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Susan Hawthorne is the author/editor of thirty books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. Her latest book, Lesbian: Politics, culture, existence (Spinifex Press), interweaves her thinking about these subjects over a fifty-year period. She has worked in Indigenous education and has taught English as a second language to Arabic-speaking women. For fifteen years, she was an aerialist in two women’s circuses. She researched the torture of lesbians on which her novel Dark Matters is based.

Professor George Williams AO is the Vice-Chancellor and President at Western Sydney University. He commenced as Western Sydney University’s fifth Vice-Chancellor in July 2024, bringing decades of experience as a constitutional law scholar and teacher, senior leader in higher education, barrister and as a national thought leader. His latest book with David Hume is People Power: How Australian referendums are lost and won (UNSW Press, 2024).

Sebastian Smee, born in 1972 in Adelaide, is now a Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic at The Washington Post. He has written widely about art and is the author of The Art of Rivalry: Four friendships, betrayals, and breakthroughs in modern art and Paris in Ruins: Love, war, and the birth of Impressionism. He lives in Boston.

Iain McCalman was born in Nyasaland in 1947, and educated in Zimbabwe and Australia. He writes British, European, and Australian histories of popular science, politics, conservation, and literary cultures. His books include The Reef: A passionate history (2013) and Delia Akeley and the Monkey (2022). His new book is John Büsst: Bohemian artist and saviour of reef and rainforest (NewSouth, 2024). He is a former President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and was Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Sydney [University] Environment Institute (2011-21). He was awarded Officer of the Order of Australia in 2007 for ‘services to history and the humanities’.

Francesca de Tores is a novelist, poet, and academic. Saltblood is her first historical novel. Writing as Francesca Haig, she is the author of four previous novels, published in more than twenty languages. In addition to a collection of poems, her poetry is widely published in journals and anthologies. She grew up in lutruwita/Tasmania and, after fifteen years in England, is now living in Naarm/Melbourne.

Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, and Federal Member for Fenner in the ACT. Prior to being elected in 2010, Andrew was a professor of economics at the Australian National University. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard. His books include Battlers and Billionaires: The story of inequality in Australia (2013), Randomistas: How radical researchers changed our world (2018), and The Shortest History of Economics (2024). Andrew is a keen triathlete and marathon runner, and hosts a podcast called The Good Life: Andrew Leigh in Conversation, about living a happier, healthier, and more ethical life.

Nicholas Jose is a novelist and essayist whose thirteen books include the novels Paper Nautilus, Avenue of Eternal Peace (shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award), The Custodians (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize), and Original Face. His latest novel is The Idealist (Giramondo, 2023). He is Emeritus Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide.

Anita Heiss is the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction, poetry, social commentary, and travel articles. She is a Lifetime Ambassador of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and a proud member of the Wiradyuri nation of central New South Wales.

Belinda Alexandra is the daughter of a Russian mother and an Australian father and has been an intrepid traveller since her youth. Her love of other cultures is matched by her passion for her home country, Australia, where she is a volunteer rescuer and carer for the NSW Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service (WIRES). She is the author of twelve books, including ten historical novels and two works of non-fiction. Her latest book is the memoir Emboldened: On finding the fire to keep going when all seems lost (Affirm Press, 2023).