True Story Authors

Professor Clare Wright OAM is an award-winning historian, author, broadcaster, podcaster and public commentator who has worked in politics, academia and the media. She is the author of five works of history, including the best-selling The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (winner of the 2014 Stella Prize). Her latest book, and the final instalment in her Democracy Trilogy, is the highly acclaimed Ṉäku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions.

Jeff Apter is a writer, based in Wollongong, the author of more than 30 biographies. His work has been published all around the world. His latest book, Lee Gordon Presents, was described by the Sydney Morning Herald as ‘the portrait of an insecure, troubled dynamo who helped turn the black and white of our 1950s life into colour.’ He has worked as a ghostwriter with musicians, sportsmen, soldiers of fortune and diplomats. 

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. When she is not writing, Jackie spends her time helping families to navigate death and dying. She is a pastoral care practitioner, a funeral celebrant, and an ordained interfaith minister with a Masters of Theology. Jackie is working on a non-fiction book about spirituality in a post-religious world.

Caroline Baum is a communicator, storyteller, advocate, moderator, journalist, curator, podcaster and author. She is the founder and Artistic Director of True Story and the host of Life Sentences, a podcast dedicated to the practice of contemporary biography.

Jaymee Beveridge is a proud Murri woman—Bindal from far north Queensland—and first-born generation on Dharawal/Wadi Wadi nation. With over 25 years’ experience in public service and higher education, Jaymee has led across housing, child protection, education and training, mental health, drug and alcohol, domestic violence, and homelessness. Jaymee is currently the Director of Aboriginal Outcomes at Transport for NSW.

Ariel Bogle is a reporter with a focus on technology, law and the internet. An investigations reporter at the Guardian Australia, she has won a Walkley Award for her journalism and worked in media in Australia and the United States for more than ten years. Previously, she was a technology reporter with the ABC. Her reporting has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Australian Financial Review and Slate. 

Erik Eklund is an Adjunct Professor of History at ANU. Erik grew up in Wollongong and completed his PhD on the history of Port Kembla. His latest book, Politics, Pride and Perversion: The Rise and Fall of Frank Arkell, has been shortlisted for the 2025 NSW Community and Regional History Prize and longlisted for Australian Political Book of the Year. He has written extensively on regional Australia in fields including labour history, heritage studies, social history, and social policy.

Jan Fran is a Walkley-award winning journalist, TV Presenter and online content creator. She is the co-host of the ABC’s Question Everything and is also known for presenting Channel 10’s The Project and SBS’s The Feed. Her latest project is Conspiracy? War on the Waterfront, a six-part ABC investigative series on the 1998 Waterfront dispute. 

Dennis Glover is one of Australia’s leading speechwriters. His debut novel The Last Man in Europe, the dramatic story of how George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, was nominated for several literary prizes in Australia and abroad. His latest non-fiction book, Repeat: A Warning from History, asks the question: ‘Do you ever stop and ask, is it all going to happen again?’ 

Saul Griffith is an engineer and entrepreneur specialising in clean and renewable energy. Over two decades in Silicon Valley, he has founded more than a dozen technology companies. He is the author of three books, including Electrify, The Big Switch, and his most recent release Plug In! Saul has shifted his focus to public policy and advocacy, founding Rewiring America, Rewiring Australia, and Rewiring Aotearoa. 

Vicki Hastrich’s biography The Last Days of Zane Grey vividly examines the life of the American western writer, celebrity and big game-fisherman Zane Grey via the untold story of Grey's two trips to Australia in the 1930s. Known for her keen eye and deep understanding of storytelling and history, Vicki is the author of two novels, Swimming with the Jellyfish and The Great Arch, and the memoir Night Fishing.

Dr Rebecca Huntley is a social researcher and the author of numerous books including the memoirs The Italian Girl and Sassafras: love, loss and MDMA therapy. From 2006 until 2015, she was the Director of the Mind & Mood Report, Australia's longest-running social trends report.

Melinda James has been a TV and radio journalist with the ABC for more than 20 years. She’s spent the past decade or so as the host of ABC Illawarra’s daily Breakfast show. Mel combines her journalistic skills with her love of talking to ordinary people (not that she thinks anyone is really “ordinary”!) to produce a show that informs and entertains and has become a must-listen for anyone who wants to know what’s happening in the Illawarra. 

Tracey Kirkland is a career news journalist, working in broadcast and print for 35 years. Currently, she is the Continuous News Editor for ABC News Channel. She was previously the ABC’s senior Newsgathering Editor. Tracey is the co-editor of two essay collections: Age of Doubt: Building Trust in a World of Misinformation, and Pandemedia: How COVID Changed Journalism. 

Jeremy Lasek is an experienced journalist, marketing and media professional who has held senior executive roles in government, the private sector, the National Australia Day Council and the Australian Federal Police. Locally, Jeremy started his career reporting for the Lake Times before working in the ABC Illawarra and WINTV newsrooms. After a successful career in Canberra Jeremy has returned to the Illawarra where he continues his writing with the Illawarra Flame.  

Belinda Lopez is an award-winning documentary audio maker and writer. Her stories, spanning history, human rights, social affairs and memoir, have been broadcast and published in Australia and internationally. She writes a newsletter, Story Doula, at belindalopez.net.

Siobhan McHugh is an acclaimed narrative podcast creative, critic, award-winning author and academic. She co-produced the Walkley Award-winning podcast The Greatest Menace, which helped trigger a parliamentary apology to men incarcerated for being gay. Siobhan’s book, The Power of Podcasting featured in Harvard’s Best Books on Storytelling Craft (with Stephen King and Toni Morrison) and the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Erin O'Dwyer is an award-winning journalist, writer, editor and author whose work spans print, digital, broadcast and publishing. She writes regularly for Good Weekend magazine and has written for The Sydney Morning Herald for two decades. She’s the winner of an Australian UN Media Peace Award and a Walkley Awards finalist. As a ghostwriter, she is co-author of Accessory with Felicia Djamirze and Swellbeing with Blake Johnston.

Josh Piterman has graced stages all over the world in a musical theatre career spanning close to 20 years. He is the only Australian to play both Jean Valjean in Les Misérables and The Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera on London’s West End. Josh works as a Holistic High-Performance Coach, for athletes, corporates, and high performers through breathwork, mindset training and visualisation meditation. He also hosts the Behind The Mask podcast. 

Dr Yves Rees (they/them) is an award-winning writer and historian based on unceded Wurundjeri land. They are Senior Lecturer in History at La Trobe University, co-host of Archive Fever history podcast, and author of Travelling to Tomorrow: the modern women who sparked Australia’s romance with America (NewSouth, 2024) and All About Yves: Notes from a Transition (Allen & Unwin, 2021). They are also co-editor of Nothing to Hide: Voices of Trans and Gender Diverse Australia (Allen & Unwin, 2022).

Michael Samaras is a Sydney-based researcher and writer. In 2022 he uncovered the Nazi past of the founding benefactor of the Wollongong Art Gallery. His first book, Anti-Fascists: Jim McNeill and his mates in the Spanish Civil War, about a group of Australian members of the International Brigades, was published in 2025. 

Sita Sargeant is a passionate storyteller and activist who promotes gender equality through tourism. She’s the founder of She Shapes History, a social enterprise that builds respect and recognition for women’s contributions, both past and present, by making women’s history easier to engage with, remember, and share. Through walking tours, digital content, events, and now her book, She Shapes History offers a gateway into a richer, more inclusive understanding of Australia’s past.

Anthony Sharwood is a Walkley Award-winning journalist and the author of five books, including the acclaimed From Snow to Ash, a love letter to the Australian High Country, and The Brumby Wars, exploring the passionate environmental and cultural battle over Australia’s wild horses. In 2024 he released Kosciuszko, a unique blend of travel writing and biography which is the first Australian book on the man whose name sits on our highest peak.

Sue Turnbull is an Honorary Fellow and retired Senior Professor of Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong. She has published extensively in the field of television and audience studies and her most recent co-authored book is Migrants, Television and Australian Stories (Taylor and Francis, 2025). She also 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. 

Cam Wilson is a Walkley Award-nominated reporter whose work covers the internet culture, online extremism and politics. He’s currently Crikey’s Associate Editor and writes the daily tech newsletter The Sizzle. His latest book is Conspiracy Nation, co-written with Ariel Bogle.