Sydney Writers' Festival

MICHAEL BACHELARD (INTERSTATE)
MICHAEL BACHELARD is an Australian journalist and author. Formerly part of The Age’s investigative team, he now writes for The Sunday Age. In 2008 he won a Quill award for best news report in print. His most recent book is Behind The Exclusive Brethren.

appearing at...
147: The Future of Journalism
167: Losing My Religion
192: Investigative Journalism

TIM BAKER (INTERSTATE)
TIM BAKER is a former editor of Tracks and Surfing Life magazines, and the author of four bestselling books on surfing, including High Surf, Bustin’ Down The Door and Occy: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Mark Occhilupo. Tim's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, The Australian Financial Review, Inside Sport, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin, The Australian Way, Playboy, as well as surfing magazines around the world. He has twice received the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame Media/Culture Award and been nominated for the CUB Australian Sports Writing Awards.

appearing at...
173: Writing the Waves: Workshop with Tim Baker
265: High Surf

EMILY BALLOU (LOCAL)
EMILY BALLOU is a poet, screenwriter and one of The Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Novelists. In 1997 she was awarded the Judith Wright Prize for Poetry for her poem Enter. Her essays and reviews have been published in The Weekend Australian Magazine, Heat, Australian Book Review, The Australian Review and New Matilda. She has recently completed a collection of poetry - a verse portrait of Charles Darwin - for which she was awarded a Tyrone Guthrie Centre fellowship in Ireland through the Australia Council for the Arts.

appearing at...
89: Darwin in Verse
107: The Poet’s Voice

TRISTAN BANCKS (LOCAL)
TRISTAN BANCKS is a writer and filmmaker. He has a background as an actor and television presenter in Australia and the UK. His short films have won a number of awards and have screened widely in festivals and on TV. Tristan has written a number of books for kids and teens, including the Mac Slater, Coolhunter series. Mac Slater, Coolhunter 2: I Heart NY and his new young adult novel, it’s yr life, co-written with Tempany Deckert, will both be published in 2009. Tristan's drive is to tell inspiring, fast-moving stories for young people.
 tristanbancks.com

appearing at...
15: Primary School Days - Sydney
32: Primary School Days - Parramatta
51: Primary School Days - Penrith

MARGARET BARBALET (LOCAL )
Margaret Barbalet, a former diplomat, was most recently posted in the United Arab Emirates. She is the author of eight books.

appearing at...
112: The Mother of Mohammed
241: On Marriage

JOHN BARRON (LOCAL)
JOHN BARRON hosts the National Drive Program on ABC Newsradio. He reported on the 2008 Presidential election for over 18 months, writing for publications including The Washington Post. John is the author of Vote for Me! The Long Road to the White
House and co-producer of the documentary film First Stop, Iowa! about the grassroots campaigning behind Obama's success.

appearing at...
156: And He Shall be Called Barack Obama: The Makings of a Mythic Presidency

ERICA BARTLE (INTERSTATE)
ERICA BARTLE is the voice behind popular Australian media blog GirlWithaSatchel.com, which gives its mostly female readers a daily serving of magazine reviews, industry news, interviews and pop cultural musings. Erica is often called upon to comment on blogging and women's magazines, featuring in the likes of Good Weekend, The Australian and Cosmopolitan. Her blog is a finalist in the 2009 Bloggies for Best Australian & New Zealand Blog. A former deputy editor for Girlfriend magazine, Bartle is also a freelance writer whose stories have appeared in Girlfriend, Cleo, Cosmopolitan and The Walkley Magazine. Erica has also tutored feature writing at QUT.
 GirlWithaSatchel.com

appearing at...
324: Bloggers vs Journalists, Round 378

ALISON BASHFORD (LOCAL)
Alison Bashford is an historian of medicine and science at the University of Sydney. She is the co-author of Griffith Taylor: Visionary, Environmentalist, Explorer with Carolyn Strange, and is currently finishing a history of the world population problem, as well as editing a collection of essays on the world history of eugenics. In 2009 she takes up the Harvard chair of Australian Studies, joining the Department of the History of Science.

appearing at...
61: Science Biography

CATHERINE BATESON (INTERSTATE)
CATHERINE BATESON writes poetry, verse novels and novels for both younger readers and young adults. She has won the CBCA Book of the Year for Younger Readers twice for Rain May and Captain Daniel and Being Bee. Two of her novels, Painted Love Letters and Millie and the Night Heron, were CBCA Honour Books. The Wish Pony was published in 2008 and welcomed with critical acclaim. Her latest release is Magenta McPhee.
 catherine-bateson.com

appearing at...
15: Primary School Days - Sydney
32: Primary School Days - Parramatta
51: Primary School Days - Penrith

VIVIENNE BATH (LOCAL)
VIVIENNE BATH is director of the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney. Formerly a partner of a Hong Kong-based international law firm, her most recent publication is The Law of International Business in Australasia, co-authored with Robin Burnett.

appearing at...
201: Is this the End for You, Me and Capitalism? The Friday Night Salon

CAROLINE BAUM (LOCAL)
Caroline Baum was the arts editor of Melbourne’s Sunday Herald and the features editor at Vogue Australia. She has presented ABC TV’s book show Between the Lines, and was executive producer of ABC Radio National’s Arts Today. She has also hosted Foxtel’s book show Talking Books. Caroline became the founding editor of Good Reading magazine in 2001. In 2006 she produced and co-wrote her first television documentary, In Search of Bony, for SBS. Her company, Two Heads Media, currently has several TV projects in development. She is a regular contributor to national newspapers and magazines.

 carolinebaum.com.au

appearing at...
83: Norman Doidge in Conversation with Caroline Baum
148: David Williamson: Behind the Scenes
197: NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
233: The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

SHARON BEDER (INTERSTATE)
SHARON BEDER is the author of several books, including Global Spin, Suiting Themselves, Free Market Missionaries, Power Play, Selling the Work Ethic and Environmental Principles and Policies.

appearing at...
253: Stories from the Climate Change Front: A Forum and Launch of Overland 195

LARISSA BEHRENDT (LOCAL)
Larissa Behrendt is professor of Law and and director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney. Larissa is a judicial member of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal, Equal Opportunity Division and the Alternate Chair of the Serious Offenders Review Board. She has published on property law, Indigenous rights, dispute resolution and Aboriginal women's issues. Her book, Achieving Social Justice: Indigenous Rights and Australia's Future was published by The Federation Press in 2003. She won the 2002 David Uniapon Award and a 2005 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for her novel Home.

appearing at...
244: Black Politics with Sarah Maddison and Larissa Behrendt
284: Hilary Charlesworth in Conversation with Larissa Behrendt
164: Black Politics

TEGAN BENNETT DAYLIGHT (LOCAL)
TEGAN BENNETT DAYLIGHT is the author of several books for teenagers and children, as well as the acclaimed novels Safety, What Falls Away and Bombora. Tegan has been a judge of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and for many years has taught fiction writing at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is at work on her fourth novel.

appearing at...
41: Making Stories: Creative Lives

JUDITH BEVERIDGE (LOCAL)
Judith Beveridge has published three books of poetry all of which have won major prizes: The Domesticity of Giraffes, Accidental Grace, and Wolf Notes. She is the poetry editor of Meanjin. In 2005 she was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for excellence in literature.

She currently teaches poetry at post-graduate level at the University of Sydney and at postgraduate and undergraduate level at the University of Newcastle. She has edited UQP’s The Best Australian Poetry 2006 as well as co-edited anthologies from the Newcastle Poetry Prize, Sunweight and The Honey Fills the Cone.
 http://australia.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=676

appearing at...
317: Poetry as Passion: A Tribute to Dorothy Porter

TONY BILSON (LOCAL)

TONY BILSON is one of Australia’s leading chefs. For 40 years his restaurants have been milestones in the advance of Australian gastronomy: Tony’s Bon Gout, Berowra Waters Inn, Kinselas, Bilson’s at Circular Quay, Fine Bouche, Treasury at Sydney’s Inter-Continental Hotel, Ampersand, Canard, Bilson’s Restaurant at the Radisson Plaza Hotel and Number One Wine Bar. Bilson’s Restaurant was awarded three-hat status in the SMH Good Food Guide in 2007, 2008 and 2009, with a rating of 18/20. In 2006 Tony was inducted into the Restaurant & Catering Hall of Fame.

Tony promotes Australian food and wine overseas, working as guest chef in some of the world’s most prestigious hotels. He has published five books, and writes articles for the Australian Financial Review, Good Weekend as well as major wine and food magazines.

appearing at...
245: Should the Critic be Fired?

JUDITH BISHOP (LOCAL)
JUDITH BISHOP is a Sydney poet, linguist and translator. Event, her first collection, won the Anne Elder award and was shortlisted in the 2008 Victorian and Queensland Premier’s Awards. Judith is currently working on a second collection and translations from French poet Gérard Macé.

appearing at...
3: Poets Paint Words II Exhibition
220: Poets Paint Words II - Poets Read II

AARON BLABEY (LOCAL)

AARON BLABEY is the author and illustrator of three picture books. His first, Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley won the 2008 CBCA Book of the Year - Early Childhood and was included on the Smithsonian Institute’s list of Notable Books of 2008 in the USA. It was also shortlisted for the CBCA Crighton Award for New Illustrators and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. His subsequent titles include Sunday Chutney and Stanley Paste. Sunday Chutney was recently shortlisted for the CBCA Picture Book of the Year.

Aaron has also exhibited his paintings throughout Australia and, prior to this, he misspent his youth working as an actor. He won the AFI Award for Best Actor in 1994 and was nominated again in 2000.

appearing at...
278: Storytime with Aaron Blabey and Tohby Riddle
306: How to Make a Picture Book: Workshop with Aaron Blabey

ESTELLE BLACKBURN (LOCAL)
ESTELLE BLACKBURN is the author of the bestselling true-crime book Broken Lives and a memoir, The End of Innocence. She won the national Walkley Award for Outstanding Journalism for the investigation that led to the overturning of two wrongful murder convictions in WA. She has been awarded the Order of Australia for community service through investigative journalism.

appearing at...
114: Fact and Fiction: Navigating the Borderlands

ERNIE BLACKMORE (LOCAL)
ERNIE BLACKMORE is a playwright, author and lecturer at the Woolyungah Indigenous Centre, University of Wollongong. His first book, Speakin Out Blak, was released in 2008.

appearing at...
124: Celebrating the Voice 9 - Indigenous Writers Night

GEORGIA BLAIN (LOCAL)
GEORGIA BLAIN has published four novels: Closed For Winter, Candelo, The Blind Eye and Names For Nothingness. Her most recent memoir is Births Deaths Marriages.

appearing at...
41: Making Stories: Creative Lives

TIM BLAIR (LOCAL)
TIM BLAIR is a columnist and blogger for The Daily Telegraph. He declines to be worried about global warming and doubts Barack Obama’s ability to heal the planet by making pretty speeches. An avid follower of all modern dance forms - lap, table and pole - wealthy hobby journalist Tim lives in Bondi Junction. Published as a freelancer in The Age, The Australian, Time, McSweeney’s, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sports Illustrated and other publications, Tim’s online presence began in October 2001. He appears frequently on the ABC TV’s Insiders and Media Watch. He prefers the former.

appearing at...
324: Bloggers vs Journalists, Round 378

SARAH BLASKO (LOCAL)

SARAH BLASKO is an ARIA Award-winning musician. She released her debut album in 2004, The Overture & The Underscore, which went on to receive four ARIA nominations. Her second album, What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have, was released in 2006 and went on to win Sarah the Best Pop Release ARIA at the 2007 awards. Sarah has recently finished recording her third solo album in Stockholm.

Click here to stream an exclusive preview track 'No Turning Back' from Sarah’s forthcoming album As Day Follows Night, released July 10. 

appearing at...
218: Will the Real Writer Please Stand Up?
293: Sarah Blasko in Conversation with Bernard Zuel

GRAEME BLUNDELL (LOCAL)

GRAEME BLUNDELL is an actor, director, producer and writer who has been associated with many pivotal moments in Australian theatre, film and television.

After working at the legendary Pram Factory and then Hoopla, he was co-executive director of the Playbox Theatre Company, associate director of the Melbourne Theatre Company, artistic director of the National Playwrights' Conference and artistic director of Kinsela's in Sydney.

He wrote the bestselling book King, co-authored a biography of painter Brett Whiteley, An Unauthorised Life, and edited and compiled Australian Theatre: Backstage with Graeme Blundell. His columns appear most frequently in The Australian and he has also written for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun Herald, The Australian Women's Weekly and Luxury Travel.

Graeme Blundell’s memoir The Naked Truth, A Life in Parts has recently been published to much acclaim. 

appearing at...
108: Graeme Blundell in Conversation
180: Peter Corris in Conversation with Graeme Blundell
226: Lives on Stage: Graeme Blundell and Julia Morris

EDWINA BLUSH (LOCAL)
EDWINA BLUSH is a jazz vocalist, songwriter and poet who writes pithy pieces that bring lightness to heavy issues. Edwina’s warm and witty style has led to numerous commissions for and appearances on radio and television. She is a three-time winner of the National Poetry Debate.

appearing at...
136: Golden Age of Jazz
256: The Power of Performing Your Words
273: Spoken Four

MERLINDA BOBIS (LOCAL)
MERLINDA BOBIS is the author of The Solemn Lantern Maker. Her first novel, Banana Heart Summer, was shortlisted for the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal. Summer Was a Fast Train Without Terminals was shortlisted for The Age Poetry Book Award. Her plays have been performed in Australia and internationally. She teaches creative writing at the University of Wollongong.
 merlindabobis.com.au

appearing at...
114: Fact and Fiction: Navigating the Borderlands
234: Writing Asia

SUZANNE BOCCALATTE (LOCAL)
Suzanne Boccalatte studied visual arts at the Sydney College of the Arts and communications at the University of Technology. She directs a design company, Boccalatte Pty Ltd, in Sydney. Her work is represented in the National Gallery of Australia and the Powerhouse Museum. She loves tactility and hopes to design more beautiful books in the future. Suzanne’s other passion is her record collection—and being half-Italian she is completely hair-obsessed. She owns a hairy fox terrier called Agnes Moorehead.

appearing at...
338: Launch: Hair

GREGG BORSCHMANN (LOCAL)
GREGG BORSCHMANN is a writer, radio producer and oral historian. He is the producer of ABC Radio National Breakfast, producer/presenter of the ABC Songlines Conversations and director of Talking Country: Australian Stories of People & Place.

appearing at...
25: Writing Places

PETER BOYLE (LOCAL)
PETER BOYLE lives in Sydney. He was a recipient of the NSW Premier's Award, the South Australian Festival Award and the National Book Council Award for his first two collections. Museum of Space was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Award. Peter’s translations include The Trees: Selected Poems of Eugenio Montejo, translations of Federico Garcia Lorca, Luis Cernuda, César Vallejo, Pierre Reverdy, René Char and Yves Bonnefoy. In 2004 he was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Award for translation. The Apocrypha of William O’Shaunessy will be released in 2009.

appearing at...
315: Metaphors of Space

DAVID BRADDON-MITCHELL (LOCAL )

David Braddon-Mitchell is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sydney. He was previously at the University of Auckland and a Research Fellow at the Australian National University.

He works in Philosophy of Mind and metaphysics, and crosses borders into philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, ethics and political philosophy from time to time.

He is the author of articles in leading philosophy journals including The Journal of Philosophy, Nous, Mind, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Review, Synthese, Erkenntnis, Analysis, The Monist, Ratio, The Journal of Political Philosophy, and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

He is the author, with Frank Jackson, of The Philosophy of Mind and Cognition.

appearing at...
326: The Science of Parallel Universes: Could There be Copies of YOU Out There? A Café Scientific

MARGARET BRADSTOCK (LOCAL)
MARGARET BRADSTOCK has published four books of poetry. The most recent are The Pomelo Tree, winner of the Wesley Michel Wright Prize, and Coast. Margaret has also won the Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson awards. In 2003 she was Asialink writer-in-residence at Peking University. Margaret is co-editor of Five Bells for the Poets Union, and Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales.

appearing at...
168: Conversations from the Bottom of the Harbour
321: DiVerse at the Margaret Olley: A Poetic Response

CHRIS BRAY (LOCAL)
CHRIS BRAY has forged an exciting career by combining his passion for photography and writing together with his engineering degree to developing innovative approaches to adventuring. Chris is the Australian Geographic Young Adventurer of the Year and Spirit of Adventure awardee, as well as chairman of the Australia & New Zealand chapter of The Explorers Club. He has started several small businesses and is Canon’s ambassador for digital photography in Australia. When not traversing remote Arctic islands, writing articles or sailing the Southern Ocean, Chris is a successful speaker, encouraging others to reach for their own life goals.
 ChrisBray.net

appearing at...
218: Will the Real Writer Please Stand Up?
296: Wanderlust

MICHAEL BRENNAN (LOCAL)
MICHAEL BRENNAN’s first collection, The Imageless World, was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry and won the Mary Gilmore Award. Brennan’s second collection, Unanimous Night, was released in 2008. He is an associate professor in the Faculty of Policy Studies, Chuo University, Tokyo, the Australian editor of www.poetryinternational.org and director of Vagabond Press. His work has been translated into French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Italian.

appearing at...
3: Poets Paint Words II Exhibition
259: Poets Paint Words II - Poets Read III
317: Poetry as Passion: A Tribute to Dorothy Porter

PAM BROWN (LOCAL)
PAM BROWN has published many books of poetry including Dear Deliria, which won the NSW Premier’s Prize for Poetry in 2004. Her most recent book is True Thoughts. Another collection, Authentic Local, is due in June 2009. She is the associate editor of Jacket magazine.

appearing at...
315: Metaphors of Space

LACHLAN BROWN (LOCAL)
LACHLAN BROWN studied poetry at the University of Sydney. His poems have appeared in Heat, Southerly, Total Cardboard and Philament. He was shortlisted for the Blake Poetry Prize in 2008 and is a recipient of the Marten Travelling Bequest for poetry. Lachlan lives in Southwest Sydney and teaches at William Carey Christian School in Prestons.

appearing at...
276: Late Nights at Number One

CAROLYNE BRUYN (LOCAL)
CAROLYNE BRUYN is a writer, professional archivist and freelance editor. She is the coordinator of the Sydney WEA Writers Workshop. Carolyne owns and runs EveryWrite, an Internet-based manuscript appraisal and editing business.
 everywrite.com.au

appearing at...
321: DiVerse at the Margaret Olley: A Poetic Response

NICK BRYANT (LOCAL)
NICK BRYANT was the BBC's Washington correspondent for five years, covering everything from the impeachment of Bill Clinton to the attacks of 9/11. Nick originally studied American history at Cambridge University before completing a PhD in American politics at Oxford University. He was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nick is the author of the critically acclaimed The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and The Struggle for Black Equality. The husband of the Sydney-based fashion designer, Fleur Wood, Nick is now the BBC’s Australia correspondent.

appearing at...
156: And He Shall be Called Barack Obama: The Makings of a Mythic Presidency

GARY BRYSON (LOCAL)
GARY BRYSON is a journalist with Radio National, producing and presenting features and documentaries for the Encounter series. Prior to this, he was executive producer on Late Night Live with Phillip Adams. Turtle is his first novel.

appearing at...
82: Suspending Belief
121: The Debut
223: Drawn from Life, or Drawn from the Imagination

JOANNE BURNS (LOCAL)
joanne burns is a writer of poetry, including prose poems, short fictions and monologues. Over a dozen collections of her work have been published. footnotes of a hammock was joint winner of the 2005 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Her most recent poetry collection, an illustrated history of dairies, was shortlisted for the 2008 Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize. kept busy, a CD-recording of burns reading a selection of her work, was produced by River Road Press in 2007. A new collection of her work, amphora, will be published in 2010.

appearing at...
168: Conversations from the Bottom of the Harbour

CAROLINE BUTLER-BOWDON (LOCAL)
CAROLINE BUTLER-BOWDON is the head curator of the Museum of Sydney and an award-winning author. Her most recent book, Homes In The Sky: Apartment Living In Australia, co-authored with Dr Charles Pickett, was the winner of the Australian Institute of Architects Bates Smart Architecture in the Media award and the EnergyAustralia National Trust Award for Interpretation and Presentation for 2008. She co-authored Shooting Through: Sydney By Tram and Sydney Then & Now, and was co-editor of Talking About Sydney: Population, Community And Culture In Contemporary Sydney. She has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions at MoS, including Art Deco, Federation Sydney: 1880-1910 and Leunig Animated.

appearing at...
176: Mortgage Mania/Mortgage Meltdown

JENNIFER BYRNE (LOCAL)
JENNIFER BYRNE began as a cadet journalist with The Age in 1972. At 23, she was posted to San Francisco as The Age’s West Coast correspondent. In 1981 Jennifer joined Nine’s Sunday program before moving across to 60 Minutes. In 1993 she became the morning presenter of ABC’s Radio 2BL and in 1995 was appointed publishing director of Reed Books. In 1999 Jennifer joined Foreign Correspondent, working as host and reporter for five years. Jennifer joined the Bulletin in 2003 as a senior writer, working on the weekly Lunch With... column, for which she won two national magazine awards. She continued to host the ABC’s My Favourite Book program before becoming the host of the ABC’s First Tuesday Book Club.

appearing at...
142: First Tuesday Book Club
317: Poetry as Passion: A Tribute to Dorothy Porter