Speakers 2026
Virginia Trioli
Two-time Walkley Award winner, Virginia Trioli is one of Australia’s best-known journalists, with a formidable reputation as a television anchor, radio presenter, writer and commentator. She is known for her incisive interviewing and wicked sense of humour.
Virginia has anchored leading ABC programs including 7.30, Lateline, Sunday Arts, and was the founding co-host of ABC News Breakfast for 11 years, as well as a long-time alternate host of Q+A. On Radio, she has led major programs in both Melbourne and Sydney, guiding audiences through events such as the Black Summer bushfires, COVID-19, and the 2022 flood emergency. Virginia held senior positions at The Age newspaper and The Bulletin magazine.
In 2024, Virginia released her book, A Bit on the Side, a warm and insightful reflection on finding joy in the small things – told with her signature wit. She continues to be a prominent voice through her Weekend Reads column, her podcast You Don’t Know Me, and her prime-time ABC TV series Creative Types with Virginia Trioli.
Ms Virginia Trioli appears by arrangement with Claxton Speakers International.
Heather Morris
In 2023, Heather was introduced to an elderly man, Lale Sokolov, who ‘might just have a story worth telling’. Lale’s story formed the basis for The Tattooist of Auschwitz published in 2018, and for the follow-up novel, Cilka’s Journey. Three Sisters concluded the Tattooist triology. The Tattooist of Auschwitz went on to become one of the 21st century’s bestselling books, and in 2024 an adaptation of the novel was released as an Original Television Series, to wide acclaim.
Her most recent historical novel, the heart-wrenching Sisters Under the Rising Sun, is based on the true-life experiences of women held in a Japanese POW camp during World War II.
In September 2025 Heather published her first contemporary novel The Wish, a story of hope in the darkest of places, family, love and courage.
Together, Heather’s books have so far sold over 19 million copies worldwide.
Hedley Thomas
Hedley Thomas has been a journalist for four decades. Since 2017 he has focused on deep-dive investigations into theunsolved murders of women in Australia.
His podcasts – The Teacher’s Pet, The Teacher’s Trial, The Teacher’s Accuser, The Night Driver, Shandee’s Legacy, Bronwyn and Sick to Death – have had more than 110 million downloads.
Hedley’s investivations help expose and solve serious crimes.
Hedley has won eight Walkley Awards in his career. He has won the Gold Walkley twice, most recently for his podcast The Teacher’s Pet which led to the prosecution and conviction of Chris Dawson, four decades after killing his wife, Lyn.
For his internationally renowned podcasts and investigative reporting, Hedley has been awarded Australia’s Journalist of the Year.
He is the author of two true-crime books. The first, Sick To Death, about a dangerous surgeon and a broken health system, was published in 2007. Hedley’s second book, The Teacher’s Pet, is a memoir about investigative journalism and his pursuit of wife killer Chris Dawson. It was published in 2023.
Hedley worked as a journalist across Europe and Asia in the 80s and 90s.
A father of two, he has lived in Brisbane with his wife Rught since 1999.
Ben Hannant
Ben Hannant, also known by the nickname of ‘Polar Bear’, is an Australian rugby league footballer and proud father of 8 children.
A Queensland State of Origin and Australian representative prop-forward, he played in the NRL for the North Queensland Cowboys, Brisbane Broncos, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and Sydney Roosters.
Hannant is a two-time premiership winner, with the Broncos in 2006 and the Cowboys in 2015. Ben also received Dally M of the year 2009.
Having made his mark on the sporting field, Ben found a new career in the radio studio, hosting the Breakfast shit on 90.9 Sea GM from 2017-2023. Ben now has his own show on Triple M – Dead Set Legends.
Matthew Condon
Matthew Condon is an award-winning journalist and the author of more than 18 works of both fiction and non-fiction, including the bestselling true crime trilogy – Three Crooked Kings, Jacks and Jokers and All Fall Down. His other books include The Trout Opera and The Motorcycle Café. In 2019 he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the community. He is a senior writer and podcaster for The Australian.
Rosalie Ham
Rosalie Ham was born and raised in Jerilderie, New South Wales population 800. Returning to Australia after seeing the world, Rosalie ‘rushed to university because Gough Whitlam made it possible’, enrolling in Drama and Literature. But it was the story that ignited her flame and, having moved on to creative writing, Rosalie ‘skewed a few accumulated secrets’ and wrote her first novel, The Dressmaker (published in 2000). Further novels are Summer at Mount Hope, There Should be More Dancing, The Year of the Farmer, The Dressmaker’s Secret and Molly (2024).
Described as a ‘gifted storyteller’ with ideas that are ‘fresh, unsual and entertaining’, Rosalie’s stories are new, but recognisable beyond Australia. Using the sterotpye to subvet the cliche, and always seeking to surprise the reader, she sheds new light on universal verities.
Nicole Alexander
Compelling narratives, vivid landscapes and intricate research are the hallmarks of Nicole Alexander’s bestselling historical novels. Published internationally, she is a past judge of the ARA Historical Novel Prize Australasia and the Historical Novel Society Colleen McCullough Writer’s Residency. Her debut novel The Bark Cutters was shortlisted for an Australian Book Industry Award and she has a Master of Letters in Creative Writing. The Limestone Road was the most borrowed book in the Western Downs Libraries collection in 2025.
Nicole resides in northwest NSW and is a keen swimmer and gym junkie.
Regional Lifestyle Magazine
Elizabeth and Alex Tickle are prime examples of those people who somehow just make it happen.
Regional Lifestyle Magazine has evolved through Elizabeth and Alex’s long-term interest in quality lifestyle magazines, the rural way of life and their passion for regional communities and the people and businesses that make them so unique. Their dream has quickly been made a reality, from the first serious discussions in December 2012 to the first edition being on shelves in June 2013.
Peter Greste
Professor Peter Greste is an academic, film maker, journalist, and author. He is currently professor of journalism at Macquarie University and executive director of a not-for-profit advocacy group, the Alliance for Jounalists’ Freedom.
He came to academia in 2018 after 30 years as an award-winning foreign correspondent for the BBC, Reuters, CNN, and Al Jazeera, in some of the world’s most volatile places.
He is best known for becoming a headline himself, when he and two colleagues were arrested in Cairo on terrorism charges while working for al Jazeera. In letters smuggled from prison, Peter described their incarceration as an attack on press freedom.
His campaign for freedom earned him numerous human rights and freedom of speech awards. Now, as an academic, he leads a research program investigating the impact of national security legislation on public interest journalism. Peter is the author of The Correspondant about his experiences in Egypt, and the wider war on journalism. The book has since been turned into a movie starring Richard Roxburgh.
Michelle Prak
Michelle Prak’s debut thriller The Rush was published by Simon & Schuster ANZ in 2023, Crooked Label Books in the US, and HarperCollins France. The Rush was voted into Better Reading’s annual Top 100 read (2024), and longlisted in the Davitt Awards. Her second tense thriller Barren Cape was published by Simon & Schuster ANZ in 2025.
Siang Lu
Siang Lu is the Miles Franklin-winning author of Ghost Cities and ABIA-winning author of The Whitewash. He is the co-creator of The Beige Index and the creator or #sillybookstagram.
Ghost Cities was shortlisted for eight additional awards, including the ALS Gold Medal, The Voss Literary Prize and The Age Book of the Year. In 2026 Ghost Cities will be published with Simon & Schuster’s Summit UK and US imprints, and in 24 territories in translation thereafter.
Claudine Tinellis
Claudine Tinellis is a Sydney-based author, podcaster and presenter. A former corporate lawyer, Claudine ventured into the world of publishing in 2014 as the editor of Coastal Chef: Culinary Art of Seaweed & Algae in the 21st Century and in the years since has dedicated herself to writing fiction. Claudine is also the host and producer of ‘Talking Aussie Books’ – a popular podcast bringing readers and writers of Australian fiction together. With more than 200 different authors interviewed to date, ‘Talking Aussie Books’ has been ranked number one Australian reading and writing podcast (Feedspot).
Stella Quinn
When Stella Quinn isn’t sitting in the sun scribbling in a notebook, she can be found walking her dog, roaming her neighbourhood in search of the perfect coffee, or thrashing her children at Scrabble. She grew up in England, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea and Australia, and spent five (long!) years at boarding school in country Queensland.
Stella writes rural fiction that is warm-hearted and filled with characters you want to be best friends with. She loves everyday heroes and a dog at every back door. Imagine if Sea Change and Fisk and A Country Practice had a series of fictitious bookbabies set int he country with chickens and sheep…they’re the books Stella writes.
She is a bestselling Australian author and has six rural fiction novels published by Harper Collins HQ Fiction imprint, with another two in the works. Her novel The Vet from Snowy River was voted by Better Reading 2025 as one of their Top 100 Books. She has been shortlisted in the ASA/HQ Fiction Commerical Ficiton Prize and won a RUBY Romantic Book of the Year prize. Under another name she has shortlisted in the Ampersand Prize for middle-grade fiction and won a Scarlet Stiletto Prize for the crime sub genre of Domestic Malice. (Don’t mess with her in a kitchen!)
Cesar Puechmarin
Dr César Puechmarin BVSc (hons) is a wildlife photographer, filmmaker, writer and wildlife veterinarian. He is the author of Nature People, and also the host of the popular nature and birdwatching podcast Death by Birding and science/comedy podcast Every Animal Ever – two of Australia’s top science podcasts.
Petronella McGovern
Petronella McGovern is fascinated by what makes us tick, the lies we tell, and the secrets we keep. She is the best-selling author of four novels: The Last Trace, The Liars, The Good Teacher and Six Minutes. Her books have been nominated in the Ned Kelly Awards, the Davitt Awards and the Australian Independent Bookseller Awards. With strong characters and gripping storylines, her twisty novels keep readers turning the pages late into the night.
Petronella has a Master of Arts in Creative Writing and tutors in creative writing. She grew up on a farm in central west NSW and now lives in Sydney on Gadigal Country. Her latest novel, Every Time She Wakes, is a taut, time-bending thriller about family, identity and defying fate. It will be released in July 2026.
Merinda Dutton
Merinda Dutton is a Barkandji and Gumbaynggirr woman, lawyer, and co-found of the Blackfulla Bookclub on Instagram, whose creative practice explores kinship, country, and justice through poetry and storytelling. Her work has appeared in Sydney Review of Books, Giffith Review, Australian Poetry Journal, and she contributed to Words to Sing the World Alive. Merinda won the 2025 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry price for her poem, Amnesia.
Matt Hetherington
Matt Hetherington is a writer, music-maker, and teacher living on Bundjalung Country in Murwillumbah, NSW. He has been writing poetry for over 40 years, and his seventh collection, ‘About, Alone’ Away’, was published by Walleah Press in December 2024. He has performed his poetry in all parts of Australia other than the Northern Territory, including the Tasmanian Poetry Festival, The Perth Poetry Festival, The Queensland Poetry Festival, and the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. He was also Co-editor of the Australian section of the first World Haiku Anthology, and has preciously run Haiku Walks in Queensland in places as diverse as Mount Isa, Bribie Island, Goondiwindi – and now, the Bunya Mountains.
Kat Apel
Kathryn Apel is the author of eleven books, including What Snail Knows (a heart-warming squeeze verse novel about a shy girl coming out of her shell), Miss Understood (the award winning verse novel and much endorsed bullying resource within Australia and America), and The Stories for Little Queenslanders title, Up and Down on a Rainy Day. February 2026 saw the release of UnBEARable, another fractured fairytale told in rhyme, about three bears, and the Golden Grrrr-Rule.
A former teacher and literary coach, Kat presents across a range of genres and ages, from young children to adult. She is passionate about poetry, both as a means of creative expression (for writers of all ages and abilities), but also as a tool to develop writing muscle, no matter the genre.
Kathryn lives among the gum trees, kangaroos and cattle on a Queensland grazing property – and brings authentic rural Australian stories to classrooms and events. A born-and-bred farm girl, Kat is still scared of cows!
Jasmin McGaughey
Jasmin is a Torres Strait Islander and Afterican American writer. She is the author of Moonlight and Dust, and Ash Barty’s Little Ash Series. She has written for Overland, Kill your Darlings, SBS Voices and Griffith Review.
James Foley
James Foley makes children’s books for children who read books. If you’re a child and you’re eating his books, you’re doing it wrong. He is the author and illustrator of many picture books and graphic novels, including Stellarphant, Happy Barry Capybara, and Brobot. His latest books are Bigfoot vs Yeti: A Love Story, and the colour edition of Dungzilla and Chickensaurus.
Legend says James can grow a beard in an afternoon. He is a massive Marvel movie nerd and comes from a long line of queuing enthusiasts. He lives near Freo/Walyalup in Western Australia with his wife Renae, their two kids, and a labrador called Frankie.
Andy Jones
Andy Jones is a high-energy children’s author and performer who mixes music, comedy and rhyme to keep kids fully engaged, He’s the author of The Massive Book of School Jokes for Kids, Wishes Come in Threes, The Fartionary, and The Adventures of Scooterboy and Skategirl. With more than 20 years of shows across Australia, Andy brings fun, laughter and creativity everywhere he goes.