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Writers

We have welcomed a diverse lineup of acclaimed and emerging writers, bloggers, critics, playwrights, poets, song writers and wordsmiths to the festival in the past, and we look forward to doing so again in the future. Here is an example of the talent we enjoyed at the last festival.

2022 Writers Gallery

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2018 writers

Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson is a Tasmanian novelist and feature writer. She has published four novels and been published in The Conversation, Good Weekend, and Island. The Better Son manuscript won Tasmanian Premier’s Prizes. Paris Savages was shortlisted in the ABIA awards...

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Hannah Moloney

Hannah Moloney is a landscape designer, permaculture educator, best-selling author and change maker. She has two decades of hands-on experience in designing, building, managing and doing projects around urban agriculture, small-scale farming, permaculture and community development – all towards building climate resilience. She’s been a...

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Jane Tewson

Founder and Director of Igniting Change – a tiny charity passionate about sparking big, positive change for people doing it tough in our communities. Igniting Change is guided by people experiencing injustice and inequality, and brings people and resources together...

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Robbie Arnott

Robbie Arnott is the author of Limberlost, The Rain Heron, and Flames. His work has been awarded The Age Book of the Year and The Margaret Scott Prize, and been shortlisted for many other literary prizes, including the Miles Franklin Award. In 2019...

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Lee Kofman

Dr Lee Kofman is a Russian-born, Israeli-Australian author based in Melbourne. Lee holds a PhD in social sciences and MA in creative writing. She is the author of three fiction books, and memoirs Imperfect (Affirm Press, 2019), which was shortlisted...

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Bert Spinks

Bert Spinks is a storyteller, poet, writer and bushwalking guide. He lives in the bush in northern Tasmania. For TVWF 2022, Bert is returning to his childhood stamping ground of Beaconsfield, and you can join him for a special guided...

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Melissa Lucashenko

Melissa Lucashenko is a leading novelist from Queensland. A Bundjalung woman, her work has been awarded the Queensland Deloitte Literary Prize, the Nita B. Kibble Award, and the Victorian Premier’s Award for Indigenous Writing. In 2019 Too Much Lip won...

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Adam Thompson

Adam Thompson is a pakana writer from Launceston, Tasmania. His work has been published by the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Kill Your Darlings, Good Weekend, and Griffith Review – as well as appearing in several anthologies. Adam is the author...

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Pip Williams

Pip Williams was born in London, grew up in Sydney, and now lives in the Adelaide Hills. She has spent most of her working life as a social researcher, studying what keeps us well and what helps us thrive, and...

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Kyle Perry

Kyle Perry is a drug and alcohol counsellor based in Hobart, Tasmania. He has grown up around the Tasmanian bush and seas, with the landscape a key feature of his writing and his spare time. He loves the sea, and...

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Jonathon Butler

Jonathan Butler is a writer living in Naarm/Melbourne. His debut book, The Boy in the Dress, is about the murder of his grandmother’s cousin and was published by Affirm Press on 22 February 2022. His work has appeared in the...

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Robyn Mundy

Wild places form a big part of Robyn Mundy’s life, and her novels. Robyn has wintered and summered in Antarctica, the setting for her first novel The Nature of Ice. Her second novel Wildlight is set on remote Maatsuyker Island in south-west...

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Martin Flanagan

Martin Flanagan is the author of 20 books, a play, and two movie treatments. His last book, The Art of Pollination, is about social entrepreneur Jane Tewson.

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Lucy Christopher

Lucy is a multi-award-winning and bestselling writer for young adults, children, and adults. Her work is psychological and emotional, often inspired by wild places. Her novels for young adults are Stolen, Flyaway, The Killing Woods, The Darkness, and Storm-wake, published...

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Winnie Dunn

Winnie Dunn is the General Manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and the editor of several critically acclaimed anthologies, including Another Australia (Affirm Press, 2022). She is a writer of Tongan descent from Mount Druitt and holds a Bachelor of Arts...

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Michael Mohammed Ahmad

Michael Mohammed Ahmad is the founding director of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and editor of After Australia (Affirm Press, 2020). His debut novel, The Tribe (Giramondo, 2014), won the 2015 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists of the Year Award. His...

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Meg Bignall

Meg Bignell began her writing career as a trainee copywriter with Win Television Tasmania. She went on to work as a commercial and corporate producer and presenter for television and later as a medical advisor for the Network Seven drama,...

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Lyndon Riggall

Lyndon Riggall is a writer and teacher from Launceston whose work in poetry, prose and screenwriting has won local, national and international awards. His first picture book for children, Becoming Ellie, was created in collaboration with artist Graeme Whittle and...

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Poppy Gee

Poppy Gee is the author of two literary thrillers which are set in Tasmania. Vanishing Falls (Harper Collins, USA; Booktopia Editions, Australia & NZ, 2020) is set in a fictional village near Westbury. Her debut novel Bay of Fires (Little...

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Polly McGee

Dr Polly McGee is an author, leadership consultant, trauma therapist and all purpose human being. They work, rest and play at the intersection of neurobiology, transpersonal psychotherapy and a good nap.

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Dylan Hesp

Dylan Hesp is a Tasmanian writer, director and comedian who brings the loveable losers of our world to life on screen. Most known for his breakout role in Sando on ABC TV and for co-creating and starring in the smash...

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Mallika Naguran

Malika Naguran Mallika Naguran is a writer of adult fiction and children’s books. She Never Looks Quite Back is her first collection of short stories published by Penguin Random House SEA in December 2021. The stories depict themes of nature,...

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Avery McDougall

Avery is a teacher-librarian by trade (BEdS UTAS; GDipIM RMIT) but was forced out of that career by her disability. She has always loved and stories and used them in her fight against chronic illness, culminating in the release of...

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Vicki Madden

Vicki Madden is a producer, writer and showrunner with over 20 years experience in the television industry both in Australia and overseas. She has worked on such shows as Halifax FP, The Bill, (UK), Trial & Retribution (UK), and Water...

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Jock Serong

Jock Serong’s novels have received the ARA Historical Novel Prize, the Colin Roderick Award, the Ned Kelly Award for First Fiction and, internationally, the inaugural Staunch Prize (UK) and the Historia Award for Historical Crime Fiction (France). He lives with...

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Ben Walter

Ben Walter is the author of the acclaimed short story collection, What Fear Was. His is a widely published writer of essays, stories, poetry and experimental nature writing; his work has recently appeared in Meanjin, New Australian Fiction and The...

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Jane Rawson

Jane Rawson lives in the Huon Valley and works as a writer for a conservation organisation. Her latest novel, A History of Dreams, was published by Brio in 2022 - along with her second novel, From the Wreck, it is based on her...

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Ruby Ashby-Orr

Ruby Ashby-Orr has been working as a trade book editor since 2013 with experience at every stage of the editorial process including commissioning, structural editing, copyediting, proofreading, marketing (including cover development) and production. As Senior Editor with Affirm Press she...

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Karen Brooks

Karen Brooks is the author of fifteen books – historical fiction, historical fantasy, YA fantasy, and non-fiction – was an academic for over 25 years, a newspaper columnist, and social commentator. She has a Ph.D. in English/Cultural Studies and is...

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Michael Burge

Michael Burge is an author and Guardian Australia journalist who lives at Deepwater in the New England region of NSW. Tank Water (released by MidnightSun Publishing) is his first novel. Michael’s non-fiction debut Questionable Deeds: Making a stand for equal...

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Lucinda Sharp

Lucinda danced with The Australian Ballet from 1974 to 1984 and, after her performance career, became a rehearsal director/teacher for several regional dance companies. She then studied at the University of Western Australia, graduating in 1999 with a master’s degree...

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