broede Carmody
Image © Leah McIntosh |
Broede Carmody is a poet from northeast Victoria. His first book, a collection of poems called Flat Exit, was published in 2017 by Cordite Books. His verse has also appeared in journals such as Meanjin, Cordite and Voiceworks. He has been selected for the Poet Laureates of Melbourne Series (2020), been a co-judge of the Victorian Premiers’ Prize for Poetry (2019), been a Melbourne Writers’ Festival ‘30 Under 30’ participant (2017) and a poetry editor for Voiceworks magazine (2012-2016) where he regularly provided editorial feedback and ran poetry workshops. He is particularly interested in LGBTIQ poetry and unpacking the pastoral. His second book will be published in 2023. |
Marjorie Crosby-Fairall
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When Marjorie was a little girl she often escaped to the library spending hours devouring picture books and minutely examining their illustrations. Consequently, it was a surprise to no one that she decided to become an illustrator. Encouraged by her creative family, she gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. Following her move to Australia, she worked in many areas of illustration, including advertising, magazine and picture books. Marjorie has illustrated over twenty children’s books and has been published internationally. Her partial client list includes Penguin Random House, Walker Books Australia, Scholastic Australia, EK Books, Australian Geographic and The School Magazine. Her books appear on the Premier’s Reading Challenge lists and have been shortlisted and won awards, including the CBCA Eve Pownall Award for her first picture book. Released November 2016, One Christmas Eve by Corinne Fenton was the inspiration for the 2016 Meyer Christmas Windows in Melbourne. Her recent picture books include Brothers from a Different Mother and The Croc and the Platypus. Her collaboration with Susanne Gervay, The Boy in the Big Blue Glasses was released in July 2019 and she has several upcoming books with Scholastic Australia and Walker Books. Marjorie is an assistant regional advisor for SCBWI Australia East & New Zealand. Website: www.crosby-fairall.com |
Nadine Davidoff
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Nadine Davidoff is a freelance book editor and writing/editing teacher with extensive trade publishing experience. She has worked as a Senior Editor at Random House and a Commissioning Editor at Black Inc. Nadine’s clients include major publishing companies and literary agents for whom she undertakes structural and copy editing. Nadine offers manuscript development services to established and first-time authors seeking editorial feedback before submitting their work to an agent or publisher. Nadine has taught in RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing course and she teaches the annual Fiction Editing Masterclass in Melbourne University’s Masters of Publishing program. Since 2015, she has taught the three-day masterclass as part of the ACT Writers’ Centre Hard Copy program. In 2017, Nadine was a guest presenter at the Residential Editorial Program run by the Australia Council. In 2015, she conducted a manuscript assessment seminar at the Society of Editors national conference. She has participated in numerous writing festivals, including the Emerging Writers Festival, the Jewish Writers Festival and the Glen Eira Storytelling Festival. Nadine is a registered mentor in the Australian Society of Authors Mentorship Program. Following her mentorship of Adam Crittenden, his book Subzero was published by Penguin Random House in 2016. Nadine is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Julie Ditrich
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Available for mentorships in late 2023. Julie Ditrich is the founder and CEO of Comics Mastermind™, a professional development service for Australian comics creators, as well as a comics writer and editor, and publishing consultant. Julie has a BA in Professional Writing (University of Canberra), and has worked in mainstream publishing as a bookseller, publicist, marketing manager and author. She was also employed as publications manager at the Australian Society of Authors (ASA). Julie has worked extensively as a comic book writer predominantly in the fantasy genre with sales of over 270,000 comics all over the world. She has been published by Image Comics and Warp Graphics in the USA. Julie has also worked as a manuscript assessor and editor on several short stories and graphic novels for Australian writers and publishers, and presented comics and graphic novels workshops at various writers’ centres, festivals, libraries and pop culture events around Australia, as well as the City of Sydney and JMC Academy. Julie was the co-founder of the ASA Comics / Graphic Novels Portfolio and was the co-portfolio holder between 2007 and 2012. She was recently on the judging panel for the 2018 Ledger Awards, and is currently working on several short prose and comics stories for mainstream and independent publishers, which will be published in 2019. Julie is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Brook Emery
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Brook Emery’s first three books of poetry were and dug my fingers in the sand (FIP 2000), which won the Judith Wright Calanthe Prize in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, Misplaced Heart (FIP 2003) and Uncommon Light (FIP 2007). All three were short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. His fourth book, Collusion (JLP 2012) was short-listed for the Western Australian Premier’s Prize. His most recent book, Have Been and Are, was published by Gloria SMH in 2016. Individual poems have won the Newcastle Poetry Prize, the Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize and the Max Harris Literary Award among others. Brook directed the Australian Poetry Festival in 2008 and 2010, ran the Brett Whiteley Readings in Sydney for ten years, and was once upon a time Chairperson of the Poets Union. |
Peggy Frew
Image © Mclean Stephenson |
Available for mentorships from January 2023. Peggy Frew is a writer and musician who lives in Melbourne. Her work has been published in The Age, Kill Your Darlings, Meanjin, Qantas Magazine, NGV Magazine and The Big Issue. She was the winner of The Age short story competition in 2008. Her first novel, House of Sticks (2011, Scribe), won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer, and was shortlisted for the UTS Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing. Hope Farm, her second novel (2015, Scribe), won the Barbara Jefferis Award, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Her third novel Islands (2019, Allen and Unwin), was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Peggy is a graduate of RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing program, and has worked as an editorial assistant at Cambridge University Press. She has given talks in libraries and schools on the craft of writing, contributed to Women of Letters events, and appeared at writers’ festivals all around Australia. Peggy is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Mawunyo Gbogbo
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When award-winning journalist and debut author of Hip Hop & Hymns, Mawunyo Gbogbo, was a segment producer at the Today Show, the one thing she heard consistently from her colleagues was how amazing her writing is. ‘No-one can write an intro like Marnie’. (Her colleagues called her Marnie.) ‘Marnie, you’re such a beautiful writer’. ‘Marnie, you have no idea how to put together a to-do list, but man you can write your socks off!’ (Mawunyo has since mastered the art of the to-do list.) As a journalist and TV and radio producer with more than two decades worth of experience, Mawunyo was born to be a writer. And one of the most common compliments she has received from readers of her memoir Hip Hop & Hymns is: ‘I could not put it down’. When reviewing the book on Chat 10 Looks 3, journalist Leigh Sales went on to say: “Mawunyo’s writing I loved because she really captured a sense of place really well. Like I felt like Muswellbrook in the writing and there’s a bit where she’s in New York and I really felt like New York. And Tyce and Mawunyo’s mother felt like very real, fleshed out, well, they are real because it’s a memoir. But they felt real to me and that’s actually quite hard to do, I think, in writing, is to make people feel fully complex and not reduce them to being two-dimensional." Mawunyo also ticks the box when it comes to formal qualifications and she actually paid attention at uni, so she has a lot of wisdom to impart. She has a Master of Arts in Creative Writing and a Bachelor of Arts (Communication – Journalism) degree. She has experience leading workshops and tutoring budding writers. She’s also appeared on panels at numerous festivals including the Sydney Writers’ Festival, Byron Writers Festival, the Emerging Writers’ Festival and the Newcastle Writers Festival. Mawunyo wants to share what she’s learned along the way with you and has particular expertise, interests and lived experience with topics such as mental health, music and pop culture and social justice and she can offer culturally appropriate mentorships as a Black woman. Her specialty is non-fiction. Website: http://mawunyo.com.au |
Sue de Gennaro
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Sue was raised deep in the suburbs where drawing filled in all the spaces left behind by not having a TV. As the spaces got larger, so to did Sue’s appetite for the arts. Sue has a Degree in Film, a Diploma in Fine Art and a Certificate in Welding. Sue moved from Adelaide to Sydney convinced that contemporary dance was worth a go. As it turned out she was terrible at remembering any more than three steps at a time. Still drawn to the performing arts Sue spent the next 10 years training as an aerialist/ performance artist. Her physical career ventured into the circus world where she worked in an All Girl Flying Trapeze Troupe. As time passed Sue found her fingers were still searching around deep in her pockets for a pencil. ‘The Princess and The Frozen Packet of Peas’ was her first picture book. Sue has illustrated over 20 books. Within that time she has received a few CBCA notables, one shortlist and has a wee stack of rejection letters. Her books have been published in the USA, Canada, France, Korea, Germany and Taiwan. |
Yvette Henry Holt
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Yvette Henry Holt – multi award-winning poet, publisher, editor, femin_artist of desert photography, national facilitator of literary workshops, Director AP Australian Poetry, and Chairperson of the First Nations Australia Writers Network FNAWN – Yvette proudly heralds from the Yiman, Wakaman, and Bidjara Nations of Queensland. Winner of the David Unaipon Award 2005, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing 2008, Scanlon Prize for Poetry NSW 2008, RAKA Kate Challis Award 2010, and Highly Commended for the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize 2018. Yvette’s works have been extensively published and numerously anthologised in online journals and publications. |
Janet Hutchinson
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Dr Janet Hutchinson has worked in book publishing on a freelance basis for over 30 years. She is the commissioning editor of Grandma Magic: true stories by and about grandmothers (Allen & Unwin, 2009 & 2010) and the compiling editor of two anthologies of Central Australian writing, The Milk in the Sky and Fishtails in the Dust (Ptilotus Press, 2006 & 2009). For many years she taught creative writing, mostly at the University of Technology, Sydney, but also at several other universities. She has conducted community-based workshops in writing and editing in both urban and regional locations. Her published work includes Desire and Other Domestic Problems (a short story collection), articles and essays. She has also ghostwritten books of non-fiction, mainly memoir. As a writer, editor, manuscript assessor, publishing consultant, researcher, ghostwriter, copywriter and writer for websites, she has undertaken diverse projects, including, over the past 20 years, working with both emerging and well-established Indigenous authors. She has been an ASA mentor since 2003. www.janethutchinson.com.au Janet is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
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I’m the author of twelve books as well as numerous essays and works of cultural criticism. I’m also a literary translator (from Chinese) specialising in film subtitling. My seven novels include the internationally bestselling Eat Me, The Infernal Optimist (short-listed for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal), A Most Immoral Woman and The Empress Lover. With the publication of The Shortest History of China in Australia in May 2021 (with American and other international, including translated editions to follow) I have written five works of non-fiction including The Monkey and the Dragon, the Quarterly Essay Found in Translation: In Praise of a Plural World. In 2014 I was awarded the NSW Literary Fellowship. My essays, reviews and short stories have been published in a range of magazines and anthologies. I’m an associate of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University and a co-editor of the China Story Yearbook. I have a wide variety of interests, from feminism, women’s writing and sexuality to China, Spain, refugees, Australian culture and politics, travel, contemporary African literature and more. Linda is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Lee Kofman
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I am a Russian-born, Israeli-Australian writer, editor, writing teacher and mentor based in Melbourne. I hold a PhD in social sciences and MA in creative writing, and I live and breathe literature. I understand diversity from a firsthand experience and what it means to write in the increasingly multicultural as well as fragmented world. I am the author of three fiction books, and memoirs Imperfect (Affirm Press, 2019), which was shortlisted for Nib Literary Award 2019, and The Dangerous Bride (Melbourne University Press, 2014). I am also the editor of Split (Ventura Press, 2019), which was longlisted for ABIA Awards 2020, and co-editor of Rebellious Daughters (Ventura Press, 2016), anthologies of personal essays by prominent Australian authors. My short works have been published in Australia, Scotland, UK, Israel, USA and Canada. My blog about writing was a finalist for Best Australian Blogs 2014. My most recent book, The Writer Laid Bare: Mastering emotional honesty in a writer’s art, craft and life (Ventura Press, 2022) is part a memoir of my writing life and part a guide for writers. I am a regular speaker and interviewer in literary events. I’ve also been involved in a number of literary awards and competitions as a judge or assessor, including in Varuna Fellowships, the Deborah Cass Award and the Nib Literary Award. I am passionate about helping other writers to realise their creative visions. Since 2003 I have been teaching fiction and creative non-fiction workshops and courses all around Australia – in writers’ festivals, writers’ centres, libraries, various other community organisations, at Varuna the Writers’ House and privately. I’ve mentored numerous writers – some established and some emerging, and a considerable number of the latter published their manuscripts with mainstream publishers. My favourite thing about mentoring is working with writers on increasing their awareness of how their individual creative process works and helping them to dig deeply, honestly, fiercely into their subjects. |
Siang Lu
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Siang Lu is the award-winning author of The Whitewash (UQP), and the co-creator of The Beige Index. He is the recipient of the 2021 Queensland Literary Awards Glendower Emerging Writer Award for The Whitewash. His work has appeared in Pedestrian.TV, KYD, Southerly and Westerly. He has spoken at writers festivals around Australia, including ABC's Big Weekend of Books, Ubud Writers and Readers Festival Perth and Oz Asia Adelaide. He holds a Master of Letters from the University of Sydney. He has written for television on Malaysia's Astro network. Siang is based in Brisbane, Australia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 2015, Siang won the ASA mentorship award and has had the unique privilege of being both a mentee and mentor for the ASA with a full-spectrum view of the creative journey from apprentice to practitioner. He shares insights from the creative trenches, provides advice on how to sustain professional momentum, methods to progress multiple pathways to publication, strategies for polishing pitches to literary agents in Australia and the United States, offers media training for radio and festival appearances, and shares some hard-won wisdom in how to transition from an emerging writer to a published author on the national stage. For more more information on mentorships with Siang or to book a mentorship with Siang, please email programs@asauthors.org |
Rae Luckie
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Dr Rae Luckie is an experienced writing mentor, editor, manuscript assessor and creative writing workshop facilitator. A qualified teacher with a PhD in auto/biographical writing, her expertise is in the field of life-writing/creative nonfiction (autobiography, biography, memoir), historical fiction and family history. In August 2022 she was awarded a Master of History focussed on life in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century and in 2017 completed a Graduate Diploma in Local, Family and Applied History—both from the University of New England. Since 2020 she has completed a number of courses to further develop her skills via the University of Virginia; Australian Writers Centre; HNSA; New England Writers’ Centre; the Institute of Professional Editors; and the ASA. Rae has judged a number of writing competitions including the biennial FAW Walter Stone Award for Life-writing from 2010 to 2018. A professional member of Editors NSW, her passion is mentoring writers, however her published works are in anthologies including Best Australian Stories 2004; The Complete Blokes and Shed; Stories of Complicated Grief, Illness in the Academy; and No Thanks or Regrets. In 2001 she won the Partners in Crime ‘Queen of Crime’. Rae has lectured in creative writing at University of Wollongong and University of Western Sydney and has presented papers on subjects including speculative biography, auto/biographical writing and ethical considerations in life writing. Rae is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Mark Macleod
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Dr Mark Macleod has taught Children’s Literature, Australian Literature and Creative Writing at universities in Australia and around the world, most recently in India. He is Chair of TasWriters, the Tasmanian Writers' Centre in Hobart. Formerly President and Publishing Director of Dirt Lane Press, he has been Publishing Director at Random House and Publisher at Hachette Australia. He has served as a judge for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and has sat on many assessment panels for national and state arts funding organisations. A former national president of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Mark has won awards for distinguished service to Children’s Literature and for many titles published under his own name imprint, Mark Macleod Books. He is adjunct Senior Lecturer at Charles Sturt University and is the author of poems for adults and children, and picture books for children. His latest collection of poems for children, The Secret Boat, will be published in 2023. Mark is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Fiona McGregor
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I’m a cross-disciplinary writer, artist and critic with more than three decades’ experience in fiction, non-fiction, criticism, performance art, curation, teaching and activism. My writing ranges from traditional to experimental. Awards include essay collection Buried not dead (2021 VPLA shortlist), novel Indelible Ink (2011 Age Book of Year, and multiple short listings), short story collection Suck My Toes/Dirt (1995 QLD literary award - Steele Rudd). I’ve won and been shortlisted for a range of short story and essay prizes. My photoessay A Novel Idea (2019) fuses genres, interrogating the process of writing. chemical palace (2002) is a cut-up, experimental novel. I write for The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Monthly, Meanjin and more. My most recent book is the novel Iris (Picador, 2022). I have mentored for the Australian Society of Authors, NSW Writers’ Centre, Best Young Australian Novelists, as well as for University of Western Sydney’s The Writing Zone. I’ve taught creative writing – both fiction and non-fiction – at Macquarie University and UTS. I’ve appeared at many writers’ festivals and given university lectures on the craft of writing, getting published, performance art, street culture, LGBTIQ culture and history, and more. |
Jane Messer
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JANE MESSER: I am a fiction, nonfiction and mixed-media author, creative writing teacher and mentor. Through conversations and written feedback I support authors to realise their vision for their manuscript, to stay on-track, to manage deadlines, and to finish the project. I work with authors to hone and develop their craft and practice new techniques. I’m particularly focused on structure, narrative pacing, language techniques, and when relevant, I offer guidance with research. I mentor authors to bring their manuscript to a publishable standard, ready for submission to competitions, agents or publishers. I work with diverse writers, and am particularly supportive of writers exploring representations of identity, culture and language. My history: I am a former Course Director and lecturer in of the Master of Creative Writing, Macquarie University. Teaching at Macquarie University for over fifteen years I worked with many wonderful student authors, and esteemed Australian and international visiting writers. My first experience of the writing workshop and mentoring process was at the University Technology, Sydney where I was taught by Amanda Lohrey and the late Glenda Adams. I then moved to the USA to undertake the Masters in Fiction Writing at Johns Hopkins University where I was mentored by John Barth, and finished my first novel, Night by Night. Returning to Australia, I completed a Doctor of Creative Arts at UTS, teaching alongside the Glenda Adams and writing my second novel Provenance. I went on to edit two anthologies, and published a third novel, Hopscotch. My current manuscript is a memoir-biography. My novels, anthologies and radio plays have been critically acclaimed and published with esteemed Australian publishers/broadcasters (including Night by Night, Provenance, Hopscotch, Bedlam-anthology of sleepless nights, Dear Dr Chekhov.) I have written an online narrative game, The Great Fire, as part of a university research project on ethical decision-making in gameplay. My scholarly research and publications focus on work life, mothering as work, and literary representations of mothering. Jane is also available for the First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Tony Park
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Tony Park is the author of 19 thriller novels set in Africa and seven co-written biographies. His novels regularly make the top 10 in Australia and his second home, South Africa, where his 18th novel, Last Survivor, was number one in adult fiction. Prior to becoming a published author, Tony worked as a journalist, government press secretary and public relations consultant. He also served 34 years in the Australian Army Reserve, including service in Papua New Guinea and East Timor, an attachment to the British Army, and a six-month tour of Afghanistan in 2002 as a public affairs officer. Tony’s thrillers span the mystery, crime, military and intelligence genres, with several set against the backdrop of the war against wildlife poaching in Africa. He and his wife, Nicola, normally spend half the year in Sydney and the remainder in their home in a game reserve in South Africa. Tony is the inaugural Veteran Writer in Residence at Sydney’s Anzac Memorial. He has been a guest presenter at writing workshops in Australia and South Africa and delivered a writing course for veterans. He offers mentees the benefits of his experience as a full-time novelist and ghost writer, and his time in uniform. |
Alexandra Payne
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Alexandra Payne is a freelance editor, publishing consultant and writer who has been in the book industry for more than 25 years. She has worked inhouse at both multinational and independent houses, including Penguin Books and Hardie Grant, and freelance for a variety of trade publishing houses. From 2007 to 2018 she was the Non-fiction Publisher at UQP. She has commissioned books that have won awards, including the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, the Qld Literary Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for History, and has worked with authors such as Charles Massy, Jane Caro, Christine Milne, John Bell, Melanie Schilling, Patti Miller, Joe Gorman, Marion Halligan and Mark Tredinnick. Alexandra’s area of expertise is non-fiction, in all its fascinating and fabulous forms. She works on memoir, biography, personal development, activism, environmental/nature writing, politics, current affairs, pop culture, sport, mind/body/spirit, health and wellbeing, history, travel and more. Alexandra loves supporting authors through their writing and publishing journey. As a mentor, she helps authors develop their work, whether it be to ensure their manuscript is ready for submission to publishing houses or to encourage a deeper quest to reach the heart of what they truly want to say. |
Oliver Phommavanh
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Oliver Phommavanh loves to make people laugh on the page as an children's author and on the stage as a comedian. Oliver uses his experience as a primary school teacher to inspire kids to write funny stories. He has featured in Writers and Comedy festivals all across Australia and Asia. Oliver’s books include Don’t Follow Vee, Natural Born Loser, The Other Christy and Thai-riffic! His latest book is Brain Freeze. Oliver is also available for The First Ten Pages 3 hour consultation. |
Emma Quay
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Emma Quay is an illustrator and author of many award-winning and bestselling picture books; her memorable characters for My Sunbeam Baby, Rudie Nudie, Baby Bedtime, Shrieking Violet, Bear and Chook, Daddy’s Cheeky Monkey, Good Night, Me and Scarlett, Starlet are favourites on children's bookshelves all over Australia. She has been immersed in the children’s book industry for thirty years, having been published by ABC Books/HarperCollins Publishers Australia, Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster USA, Hachette Australia, Bloomsbury USA, and Scholastic Press, as author/illustrator and in collaboration with many of Australia's most respected writers and illustrators for children, including Lisa Shanahan, Mem Fox, Andrew Daddo, Colin Thompson and Anna Walker. Her work has been published around the world, and is included in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Emma loves working closely with emerging and developing picture book illustrators and author/illustrators, to build an illustration portfolio with a view to finding a unique space in the children’s trade picture book scene, to develop a voice as a creator, or to bring a picture book text and illustrations to a publishable standard in order to to attract the eyes and enthusiasm of the right publisher for the project. Emma is also experienced in working with more established illustrators, offering guidance in the development of an outstanding body of work with a focus on building a distinctive and sustained presence in the children’s book industry. |
Kate Ryan
Image © Susan Gordon-Brown |
Kate Ryan writes fiction and non-fiction and her work has appeared in publications including New Australian Writing, The Sleepers Almanac, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, the Griffith Review and Best Australian Stories. Her picture books were published by Penguin and Lothian. She won the Writers Prize and the University of Melbourne residency prize in the 2015 Melbourne Prize for Literature and the novella category in the 2017 Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards. Her work has been recognised in other awards including the Josephine Ulrick, Calibre, Elizabeth Jolley and Boroondara. She is an Honorary Associate of La Trobe University (2013), where she completed her PhD in Creative Writing. Her PhD was nominated for the Nancy Millis Award and she received a Write-Up Award from La Trobe University for short fiction in 2014. Kate’s debut novel, The Golden Book, will be published by Scribe in August 2021. Kate has taught creative writing at RMIT and, since 2017, Creative Nonfiction at the Council of Adult Education. She has participated in numerous workshops and master classes with a diverse range of writers. She worked as a fiction editor, inhouse and freelance, for publishing houses including Roland Harvey Books, Random House, Lothian Books, Macmillan Education and Penguin Books for more than twenty years. Her experience included commissioning new work, structural and copyediting of fiction from picture books through to young adult novels and working with writers including Phillip Gwynne, David Metzenthen (Penguin Books) and Bronwyn Blake (Lothian Books). She was responsible for editing Phillip’s book Deadly, Unna?, which won the Children’s Book Council of Australia Award for Young Adult fiction in 1998 and was made into a feature film. Her assessment and mentoring work involves analysing fiction and nonfiction and working with numerous writers to develop and refine their work. Kate is available for the first ten pages mentorships. |
Kristina Schulz
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Kristina Schulz has worked as an editor and publisher for over twenty years in Brisbane, Sydney, New York and London. Most recently she was the Children’s and Young Adult Publisher at the University of Queensland Press (UQP). Kristina has spoken at writers’ festivals and conferences, contributed to industry boards and panels, judged writers’ prizes, and has helped authors and illustrators at pitching sessions and with manuscript feedback, structural work, editing and mentoring. She loves working with Australian voices and is always drawn to books with strong themes and stories with heart. She is passionate about getting books into the hands of readers and would love to see a teacher librarian in every school around the country. Over the years, she has been lucky enough to work with many award-winning and best-selling authors including Claire Zorn, Peter Carnavas, Samantha Wheeler, Rebecca Sparrow, Steven Herrick, Nick Earls, Nova Weetman, Linda Sue Park, Pip Harry, Megan Daley and many more. |
Robyn Sheahan-Bright
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Dr Robyn Sheahan-Bright AM has operated justified text writing and publishing consultancy services since 1997, and is widely published in children’s literature, Australian fiction and publishing history. She has judged literary awards, mentored and offered editorial advice to writers, lectured in writing and publishing courses, and assesses post-graduate creative writing theses for several universities. She writes both teachers’ notes and reading group notes for major publishers. She was inaugural director of and is a Life Member of the Queensland Writers’ Centre, and was cofounder of Jam Roll Press. Her publications include Paper Empires: A History of the Book in Australia (1946–2005) (2006) co-edited with Craig Munro. She has been Program Manager of the APA’s biennial Residential Editorial Program since 1999. She is President of the IBBY Australia Committee, and Deputy-Chair of the Board of the Australian Children’s Laureate Foundation. She was recipient of the CBCA(Qld)’s Dame Annabelle Rankin Award in 2011, CBCA’s Nan Chauncy Award in 2012, and of the QWC’s Johnno Award in 2014. In 2021, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). |
Craig Smith
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Craig Smith is one of Australia's most prolific children's book illustrators, with over 400 books published. He has collaborated with many of Australia's most experienced writers and editors, including Doug MacLeod, Paul Jennings, Libby Gleeson, Duncan Ball, Emily Rodda, Gary Crew, Sally Morgan and Gillian Rubinstein. Craig's work over the last forty-two years has been acknowledged in the CBCA Book of the Year awards, as well as in children's choice awards around Australia. In 2011, Craig was awarded the biennial Euphemia Tanner Award, which recognised his distinguished services to children's literature and his encouragement of the joy of reading in children. |
Erica Wagner
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Available for mentorships from November 2023. Erica Wagner is an artist, publisher and creative consultant to storytellers. Erica has worked as an editor and publisher of books for children and young adults since 1988, including 10 years with Penguin Australia, one year starting a children's list for Duffy & Snellgrove and 20 years with Allen & Unwin, and is a co-director of the micro publishing house Twelve Panels Press. In 2019, Erica and Johanna Bell facilitated the successful Octopus Story Camp in Darwin for 24 Top End writers and artists. In 2017 Erica was awarded the Dromkeen Medal and in 2020 the Australian Book Industry's Pixie O'Harris Award for outstanding achievement in the creation of Australian children’s books. She is now a freelance publishing consultant with a special interest in collaborative book development projects and illustrated books. |
Sue Woolfe
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I am an award-winning, best-selling, internationally published novelist, with five works of fiction. I’ve written once for TV, and won an AWGIE. Two of my novels have recently been chosen for Untapped, the Australian Literary Heritage Project, and those novels are now in print again, and in e books. www. https://untapped.org.au I’ve taught the neuroscience of creative writing for 20 years, overseas in Barcelona and Florence, at national writers’ festivals, community workshops, and universities - Sydney University (9 years), and NIDA (8 years), on six overseas retreats for Sydney University, and since 2015 on my own annual OS retreats. Since 2020, in a surprising twist, I’ve been teaching creativity to composers and musicians at the Music School, ANU, for the latest neurobiology suggests that, whatever our outputs, we artists all use the same creative processes, at least in the initial stages. |
John Zubrzycki
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John Zubrzycki is a best-selling author specialising in biography and narrative non-fiction. A former senior writer for The Australian and New Delhi-based foreign correspondent, he has a long career in publishing, journalism and teaching. His books represent an eclectic range of subjects from the history of Indian stage magic to the biography of one of the Victorian era’s most mysterious characters, the jeweller and spy Alexander Malcolm Jacob. His most recent books have been published in the US, the UK, South Asia and Australia and have all been optioned for web series. He is currently completing The Shortest History of India for Black Ink and has been commissioned to write on the integration of the Indian princely states for Juggernaut (India) and Hurst (UK). He has a PhD in history from the University of NSW, where he has also worked as a tutor. An avid reader of history, current affairs and memoir, he has mentored numerous writers in genres ranging from biography to travel narratives. |
If you are interested in taking on a mentorship, please feel free to email programs@asauthors.org for further information or a chat.
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