Sydney Writers' Festival

LINDA JAIVIN (LOCAL)
Linda Jaivin is a novelist as well as a playwright, arts writer, translator (from Chinese) and the author of two books of nonfiction. Her first novel, Eat Me, was translated into a dozen languages and was a best-seller in Australia, France and elsewhere; her latest, The Infernal Optimist, was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal for 2006. She lives in Kings Cross.

appearing at...
16: Linda Jaivin at Kings Cross Library
66: Jan Wong in Conversation
81: My Friend the Fanatic
227: Jan Wong at Campbelltown Arts Centre

NEIL JAMES (LOCAL)
Neil James is Executive Director of the Plain English Foundation, which combines plain English training, editing and evaluation with a public campaign for clearer public language.

His latest book, Writing at Work critiques how public language is used and abused, and suggests how it can be radically improved. This draws on Neil’s work developing and presenting writing workshops to more than 5,000 professionals Australia-wide.

Neil is the editor of Writers on Writing and The Complete Sentimental Bloke. He has also published over 50 articles and essays on language and literature in publications as diverse as the Times Literary Supplement and the Daily Telegraph. Neil also speaks regularly about public language in the national media.

appearing at...
136: Reviving Rhetoric: Neil James and James O’Loghlin in Conversation
257: The Lost Art of Oratory

KATE JENNINGS (INTERNATIONAL)
Kate Jennings, a poet, essayist, and novelist, comes from the Riverina. She attended Sydney University in the late 1960s, where she gained notoriety as a feminist activist. She moved to New York City in 1979.

Her novel Snake was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, as was Moral Hazard, which was based on her experiences as a Wall Street speechwriter.

Her work has been in contention for the Booker, IMPAC and Los Angeles Times literary prizes. She has won the prestigious Christina Stead and Adelaide Festival prizes and been honoured with the Australian Literary Society’s gold medal. Stanley and Sophie is her latest book.

appearing at...
76: Kate Jennings Literary Lunch
152: Personal Journeys
318: Kate Jennings in Conversation with Caroline Baum

MARK JENSEN (LOCAL)
Mark Jensen is unlike most chefs in that he didn’t start working in a professional kitchen until the age of 27. Mark decided that if he was going to be a successful chef the right training would be essential. He moved backed to Sydney and promptly obtained a position in Matthew Moran's kitchen at the Paddington Inn Bistro. Here he refined the techniques he had previously learnt under the exceptional tutelage of Janni Krystis.

The time had come for Mark to make his own stand in the Sydney dining scene and he opened the dining room at the Olympic Hotel. After many years at the stoves and many favourable reviews in the Good Food Guide Mark was approached by his brother-in-law to head up the kitchen brigade at his new restaurant, Red Lantern. He received intensive training from a Vietnamese master chef and quickly became familiar with his new friends the wok and the cleaver.

Red Lantern became an instant hit with Sydney’s dining public, a cool but casual dining room, fresh ingredients crafted in a traditional manner with informative service.

appearing at...
19: Secrets of the Red Lantern

JUDY JOHNSON (LOCAL)

Judy Johnson has published three collections of poetry and a verse novel. Wing Corrections was on the schools list in Western Australia. Nomadic won the Wesley Michel Wright Prize. Her latest book is the Victorian Premier's prize winning verse novel, Jack, set on a pearling lugger in the Torres Strait in the 1930s, published by Picador.

Individual poems have won the Josephine Ulrick, Val Vallis, Bruce Dawe, Banjo Paterson, John Shaw Neilson and Tom Collins poetry prizes. Navigation is her new collection of verse.

appearing at...
225: Based on Truth
308: The Whiteley Reading by Judy Johnson

JILL JONES (LOCAL)
Jill Jones’ work has been widely published in most of the leading literary periodicals in Australia as well as in a number of print and online magazines in New Zealand, Canada, the USA, Britain and India.

In 1993 she won the Mary Gilmore Award for her first book of poetry, The Mask and the Jagged Star. Her fifth full-length book, Broken/Open, was published in 2005. It was shortlisted for The Age Poetry Book of the Year and the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize.

appearing at...
70: trope: Promoting New Writing in Second Life
298: The Sydney Readings: The Countries of Sydney

GAIL JONES (LOCAL)
Gail Jones is the author of two collections of short stories, Fetish Lives and The House of Breathing. Her first novel, Black Mirror, won the Nita B. Kibble Award and the Fiction Prize in the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards in 2003.

Her second novel, Sixty Lights, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2004, shortlisted for the 2005 Miles Franklin Award, and won the 2005 Age Book of the Year Award for Fiction, and the Fiction and Premier's Prize in both the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards 2004 and the South Australian Festival Award for Literature in 2006. Dreams of Speaking has been shortlisted in 2007 for the Miles Franklin Award, the NSW Premier's Award and the Nita B. Kibble Award. Her latest novel Sorry was recently shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.

appearing at...
46: Writers as Readers
67: Just Words: Australian Authors Writing for Justice
247: Michelle de Kretser in Conversation with Gail Jones

TONI JORDAN (INTERSTATE)
Toni Jordan was born in Brisbane in 1966 and graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Science. She has worked as a sales assistant, molecular biologist, quality control chemist and marketing manager.

Following an early mid-life crisis, Toni left her job in the vitamin industry and enrolled in RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing course with the idea of starting her own writing business. She needed one more subject, so she picked Novel – and in 2006 won a Varuna Awards master class to develop her debut novel, Addition. Toni lives in Melbourne where she works as a freelance copywriter.

appearing at...
30: Writing Obsessions: New Australian Fiction
84: Tales of Obsession
135: Unlikely Love Stories
282: The First Time
312: Sunday Afternoon Tea and Readings

MIREILLE JUCHAU (LOCAL)
Mireille Juchau is the author of Machines for Feeling and Burning In, shortlisted for the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

appearing at...
175: Bound to the Track
211: Readings from the 2008 Commonwealth Prize Shortlist
231: Motherlove