Tanya Ali is a programmer, broadcaster and media professional living and working on Gadigal Land with over a decade of experience in music media. Formerly the Managing Director of fbi.radio, Tanya has facilitated interviews and conversations on- and off-air for organisations including TedX, Better Read than Dead, MusicNSW, APRA AMCOS and more. 

Jackie Bailey is the author of The Eulogy, winner of the 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Multicultural Award and shortlisted for the 2023 NSW Premier’s UTS Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing. Jackie has a PhD in Creative Writing. When she is not writing, Jackie spends her time helping families to navigate death and dying. Jackie lives and works on the land of the Wodi Wodi people of the Dharawal nation. She is an ordained interfaith minister with a Masters of Theology, and is working on a non-fiction book about spirituality in a post-religious world. 

Rosie Batty is a British-Australian family violence campaigner and speaker. After her 11-year-old son, Luke, was killed by his father in a violent incident in February 2014, Rosie became a passionate campaigner on the issue of family violence. She won the Pride of Australia Award in 2014 and was named Australian of the Year in January 2015. Her first memoir, A Mother’s Story, was published in 2016.

Caroline Baum created and curated True Story in 2022, a unique yearly two-day festival of non-fiction, in partnership with the SCWC and the Illawarra Flame. In 2021, she created Life Sentences, a podcast dedicated to contemporary biography. She was the first Ambassador for the Older Women's Network in NSW (2018-2023), Editorial Director of Booktopia (2014-2018), and published her memoir ONLY: A Singular Memoir in 2017. In 2015, she was awarded the Hazel Rowley Fellowship for memoir and biography.

Gina Chick is a rewilding facilitator, adventurer, writer and speaker. Writing is in Gina Chick’s genes. Her grandmother, Charmian Clift, was an author, essayist and Australia’s first female columnist in the early 60s. Gina was one of ten participants of the first series of Alone Australia, made by iTV and screened on SBS in 2023. After 67 days of unforgettable moments of searing vulnerability, Gina was the last person standing, and the second woman to win an Alone solo challenge. Her upcoming memoir, We Are the Stars, will be published October 2024.

Dr Jodi Edwards is a Yuin woman with Dharawal kinship connection who has dedicated her life to Community, Culture, education and Language. As a D’harawal language speaker and advocate, she is passionate about awakening the language. She is a Curriculum Reform Advisor for Aboriginal Education with the NSW Education Standards Authority, providing expertise and advice to support the curriculum reform and delivery process. Jodi is a Research Fellow at RMIT and a tutor at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney.

Glen Humphries is a journalist with the Illawarra Mercury, a chunk of that time as the music writer. So he learned the dumbest question you can ask a musician is “What’s the story behind the band’s name?”. They get asked that all the time - and there is almost never a good story behind it. He has written several books on the Wollongong music scene and one on Midnight Oil’s albums 10-1 and Red Sails in the Sunset. His latest book Aussie Rock Anthems was published in 2024.

Rachel Lane’s most recent production Life Burns High, which she wrote, produced, and directed, was selected as part of the Sydney Film Festival in 2024. Her documentary Alofa was acquired by ABC TV and screened in September 2024. Her previous documentary Faithfully Me was purchased by the ABC and received a national broadcast in 2020. The film was also part of the official selection at the St Kilda Film Festival in 2021. She received a nomination for Best Director at the Australian Directors Guild Awards in the same year.

Jeremy Lasek has many decades of experience in media, marketing, events and PR. For eight years Jeremy was news director for WIN in Canberra and was national news director before joining the National Capital Authority as head of media and events. Jeremy was executive director of ACT Government Communications, Events, Arts, Heritage and Protocol; CEO of the National Australia Day Council; Chief of Staff to the ACT Chief Minister and had responsibility for the Centenary of Canberra celebrations in 2013.

Sue Milliken’s producing credits include the feature film Ladies in Black for which she co-wrote the screenplay and was nominated for AACTA awards for best film and best screenplay. Her other credits as producer include The Odd Angry Shot, The Fringe Dwellers, Black Robe, Paradise Road, the TV miniseries My Brother Jack and the indigenous short films Crocodile Dreaming and The Redfern Story. She worked with Charmian Clift on a film for the ABC in 1968.

Jim Moginie was raised in Sydney's northern suburbs and attended high school by the banks of Sydney Harbour, where he befriended future Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst. Together with another friend, Andrew James, they formed the band Farm, before recruiting singer Peter Garrett and guitarist Martin Rotsey and changing their name to Midnight Oil. Jim has collaborated with prominent artists such as Silverchair, Sarah Blasko, the Warumpi Band, the Living End, Kasey Chambers, Neil Finn and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. 

Rick Morton has been a journalist and writer for over fifteen years. His first book, One Hundred Years of Dirt, was shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and the 2019 National Biography Award, longlisted for the 2018 Walkley Book of the Year, and longlisted for both Biography of the Year and the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards. In 2019, Rick left The Australian where he worked as the social affairs writer with a particular focus on social policy and is now a senior reporter for The Saturday Paper. Mean Streak (2024) is his latest work.

Jo Oliver is the author of two biographies of Australian women artists, Jessie Traill and Adelaide Perry, published in 2020 and 2022 by Australian Scholarly Publishing. She is currently working on a third biography. Jo received a State Library of Victoria Creative Fellowship and has twice been shortlisted for the Hazel Rowley Fellowship for biography. She has spoken about her research and writing at the National Gallery of Australia, State Libraries of NSW & Victoria, at writing festivals and as guest speaker to writing groups. 

Bruce Pascoe is a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man, a board member of First Languages Australia and of Twofold Aboriginal Corporation. He published and edited the Australian Short Stories magazine between 1982-1999. Dark Emu, the history of Aboriginal agriculture, was published in 2014, shortlisted in the Victorian and Queensland Literature awards, and won the NSW Premier’s Book of the Year in 2016. Bruce received the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature in 2018 and the Australian Humanist Award in 2021.

Ailsa Piper’s latest book is For Life – a celebration of the glories of nature, and of being alive while maintaining awareness of our mortality. Her first book was the travel/walking memoir, Sinning Across Spain, and her second was The Attachment: Letters From A Most Unlikely Friendship, co-authored with Tony Doherty. Her theatre script, Small Mercies, was co-winner of the Patrick White Playwright’s Award. She has written for Griffith Review, the SMH and the Guardian, among others.

Lillian Rodrigues-Pang is an internationally acclaimed, award winning storyteller. She has performed and taught internationally and on Australian main-stages, theatres, schools and in community. She is a cultural events producer – Refugee week. Reconciliation Week, Fireflies Multilingual storytelling festival and works to provide inclusive, creative, and joyous spaces. Her current touring adult show is Church of the Clitori. Her current touring families shows are StoryBeats and Illawarra Nature Stories and Songs.

Margaret Throsby began working as a radio announcer at the ABC in 1967, presenting a wide range of music and current affairs programs. Her morning radio program The Margaret Throsby Show on ABC's Radio 2BL was consistently high rating, as was her program Mornings with Margaret Throsby on ABC Classic FM. Over the course of her radio career Throsby has interviewed more than 2000 guests, including Paul Keating, Jane Fonda, Bruce Beresford, Yvonne Kenny, John le Carre and Spike Milligan.

Sue Turnbull is Senior Professor of Communication and Media at UOW. Her publications include The TV Crime Drama (2014), Media Audiences (2020), and Media and Communications in Australia with co-editor Bridget Griffen-Foley (2024). Her most recent book with Marion McCutcheon is Transnational TV Crime: From the Nordic to the Outback (2024). Sue reviews crime fiction for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, is an Ambassador for Sisters in Crime Australia and Chair of the BAD Sydney Crime Festival.

Gretel Van Lane is a facilitator and communications specialist with over 15 years’ experience working with purpose-led organisations to engage community in social issues. She’s known locally for her passion projects Dinners with a Difference and Wollongong Singles, where she creates welcoming spaces that encourage people to make authentic connections. Her work centres on creating a sense of connection and belonging while strengthening relationships and fostering more inclusive communities. 

Michael Visontay has worked for 40 years as a journalist, editor, author and lecturer across a broad range of Australian media. Michael is a former Assistant Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and Deputy Editor of the Sun-Herald, and is currently Commissioning Editor of The Jewish Independent. Michael wrote Welcome To Wanderland: Western Sydney Wanderers and the Pride of the West, and has co-authored four memoirs, including Who Gave You Permission?, the memoir of child sex abuse survivor, Manny Waks.  

Nadia Wheatley is the author of The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift. The biography was the Age Non-Fiction Book of the Year in 2001 and won the NSW Premier’s Australian History Prize (2002). In her role as Clift’s biographer, Nadia has edited Sneaky Little Revolutions — The Selected Essays of Charmian Clift (2022) and Clift’s novella The End of the Morning (published in 2024). The author’s other works include the classic picture book My Place and the memoir Her Mother’s Daughter, winner of the 2019 Waverley Nib Award.