Speakers 2022 Archive - Newcastle Writers Festival 2025

Nicole Abadee

Nicole Abadee writes about books for Good Weekend, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and reviews for Australian Book Review.

Claire Albrecht

Dr Claire Albrecht is a Newcastle-based poet, editor, and curator. She was the 2019 Emerging Writers Festival fellow at the State Library of Victoria, a 2020 Varuna ‘Writing Fire, Writing…

Todd Alexander

Todd Alexander is a bestselling local author whose most recent book is You’ve Got to be Kidding: A Shedload of Wine and a Farm Full of Goats.

Evelyn Araluen

Evelyn Araluen is a poet, researcher, and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Born and raised on Dharug country, she is a descendant of the Bundjalung Nation.

Cameron Archer

Cameron Archer AM has spent his whole life in agriculture – from growing up on a farm, attending an agricultural high school, studying agriculture at the University of Sydney, and completing a…

Cassandra Atherton is an award-winning prose poet and international expert on prose poetry. She was a Visiting Scholar in English at Harvard University, a Visiting Fellow at Sophia University, Japan,…

Sunil Badami

Sunil Badami is a writer, performer, broadcaster, academic and storyteller. He’s written for pretty much every major media outlet in Australia, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Guardian, The Monthly,…

Van Badham

Van Badham is a writer, theatre-maker and novelist, occasional broadcaster, critic, trade unionist and feminist. She writes columns for the Guardian and her interests include gardening, baking and dialectical materialism. Her most recent book,…

Julia Baird

Julia Baird’s most recent book Phosphorescence became an instant bestseller when it was published in 2020.

Magdalena Ball

Magdalena Ball is a novelist, poet, reviewer, and interviewer. She is the managing editor of the book review site, Compulsive Reader.

David Banney

David Banney is the Artistic Director of Newcastle’s Christ Church Camerata, Co-Artistic Director of the Newcastle Music Festival, Director of the Newcastle Strings, and on the staff of the Riverina Summer…

Cécile Barral

Cécile Barral is a local psychotherapist specialising in complex developmental trauma. The Silence Between Us, co-written with her daughter Oceane Campbell, is her first book.

Emma Batchelor

Emma Batchelor’s first novel Now That I See You won the 2021 Vogel’s Literary Award.

Caroline Baum

Journalist Caroline Baum hosts the Life Sentences podcast, in which she interviews biographers about their craft.

Dan Beazley

Dan Beazley is a digital creative, media specialist and website developer for Newcastle LIVE.

Morgan Bell

Morgan Bell is a Port Stephens author of short fiction and visual poetry. Her books include Sniggerless Boundulations, Laissez Faire, and Intersection Control: Collected Works. She is a qualified technical…

Vanessa Berry

Vanessa Berry is a writer who works with memory, history, archives, and objects.

Matthew Bevan

Matthew Bevan is host and writer of the ABC podcast China, If You’re Listening and RN Breakfast reporter.

Paul Bevan

Paul Bevan is a Newcastle singer and retired ABC broadcaster.

Scott Bevan

A returned Novocastrian, Scott Bevan is the author of six books. His most recent, The Lake: Exploring a Splendid Sheet of Water, is a journey in words and stories around…

Judith Beveridge

Judith Beveridge’s Sun Music: New and Selected Poems won the 2019 Prime Minister’s poetry prize.

Tony Birch

Tony Birch is an award-winning writer, activist, historian, and essayist.

Emily Bitto

Emily Bitto is a Melbourne-based writer of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. She has a Masters in Literary Studies and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. Her…

Lech Blaine

Lech Blaine is an award-winning writer from Toowoomba. Car Crash is his first book.

Gerry Bobsien

Gerry Bobsien is Director, Maitland Regional Art Gallery. She has worked across leadership and curatorial roles at the National Gallery of Australia, Newcastle Art Gallery, and The Lock-Up and provided…

Emily Brugman

Emily Brugman grew up in Broulee, on the far south coast of NSW, on the lands of the Yuin people. Her writing has previously appeared in literary journals, magazines, and…

Paul Callaghan

Paul Callaghan is an Aboriginal man belonging to the land of the Worimi people, just north of Newcastle. For many years he has held senior executive positions in Aboriginal- and…

Oceane Campbell

Oceane is a local midwife and mother of three children. The Silence Between Us, co-written with her mother Cécile Barral, is her first book.

Jane Caro

Jane Caro AM is a Walkley Award-winning Australian columnist, author, novelist, broadcaster, advertising writer, documentary maker, feminist, and social commentator. She has published 12 books, including Just a Girl, Just a Queen and Just…

Johnny Carr

Johnny Carr is an accomplished stage and screen actor. He has performed leading roles for Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, Belvoir, Malthouse, Griffin, State Theatre Company of…

Gabrielle Chan

Gabrielle Chan has written for The Australian, Guardian Australia, Meanjin and Griffith Review. Rusted Off: Why Country Australia is Fed Up was shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards and the 2020 Walkley Awards. Why You…

Lee Christine

Lee Christine is the author of three crime novels set in Australia’s Snowy Mountains: Charlotte Pass, Crackenback, and Dead Horse Gap. Lee loves connecting with her readers and has participated…

Natasha Cica

Dr Natasha Cica is director of change consultancy Kapacity.org. She is former CEO of Heide Museum of Modern Art, established the Inglis Clark Centre in Tasmania, and is an honorary professor…

Kristy Coady

Kristy Coady and her sister Bec founded Swell Magazine.

Clayton Zane Comber

Clayton Zane Comber is a writer from the South Coast of NSW. He has held many varied roles, including lawyer, optical dispenser, club DJ, creative writing tutor and saxophonist in a…

Ed Coper

Ed Coper is a leading communications expert and was on the front lines when the internet collided with democracy, growing Australia’s first online political movement GetUp to quickly amass more…

Brendan Cowell

Brendan is an award-winning writer, actor and director for television, theatre, and film. He wrote the smash hit Ruben Guthrie for Belvoir St Theatre in 2009, and wrote and directed…

Dan Cox

Dan Cox co-hosts Breakfast on ABC Newcastle with Jenny Marchant.

Anwen Crawford

Anwen Crawford is a Sydney-based writer, critic, and visual artist.

Judith Nangala Crispin

Judith Nangala Crispin is an artist and poet living near Lake George on unceded Ngambri-Ngunnawal Country. She has published two collections of poetry, The Myrrh-Bearers (Puncher & Wattmann, 2015), and The Lumen Seed (Daylight Books, 2017)…

Justine Cullen

Justine Cullen is an award-winning fashion magazine editor and author of Semi-Gloss: Magazines, motherhood, and misadventures in having it all.

Nancy Cushing

Nancy Cushing is Associate Professor of History at the University of Newcastle.

Trent Dalton

Trent Dalton is an award-winning journalist with The Weekend Australian Magazine. He has received international acclaim for his bestselling novels Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies. His most…

Tegan Bennett Daylight

Tegan Bennett Daylight is a writer, teacher, and critic. She is the author of three novels: Bombora, What Falls Away and Safety, as well as several books for children and teenagers. Her collection of…

Benjamin Dodds

Benjamin Dodds is a Sydney-based poet who grew up in the NSW Riverina. His work appears in journals, anthologies and newspapers and has been broadcast on national radio. He was…

Peter Doherty

Peter Doherty shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for discovering the nature of the cellular immune defence. Based at the University of Melbourne, he continues to be…

Anna Downes

Anna Downes grew up in Sheffield, UK. She studied drama at Manchester before winning a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and moving to London to pursue an…

James Drinkwater

James Drinkwater studied at the National Art School, Sydney (2001) and has held solo exhibitions since 2004 in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and internationally in London and Singapore. In 2016, the…

Claire Dunn

Claire Dunn is the author of My Year Without Matches and Rewilding the Urban Soul.

Mark Dunn

Mark Dunn’s The Convict Valley investigates the lives and interactions of convict, Aboriginal and settler communities in the Hunter Valley.

Meryl Dunton-Rose

Meryl Dunton-Rose’s debut novel A Patient Obsession will be launched at this year’s festival. After completing a Bachelor of Arts in language and literature, Meryl dabbled in creative writing. It…

Monica Dux

Monica Dux’s most recent book is the memoir Lapsed: Losing Your Religion is Harder than it Looks…

Karen Eastwood

Many will recognise Karen Eastwood from her involvement with Newcastle Micro Theatre or perhaps her various jobs with Newcastle Library. Karen hosts the library’s podcast Chats with Fabulous Children’s Authors…

Sharon Edgar-Jones

Sharon Edgar-Jones has spent more than a decade researching and analysing historical language data related to the Hunter River and Lake Macquarie regions with a particular focus on the inland…

Kate Ellis

Kate Ellis represented Adelaide in the Australian House of Representatives for Labor from 2004 until 2019. She served in multiple portfolios in the outer ministry of the 2007 to 2013…

Mehreen Faruqi

NSW Greens’ senator Mehreen Faruqi’s memoir Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud was published in July.

Toby Fitch

Toby Fitch is poetry editor of Overland and a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Sydney. He latest collection of poems is Sydney Spleen.

Clementine Ford

Clementine Ford is a freelance writer, broadcaster and public speaker based in Melbourne. Her most recent book is How We Love, a deeply personal exploration of love in all its…

Helen Garner

Helen Garner writes novels, stories, screenplays and works of non-fiction.

Keri Glastonbury

Keri Glastonbury is an Associate Professor in English and Writing at The University of Newcastle. Her poetry collection Newcastle Sonnets (Giramondo 2018) was shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for…

Roanna Gonsalves

Roanna Gonsalves is the award-winning author of the acclaimed collection of short fiction The Permanent Resident. Her writing has been compared to the work of Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri. Her…

Paul Gordon

Paul Gordon is a Ngemba man who was born in Brewarrina. As a child he spent a lot of time in rural fencing camps in western NSW and south-western Queensland…

Rory Green

Rory Green is a writer, editor and digital media artist living on Gadigal land.

Kelli Hawkins

Kelli Hawkins writes reports for a private investigator, as well as working on novels for adults and children. She lives in Newcastle with her two teenagers. Over the years she’s…

Ashley Hay

Ashley Hay is an award-winning novelist and essayist. She edits Griffith Review.

Amani Haydar

Amani Haydar is an artist, lawyer, mum and advocate for women’s health and safety.

Paul Hetherington

Paul Hetherington is a distinguished Australian poet.

Kathryn Heyman

Kathryn Heyman is the author of six novels, including Storm and Grace, published by Allen and Unwin in February 2017. She has won numerous awards including an Arts Council of England Writers Award,…

David Hinds

David Hinds is an award-winning guitarist, songwriter and music producer residing in Lake Macquarie with his wife Lyn. A veteran of the ’70s Aussie rock scene, he played in top…

Jesse Hodgetts

Jesse Hodgetts is Wangaaypuwan Ngiyampaa and Wiradjuri man whose ancestral Country is amongst the Buugan (Bogan) and Wambuul (Macquarie) rivers of Central and Western NSW.

Kate Holden

Kate Holden’s most recent book is The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land and a Killing at Croppa Creek.

Jane Hutcheon

Jane Hutcheon is a journalist, author and former China correspondent who’s reported from some of the most volatile, exotic, and fascinating places on Earth.

Graeme Innes

Graeme Innes AM is a lawyer, author, and company director.

Brandon Jack

Brandon Jack is a singer/musician who played for the Sydney Swans for five years.

Narelda Jacobs

Narelda Jacobs is a Whadjuk Noongar journalist and presenter hailing from Boorloo/Perth now living on Gadigal Country in Sydney. Narelda has worked at Network 10 since 2000 and spent 19…

Wendy James

Wendy James is regarded as Australia’s queen of the domestic thriller. She is the author of nine novels, including The Golden Child, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Ned Kelly Award, and the bestselling The Mistake.

Julie Janson

Julie Janson’s career as a playwright began when she wrote and directed plays in remote Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. She is now a novelist and award-winning poet. Julie is a…

Grace Karskens

Grace Karskens is Professor of History at the University of New South Wales and the author of People of the River.

Kathryn Fry

Kathryn Fry has poems in Antipodes (2016, 2019), Cordite Poetry Review (2016), Not Very Quiet (2017-2020 incl.), Westerly (2019, 2020) and Science Write Now (2020, 2021). In 2020, her poem About the Centre, Even Now won the Alice Sinclair Poetry Prize, and she was…

Laura Kebby

Laura Kebby is a copywriter, poet, whiskey enthusiast and slightly funnier than average human, who makes things up for a living. As one half of Secret Book Stuff, it’s safe to…

Catherine Keenan

Dr Catherine Keenan AM is executive director and co-founder of Story Factory, a not-for-profit creative writing centre for young people. Before that, Cath was a journalist, arts writer, and literary…

Christopher (Kit) Kelen

Kit Kelen’s new volume of poetry in English, Book of Mother, is forthcoming from Puncher & Wattmann.

Ray Kelly

Ray Kelly is the deputy head of the University of Newcastle’s Wollotuka Institute. He was born and raised in Armidale and is affiliated with the Thangttti and Gumbayngirr people. Ray…

Thomas Keneally

Thomas Keneally is an award-winning writer and Number 1 ticketholder of the Manly-Warringah Rugby League team.

Hannah Kent

Hannah Kent is the award-winning author of three novels. The most recent is Devotion.

Jean Kent

Jean Kent has published five full-length poetry collections. She is a co-editor of This Gift, This Poem.

Anna May Kirk

Anna May Kirk is an artist, curator and creative producer based in Sydney. As an artist Anna is interested in the representational issue posed by the immaterial and spectral nature…

Krissy Kneen

Krissy Kneen is the award-winning author of memoir—Affection, Three Burials of Lotty Kneen—and fiction: An Uncertain Grace, Steeplechase, Triptych, The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine, Wintering, as well as the Thomas Shapcott Award-winning poetry collection Eating My Grandmother.

Sarah Krasnostein

Sarah Krasnostein is the award-winning writer of The Trauma Cleaner and The Believer: Encounters with Love, Death & Faith.

Mimi Kwa

Mimi Kwa is a freelance writer, reporter, and news anchor.

Suzanne Leal

Suzanne Leal is the author of novels The Deceptions, The Teacher’s Secret and Border Street.

Bri Lee

Bri Lee is a writer and editor whose work has been published widely. She regularly appears on The Drum on ABC TV, various ABC Radio National programs, and often gives talks on writing, law, feminism, fashion, pop culture, and art.

Amy Lovat

Amy Lovat is a writer, editor and the founder of Secret Book Stuff. She has a PhD in English and Writing from the University of Newcastle and lives with her…

Amy Lovat

Amy Lovat is a writer, editor, curator and founder of Secret Book Stuff. She has a PhD in English and Writing from the University of Newcastle and lives with her…

Chris Mansell

Chris Mansell has won several awards and published more than a dozen books of poetry.

John Maynard

John Maynard is of the Worimi people of Port Stephens and a leading Indigenous historian.

Thomas Mayor

Thomas is the author of four books; Finding the Heart of the Nation, Dear Son, Finding Our Heart and Freedom.

Wendy McCarthy

Wendy McCarthy is an experienced manager and company director who began her career as a secondary school teacher. She moved out of the classroom into public life in 1968 and…

Kate McClymont

Kate McClymont is an investigative journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and a seven-time Walkley Award-winner.

Jane McCredie

Jane McCredie is a writer, journalist and a former book publisher who is now CEO of Writing NSW.

Alissa McCulloch

Alissa McCulloch is the director of the digital lifestyle publication HUNTERhunter. Since launching in 2013 HUNTERhunter has focused on introducing readers to the best businesses, brands, and experiences, revealing hidden…

Duncan McDuie-Ra

Duncan McDuie-Ra is professor of urban sociology at the University of Newcastle.

Julie McIntyre

After publishing two award-winning histories of winegrowing, Julie McIntyre is working on a history of Australia for Princeton University Press.

Kate Mildenhall

Kate Mildenhall is the author of two novels – Skylarking (2016) and The Mother Fault (2020).

Nick Milligan

Nick Milligan is a Newcastle-based entertainment journalist, author, and podcaster.

Rosemarie Milsom

Rosemarie Milsom is the founding director of Newcastle Writers Festival, which is in its tenth year. c

Alex Morris

Alex Morris MCs a few events around town including Awesome Newcastle and Heart Open. She regularly writes for the Newcastle Herald’s Weekender Magazine and occasionally runs her mouth on ABC…

Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh (South East Queensland) and Dutch heritage.

Patrice Newell

Patrice Newell AM has been writing about food systems and rural matters for more than 20 years.

Ella O’Keefe

Ella O’Keefe is a poet and researcher. Her debut collection Slowlier was published in January.

Bastian Fox Phelan

Bastian Fox Phelan is a writer, musician and zinemaker. They have completed a literary memoir about female facial hair.

Anupama Pilbrow

Anupama Pilbrow’s poems, reviews, and essays have been published in journals and anthologies including Cordite Poetry Review, Rabbit Poetry Journal, JEASA, Southerly, and The Hunter Anthology of Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry.

Izabela Pluta

Izabela Pluta’s studio practice embraces photography as a way of interpreting and re-conceptualising the function that images have in the present. Pluta mediates on images with all their potential connections…

Rick Pointon

Rick Pointon was a member of Newcastle band Benny & the Jets and is the author of Hey Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Ben Randall

Ben Randall is an Australian activist, author, and acclaimed documentary filmmaker. Following the abductions of his friends from Vietnam in 2011, Ben founded The Human, Earth Project to raise awareness…

Yves Rees

Yves Rees is an award-winning writer and historian living on unceded Wurundjeri land.

Diana Reid

Diana Reid is a Sydney-based writer, who graduated from the University of Sydney last year with a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Hons Philosophy/Laws).

Teela Reid

Teela Reid is a proud Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman, lawyer, essayist, storyteller and co-founder of @blackfulla_bookclub, a platform that honours First Nation’s ancestors as the original storytellers. Currently, Teela is…

Amy Remeikis

Amy Remeikis is the political reporter for The Guardian. She writes on the major political issues in Australia, crime, the courts, and the environment. She is a regular panellist on…

Carolyn Rickett

Carolyn Rickett is the Dean of Learning and Teaching at Avondale University College and the coordinator for The New Leaves writing project. She has co-edited several poetry anthologies.

Mirandi Riwoe

Mirandi Riwoe is the author of the novella The Fish Girl and Stone Sky Gold Mountain, which won the 2020 Queensland Literary Award – Fiction Book Award and the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

THE AUTHORS & SPEAKERS

THE AUTHORS
& SPEAKERS