Invited Speakers
Details of further invited speakers will be posted to the web site as information becomes available.
Michael
Gerard Bauer
Michael Gerard Bauer was born in Brisbane. After completing an Arts degree and a Diploma of Education at the University of Queensland, he taught at schools in the Brisbane–Ipswich region before resigning in 2000 to pursue his dream of being a full-time writer. His first novel,
The Running Man, was CBCA Book of the Year (Older Readers) in 2005 and shortlisted in the NSW and Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and the SA Festival Awards for Literature. The German edition won the Katholischer Kinder- und Jugendbuchpreis and was shortlisted for theDeutscher Jugendliteraturpreis readers’ section award. The Italian edition was shortlisted for the Premio Centro di Letteratura per Ragazzi in 2009. Michael’s second book, Don’t Call Me Ishmael!, was also published in other languages and shortlisted for major awards, winning both the Children’s Peace Literature Award in 2007 and the SA Festival Awards for Literature in 2008. Since then, Michael has completed a trilogy of Ishmael novels, two books for younger readers and the very popular Just a Dog, which was Honour book in the 2011 CBCA Book of the Year Awards. Michael still works extensively in schools, but as a visiting writer. He blogs at michaelgerardbauer.wordpress.com and has a Facebook author page.
Dyan Blacklock
Dyan Blacklock worked as an editor before moving to teaching, as both classroom teacher and infants’ librarian. She returned to publishing in 1994 and became publisher at Omnibus Books in 1997. Her first list included Solos, a multi award-winning series for beginner readers that is still in print, with most titles still available. Since Solos, Dyan has produced much award-winning nonfiction and fiction as well as discovering many now well-known writers including Markus Zusak, D.M. Cornish and Michael Gerard Bauer. The Omnibus list continues to be strengthened by the work of these and other authors such as Emily Rodda, Ruth Starke, Randa Abdel-Fattah and LS Lawrence, and newcomers such as Dan McGuiness. Omnibus also continues its tradition of producing outstanding picture books by well-known Australian creators including Julie Vivas, Freya Blackwood, Andrew McLean, Margaret Wild, Penny Matthews and many others.
Dyan is an author in her own right and is the winner of the Centenary Medal for Services to Literature and the CBCA’s Eve Pownall Award. She has been Convenor of the Australian Children’s Publishing Committee, a member of the APA board and also a founding board member of ACLA – the Australian Children’s Literature Alliance, whose purpose is to appoint the first Australian Children’s Laureate. In 2010 Dyan was appointed to the Australia Council Literature Board.
Davide Cali
Davide Cali was born in Northern Switzerland, near the state line with Germany but grew up in Italy.
Despite studying accountancy, he found that illustrations and words prevailed over numbers.
Davide adored comics from an early age, especially Asterix. At 22 he wrote and illustrated for the monthly Italian magazine LINUS.
A thirst for storytelling eventually led him to writing children’s books. Since his first books, which he wrote and illustrated,
he has collaborated with many talented illustrators including Serge Bloch (French), Gianluca Foli (Italian) and Anna Laura Cantone (Italian).
Picture book awards include France's prestigious Baobab Prize for the most innovative book of 2005 for I Can’t Wait illustrated by Serge Bloch.
This was also Honour Book in the American Library Association's Batchelder Award.
Over the last ten years he has gone on to create more than forty illustrated books for publishers in Austria, France, Italy, Argentina and Portugal.
His books have have been translated into twentyfive countries all over the world.
Australian children’s publisher Wilkins Farago is proud to have published eight of Davide’s books for the English Language market to excellent reviews.
His nine most recent titles include, The Enemy (included in the USBBY’s 2010 list of Outstanding International Books), The Bear with a Sword (selected for the
International Youth Library's White Ravens Catalogue) and What is this thing called love?
Being fluent in French, Italian and English Davide travels extensively around Europe giving talks and performing workshops at schools and book fairs.
He is delighted by this opportunity to do the same in Australia.
Read more
here.
Isobelle Carmody
Isobelle Carmody began the first of her highly acclaimed Obernewtyn Chronicles while she was still at high school and worked on it while completing a Bachelor of Arts and then a journalism cadetship. The first book Obernewtyn (1987) was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to and went on to be short-listed for the CBCA Book of the Year Award for Older Readers. The series and her short stories have established her at the forefront of fantasy writing in Australia. She has written many award winning short stories and books for young people since then. Scatterlings won Talking Book of the Year in 1992 and in 1993 The Gathering was the winner of the Children’s Peace Literature Award followed in 1994 as joint winner of the CBCA Book of the Year for Older Readers. Alyzon Whitestarr won the 2005 Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel and also the Golden Aurealis Novel. Isobelle has also written many books for younger readers including The Wrong Thing (2006) which was illustrated by Declan Lee and Journey from the Centre of the Earth (2003), illustrated by Mark Mc Bride. The Night School (2010) illustrated by Anne Spudvilas, was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award. The Legend of Little Fur was Isobelle’s first series for younger readers. She illustrated this and the other three books that completed this series herself with pen and ink drawings. Her most recent book The Red Wind, which she also illustrated, was the winner of the 2011 CBCA Book of the Year, Younger Readers. She has edited a collection with Nan McNab, the first book of which is The Wilful Eye, launched recently. Isobelle is currently completing the next book in the Obernewtyn series, The Sending, due to be released late 2011. The final book in the series, The Red Queen, will be published in 2012. Read more here
Eoin Colfer
Eoin Colfer (pronounced Owen) was born in Wexford on the South-East coast of Ireland in 1965, where he and his four brothers were brought up by his father (an elementary school teacher, historian and artist of note) and mother (a drama teacher). He first developed an interest in writing in primary (elementary) school with gripping Viking stories inspired by history he was learning in school at the time! After leaving school he got his degree from Dublin University and qualified as a primary school teacher, returning to work in Wexford. He married in 1991 and he and his wife spent about 4 years between 1992 and 1996 working in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Italy. His first book, Benny and Omar, was published in 1998, based on his experiences in Tunisia; it has since been translated into many languages. A sequel, Benny and Babe, was released in 1999, followed by Going Potty, Ed’s Funny Feet and ,Ed’s Bed. Then in 2001 the first Artemis Fowl book was published and met with huge success. He was able to resign from teaching and concentrate fully on writing. The eighth and final book in the series, Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian is due for release mid 2012. Colfer is not confined to writing exclusively about his best-known character and has several other published titles unrelated to the series which are successful in their own right including The Supernaturalist (2004), Half Moon Investigations (2006) and Airman (2008).
He was also commissioned to write a sixth instalment of the Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy; titled, And Another Thing, it was published in 2009. Colfer says, "I will keep writing until people stop reading or I run out of ideas. Hopefully neither of these will happen anytime soon.” He lives in Wexford, Ireland and the South of France with his wife and two children Read more here.
D.M. Cornish
D. M. Cornish was five years old when he saw the very first Star Wars movie. Since then he has enjoyed all kinds of fantasy, reading Lord of the Rings at age twelve and progressing to Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast Trilogy. His reading of Titus Alone inspired David to create his own world in words and illustrations– the first incarnation of the Half-Continent – which he mapped in painstaking detail in a series of notebooks over many years. It was not until 2003 that he had an opportunity to develop these ideas further. After studying illustration, working overseas and returning to Adelaide, Cornish was introduced to Omnibus Books publisher Dyan Blacklock. At a meeting he fished in his backpack and journal #23 fell on the floor. On the strength of this body of work, Dyan encouraged him to transfer his fantasy creation to a story. The result was the Monster Blood Tattoo Trilogy, which has been published in many languages and enjoys a dedicated following world-wide. D. M. Cornish is working on another story from the Half-Continent. Read more here and here
Mem Fox
Mem Fox is a retired Associate Professor of Literacy Studies. She taught at Flinders University for 24 years. She is also Australia's best loved picture-book author. Her first publication, Possum Magic (1983) is the best selling children's book in Australia. She has written many other internationally best-selling books for children including Time for Bed, Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes and Where Is The Green Sheep?; and several non-fiction books for adults, including her renowned book for parents: Reading Magic. She lives in Adelaide and travels constantly as an advocate for literacy and for the welfare of children.
Nicki Greenberg
Nicki Greenberg is a writer and illustrator with a special interest in sequential art narrative - a fancy way of describing comics. Nicki's first books, The Digits series, were published when she was fifteen years old, and sold more than 380,000 copies. Since then, she has devoted most of her ink to comics, but has also written and illustrated fiction and non-fiction books for children. At seventeen, Nicki fell in love with The Great Gatsby. Almost ten years later, she set out to pay tribute to F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel by interpreting it in comic art form. It took more than six years to complete this enormous labour of love. This mad undertaking was followed by three years' passionate work on Shakespeare's Hamlet, which was finally staged on the page in 2010. Since having little people of her own, Nicki has returned to writing and illustrating picture books for younger readers.
Rosanne Hawke
Rosanne Hawke lives in an old Cornish farmhouse with underground rooms. Her books include Taj and the Great Camel Trek, Marrying Ameera, The Keeper, and Soraya, the Storyteller. Many of her books have been shortlisted or were notable in Australian awards. For ten years Rosanne was an aidworker in the Middle East. She is a Carclew, Asialink, Varuna, and May Gibbs Fellow, and a Bard of Cornwall. Rosanne enjoys writing mysteries about history, culture, family, music and cats. She teaches Creative Writing at Tabor Adelaide and her new young adult novels are The Messenger Bird and , Mountain Wolf.
Sally Heinrich
Sally has been writing and drawing for as long as she can remember, and has so far managed to avoid getting a real job. Much of her recent work draws on her experiences travelling and living in Asia. The search for connections and relationships between peoples, cultures and the environment, and for a sense of place and of belonging, are recurring themes in her writing, artwork and her life in general. Sally has illustrated more than twenty books as well as writing and illustrating her own picture books, non-fiction information and activity books and novels. Besides publishers, her clients include advertising and environmental agencies, design studios and Government departments. Her commissioned artwork ranges in scale from wine labels to a mural for the Singapore Zoo, to one-off pieces for celebrations such as weddings and birthdays. She also regularly runs workshops in creative writing and illustration for both children and adults. Her work has been recognised through fellowships from the Asialink Foundation, The May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust, Varuna-the Writer’s Centre and Arts SA, and her original artwork and lino-prints have been exhibited in Australia and Asia. Sally was born and grew up in Adelaide, has lived in Singapore, Sydney, Darwin and Malaysia, but keeps finding herself drawn back to Adelaide, where she currently lives.
Oliver Jeffers
Oliver Jeffers was brought up in Northern Ireland and graduated from the University of Ulster. He now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. From figurative painting and installation to illustration and picture-book making, Jeffers work has been exhibited in New York, London, Sydney, Washington DC, Dublin, Belfast and Santiago. A co-founder of the art collective OAR, their exhibitions include 9 days in Belfast, book and the award winning BUILDING. Illustration clients include The Guardian, United Airlines, Lavazza Coffee, Newsweek International, Her Royal Majesty the Queen of England, and the Irish Times for which he received the Gold Icad Award for Illustration.
Jeffers’ style of illustration uses mixed medium and is recognised for its subtle narrative and use of space in composition. HarperCollins UK and Penguin USA publish his picture books, including The Incredible Book Eating Boy (2006), The Great Paper Caper (2008), Up and Down (2010), The Heart and the Bottle (2010) and most recently, Stuck (2011). Working in collaboration with Studio AKA, Oliver’s second book Lost and Found was developed into an animated short film, which has received over sixty awards including a BAFTA for Best Animated Short Film. Picture Book awards include the Nestle Smarties Gold Medal Award, Irish Children’s Book of the Year, The BBC Blue Peter Book of the Year, as well as shortlists for the British Book of the Year, and the Kate Greenaway Medal. In 2010 he won the British Book Design Award for The Heart and the Bottle and also a New York Emmy for Best Graphics in a Commercial, a collaborative work with Brooklyn based artist, Mac Premo. Jeffers recently co-founded the product design company You And Me, The Royal We. Read more here.
Carla Litchfield
Dr Carla Litchfield is a conservation psychologist at ZoosSA, and lecturer at the University of South Australia. She works with great apes in the wild and in captivity, and has worked with many other animals in zoos and sanctuaries around the world. Her titles include The Gorilla Book: Born to be Wild, Wild Planet: The Chimpanzee Book: Apes Like Us and Saving Pandas and Saving Tigers in the Rare Earth series.
Doug MacLeod
Doug MacLeod is a Melbourne-based writer and TV producer who has worked on many of Australia's most popular comedy shows, including The Comedy Company and Fast Forward. He was also the script editor on Kath and Kim. While he enjoys the TV work, he prefers writing books for young people. After leaving his full-time job in TV, Doug wrote the teenage novel Tumble Turn, which was published in 2003, and is on the syllabus at Deakin University. On The Cards is a book of ridiculous greeting card rhymes with an introduction by Ben Elton that Doug wrote for the international charity Comic Relief in 2002. A second book of creepy rhymes, Spiky, Spunky, My Pet Monkey, was released in 2004. Both books are illustrated by Craig Smith. Doug’s second young adult novel, I’m Being Stalked by a Moonshadow (2006), was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Awards. Two fantasy novels, Kevin the Troll (2007) and The Clockwork Forest (2008) followed. The Clockwork Forest was presented as a play at The Sydney Theatre Company in 2008. Doug’s third young adult novel, Siggy and Amber, was released in 2009. This was followed by The Life of a Teenage Body-snatcher, a black comedy which was an Honour Book in the 2011 CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers category.
Recent non-book-related activities include co-devising the animated TV series, Dogstar, for which he has won two Australian Writers’ Guild Awards and the inaugural John Hinde Award for Science Fiction. Doug wrote 26 of the 52 episodes. The show plays all over the world and premiered on the BBC. With satirist John Clarke and composer Alan John he wrote a play based on May Gibbs’ famous children’s book, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. It was directed by Neil Armfield and premiered at The Sydney Festival in 2007. Doug is probably best known for Sister Madge’s Book of Nuns a book which started as a practical joke and was published in 1986. Read more here.
Penny Matthews
Penny Matthews grew up on her family’s sheep farm at Eden Valley. She graduated with a MA in English from the University of Adelaide and after living for three years in London she began her career in publishing, working as an editor first with Rigby and then with Omnibus. She is now a contract editor for Penguin. Penny has written junior novels, chapter books for beginning readers, and picture books for all age groups. A Year On Our Farm, illustrated by Andrew McLean, was the CBCA’s 2003 Book of the Year (Early Childhood) and an Honour Book in the 2003 Picture Book of the Year awards. Penny and Andrew have since collaborated on Show Day (2012), which also has a country theme. A non-fiction picture book, Something About Water, illustrated by Tom Jellett, was the 2010 joint winner of the Wilderness Society’s Environment Award for Children’s Literature. Penny’s first young adult novel, A Girl Like Me, was inspired by the mysterious murder of a teenage girl in rural South Australia in 1902. It was a 2010 CBCA Notable Book and won the 2011 Davitt Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Penny is currently writing for Penguin’s popular ‘Our Australian Girl’series about young girls living at different times in Australia’s history. Her first book in the series, Meet Nellie, was published in February.
Dan McGuiness
When Dan McGuiness was growing up, he did not want to be a writer or an illustrator. In fact, Dan never wanted to do anything but play video games and watch cartoons. After completing high school he got a factory job. Four morale-killing years later, he quit and started up a skateboarding company with some friends and got a diploma in Interactive Multimedia followed by a Certificate 4 in Screen. He worked on some feature films and put out three successful skateboard videos. He has also worked as a wedding video editor, and shot and edited video clips for local bands. Dan’s love of comics began when he got a job with a local comic shop. It was there that he started to draw comics about his colleagues and the daily happenings in the store. According to Dan, ‘The graphic novel format helps reluctant readers because they have fun while reading. A page full of words is the scariest thing in the world to some kids. I myself would do anything to get out of reading in school. If I had had a range of graphic novels to read back then, I am sure my reading would have come along much faster.’ Dan has written and illustrated three graphic novels in the Pilot and Huxley series and illustrated Buzz off! an early reader book by Randa Abdel-Fattah. Read more here and here
Loren Morris
Loren has been writing and illustrating her own stories since as long as she can remember, forcing her parents and friends to read each of her new offerings and to encourage Loren with their completely unbiased opinions of her skills. Loren studied art and creative writing all the way through high school, the most abundant periods of production occurring in maths class or home economics! She has always been interested in reading comics and had her life changed after attending her first weekend comic convention in Sydney in 2001. At this convention Loren discovered the world of self-publishing, small press comics and fanzines, and after the convention had finished, she promptly rang up her parents and told them she wasn't coming home and could they post some extra clothes and cash until she found a job and a place to stay. Loren spent the next two years in Sydney, running an artist alley stall at every convention she could get to and busily sinking deeper into the underground comics world. After running out of money in Sydney , Loren returned to Adelaide to complete a course in Visual Communication at UniSA, and then spent two years living in Japan, where she explored the world of small-press manga. Eventually returning to Adelaide, Loren has been attempting to consolidate her somewhat eclectic experiences and has been working with Omnibus publishing to complete her first professionally published graphic novel. Loren hopes to create many more.
Dr Mark Norman
Dr Mark Norman is a marine biologist and a world expert on octopuses, squids and cuttlefishes (the ‘cephalopods’). He is Senior Curator of Molluscs at Museum Victoria where he undertakes marine biology research. He is also a trained teacher, an educational display designer and an experienced underwater cinematographer. His research and projects with documentary makers including BBC, National Geographic and Discovery Channel has covered giant squid, poisonous blue-ringed octopuses, huge aggregations of southern giant cuttlefish and diving surveys of remote Indo-Pacific coral reefs. His titles include Into the Deep, Poles Apart, The Penguin Book: Birds in suits, which won the 2007 Eve Pownall Award for Information Book, The Shark Book: Fish with attitude, which received the Whitley Commendation for Children’s Books in the 2008 Whitley Awards (Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales) and The Antarctica Book: Living in the freezer, which was winner of the 2008 APA Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing. Mark is passionate about the environment and marine conservation, and would like to inspire children to fall in love with the world around them.
Ruth Starke
Ruth Starke has published 25 award-winning books for young people, many of which have been published internationally. They include Noodle Pie, which was nominated by the Library Association of America as an Outstanding YA Novel of 2011; NIPS XI , a CBCA Honour Book and UNESCO 'Book that Promotes Tolerance'; and (with illus. Greg Holfeld), the highly successful Captain Congo series of graphic novels. Her short story 'Only A Game' is featured in the new Penguin anthology, Things A Map Won't Show You ( to be released early in 2012). She has been awarded the SA Government's prestigious Carclew Fellowship for Children's Literature, and was the inaugural winner in 2009 of the Nance Donkin Award for an outstanding children's writer. Ruth holds a PhD from Flinders University, where she has just completed a 4-year term as Writer-in-Residence. She continues to supervise and mentor creative writing students at Flinders, TAFE and UniSA, as well as reviewing for Australian Book Review and Viewpoint.
Erica Wagner
Erica Wagner has worked with books for most of her life, first as a bookseller, then as an editor and publisher. She was with Penguin Books for ten years before starting up a children’s list for Duffy & Snellgrove in 1999. That same year she was awarded the Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship and spent three months working with a variety of publishers in the US. She has been Publisher, Books for Children & Teenagers, at Allen & Unwin since 2000, where she and her colleagues produce a range of original and innovative picture books, fiction and non-fiction for children and teenagers in a list that is internationally acclaimed. Illustrated books and graphic novels are a particular passion.
Gabrielle Wang
Gabrielle Wang is an author and illustrator born in Melbourne of Chinese heritage. Her maternal great grandfather came to Victoria during the Gold Rush and her father from Shanghai. Her stories are a blend of Chinese and Western culture with a touch of fantasy.
Gabrielle's first novel, The Garden of Empress Cassia, won the 2002 Aurealis Award, was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards and was a CBCA Notable Book. The Pearl of Tiger Bay was shortlisted for the 2004 Aurealis Award and The Lion Drummer was a Notable Book in the 2009 CBCA Book of the Year Awards. A Ghost in My Suitcase won the 2009 Aurealis Award, was a CBC Notable Book, was shortlisted for the 2011 Sakura Medal and received a Highly Commended in the 2010 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Her first young adult novel, Little Paradise also received a Highly Commended in the 2011 Prime Minister’s Awards. Gabrielle’s picture book The Race for the Chinese Zodiac (2010) illustrated by Sally Rippin and Regine Abos was a Notable Book in the CBCA Awards for 2011 and shortlisted for the 2011 YABBA and WAYBRA awards. Her latest books are part of the highly successful 2011 Our Australian Girl series published by Penguin - Meet Poppy, Poppy at Summerhill, Poppy and the Thief and Poppy Comes Home. Gabrielle is an ambassador for the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge. Read more here.
James Williams
James started working with his Aunt, Pegi, at The Children's Bookshelf of Australia in 1982. Pegi, who began her work in Children's Literature at the Loxton Institute Library (Riverland South Australia) in the early 1940's, instilled her love of books to all she met and in 1987 Pegi Williams Book Shop began and the two opened their own shop and business at Walkerville (in the Adelaide metropolitan area).
James and Pegi officially opened Pegi Williams Book Shop on 12th December 1987 with the help of a couple of friends (Colin Thiele cut the ribbon, Max Fatchen ate the cake) the pair imparted their service and knowledge of Children's Literature to schools, public libraries, kindergartens and the general public.
In 2001 the Pegi Williams Book Shop website (www.pegiwilliams.com.au) was launched. Catalogues are also distributed Australia-wide by mail and electronically to a database of customers. Recent additions have been Young Adult titles and a Secondary School mailout and section on the website and the ‘Two Hoots’ blog.
The most enjoyable thing about the Book Trade aside from the books, is the people you deal with in person and electronically and build relationships with. I am fortunate to have fantastic staff that support both me and the business, after 30 years in the trade, that’s what makes it so much fun.
Sean Williams
Sean Williams is the author of thirty-five novels, eighty short stories and the odd odd poem. He writes across the field of science fiction and fantasy for adults, young adults and children, and enjoys the occasional franchise, too, such as Star Wars, and Doctor Who. His work has won awards, debuted at #1 on the New York Times hardback bestseller list, and been translated into numerous languages. His latest series is Troubletwisters, co-written with Garth Nix. Read more here.