Sydney Writers' Festival

Ben was the Executive Director of Arts Funding at the Australia Council for the Arts for nine years. He headed the Books Alive staff for the first three campaigns and was a member of both the Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Inquiry and the Cultural Ministers Council Small to Medium Performing Arts Examination. He was also a longstanding member of the Asialink Performance / Arts Management Committee and of the Playing Australia National Touring Committee.

Ben has a BA cum laude in History of Ideas from Williams College, Massachusetts. He studied theatre in Connecticut (USA) and worked as a performer with theatres in Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Connecticut and New Hampshire before arriving in Australia in 1982 to become the Artistic Director of Australia's Theatre of the Deaf, directing and writing productions for young audiences. He joined the Australia Council in 1987 and - except for 1990, when he was the Executive Director of the Australian Centre of the International Theatre Institute - held a number of senior roles at the Council over the ensuing 21 years.

Ben joined Sydney Writers' Festival in February 2009.

Renee joined the Festival in 2012 as Programming Coordinator. Graduating from Macquarie University with a Bachelor of Creative Arts in English Literature, she has over 12 years experience in publishing, working at HarperCollins Publishers and Random House Australia in the local publishing, editorial and sales departments before joining Allen & Unwin's publicity team. She spent the next seven years planning national tours and publicity campaigns for an array of Australian and International authors across both the fiction and non-fiction lists, including Jodi Picoult, Sebastian Barry, A.C. Grayling, Christopher Hitchens, William Dalrymple, Alex Miller, Charlotte Wood, Christos Tsiolkas and Craig Silvey.

Highlights of Renee's time at Allen & Unwin include becoming Publicity Manager in 2010, working on five Vogel's Literary Award announcement campaigns and her involvement in planning author participation with literary festivals around Australia. She is looking forward to continuing to liaise with artists and publishers as part of her new role with the SWF team.

Helen's previous role was as Senior Publicity Manager for HarperCollins Publishers in London where she worked with authors such as Tracy Chevalier, Lionel Shriver, Boris Johnson and Paulo Coelho. Helen worked in publicity for 10 years and in 2007 Helen was awarded a British Book Industry Award for the Publicity Campaign of the Year (The Dangerous Book for Boys).

Helen worked as Sydney Writers' Festival's Publicist for the 2009 and 2010 Festivals. She now manages the Festival's sponsor relationships and media partnerships as well as maintaining and building the Festival's donor base.

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Jennie was awarded a BA Communications Theatre Media and a Diploma Secondary Education from Charles Sturt University (Bathurst).  She has worked in education and the arts in England, Scotland, Italy and Thailand. She is the co -founder and director of Babushka Youth Arts Inc, which focuses on drama workshops and community theatre projects for young people in NSW.  She has also worked in a number of arts festivals including the Woollahra Festival (General Manager), Sydney Festival (Crew Coordinator and Event Coordinator), Edinburgh Fringe Festival and several roles with Sydney Writers' Festival.

Summar joins the SWF team following a number of years as General Manager for 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. She graduated from the University of London with an Honours degree in History of Art and studied Arts Management under curator Lisa Le Feurve. She has worked for important institutions such as Tate Modern and The British Museum in London, and managed the studios and projects for internationally renowned artists Chris Ofili and Sam Taylor-Wood. In 2011 she was Art & Australia and Gertrude Contemporary’s emerging arts writer under the mentorship of Anthony Bond from Art Gallery NSW.

Ainslie joined the Festival in December 2011 after recent roles as PR/Marketing Manager for Sydney Winter Festival and Marketing Manager for Australian Openair Cinemas. She graduated from UTS with a Bachelor of Management in Events and Leisure and has over 10 years’ marketing experience across advertising, insurance, hospitality, arts and events.  Ainslie is inspired by the opportunity to share literature, ideas and the achievements of writers both internationally and at home.

Kitiya joins the SWF team after a number of years working as a craft-based designer for the creative industry. Some of her clients have included Lego, City of Sydney, SBS, and The Children's Hospital at Westmead. In previous lives she has worked as a producer for Sydney Bicycle Film Festival and a production coordinator for the Etsy Success Conference at Vivid Sydney 2012. When not working at SWF she can be found constructing props, costumes and set decorations, teaching creative workshops and writing DIY craft articles for a variety of publications. 

Ashlea’s career in books began as a merchandiser and children’s specialist with Borders bookstore, where she ran a series of community events including the Premier’s Reading Challenge.  After graduating from UNSW with a Bachelor of Media and Communications, Ashlea held intern positions with Ten News (Network Ten) and Sunrise (Network Seven), before securing a role with prime-time current affairs program Today Tonight in both the Sydney and Melbourne studios.

Deciding that she missed books too much, Ashlea rejoined the publishing industry in 2008 in an editorial role at New Holland Publishers before moving into publicity with Murdoch Books. In 2011 Ashlea became a Senior Publicist and has worked on a variety of fiction, non-fiction and lifestyle titles boasting authors such as Stieg Larsson, Bob Katter, Rodney Hall, Reg Grundy and Barry Hall.  Ashlea participated in several Sydney Writers' Festival programs as a publicist, but SWF 2013 will be her first as a member of the SWF team.

Mike started working with Sydney Writers’ Festival in 2009 as Operations Coordinator and in September 2011 was appointed Operations Manager.  Prior to this, Mike worked as Operations Manager for events such as Australian Openair Cinemas (Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne), Underbelly Arts Festival, the National Small Business Summit and the TAFE 120 year celebration.

In theatre, Mike has production managed several tours across Australia and Europe.  He produced the Australian premiere of Cherry Smoke by New York writer James McManus in 2009, presented simultaneously with an off-Broadway production. In lighting, Mike has worked on theatre productions such as Billy Elliot, Mirror Mirror (Holland), and the film Wolverine. Mike has a Bachelor of Arts in Production.

For all media inquiries please contact Festival Publicist Benython Oldfield.

Phone 02 9252 7729
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