Les Murray is Australia’s leading poet and one of the greatest contemporary poets writing in English. He has won many literary awards, including the Grace Leven Prize (1980 and 1990), the Petrarch Prize (1995), and the prestigious TS Eliot Award (1996). In 1999 he was awarded the Queens Gold Medal for Poetry on the recommendation of Ted Hughes. He has also been honoured by the Australian Academy of the Humanities, where he has been elected an Honorary Fellow. View extract by Les Murray

David Malouf was the sixteenth Newstadt Laureat in the US and is the author of short story collections Dream Stuff and the 2007 Age Book of the Year authors Award winner, Every Move You Make. His acclaimed novels include Remembering Babylon, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the LA Times Fiction Award. David’s new work of poetry, Typewriter Music, was published in 2007 by University of Queensland Press.

Sonya Hartnett made her publishing debut at the age of just 15. Since then she has written 18 novels for children, young people and adults. She has won numerous awards, including the world’s largest children’s and young people’s literary award - The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) in 2008.
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Alex Miller has twice won the Miles Franklin Award and is an overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize. He is the author of eight novels, several of which have been published internationally and all of which are in print in Australia. His most recent novel is the critically acclaimed Landscape of Farewell (Allen & Unwin 2007). View extract by Alex Miller

Alice Pung is a writer and lawyer whose work has appeared in the Age, Good Weekend, the Monthly and Meanjin. Her first book, Unpolished Gem, has become a national bestseller and won the 2007 Newcomer of the Year Award in the Australian Book Industry Awards. Most recently, Alice has edited the anthology Growing Up Asian in Australia. View extract by Alice Pung

Nicolas Rothwell comes from a long line of journalists. Born in New York, he has Australian and Czech heritage, and he’s lived all over the world - but now he’s found a beautiful, exotic place that he feels truly at home in - Darwin. He works there for The Australian as their Northern Australia correspondent, and his stories have now been published in a new book called Another Country. View extract from Nicolas Rothwell

Alan Gould is a poet, novelist and essayist who lives in Canberra. Since 1975 he has written poetry, novels and essays and his books have attracted many literary prizes including the Grace Leven Prize in 2006 for The Past Completes Me – Selected Poems 1973-2003.

Sarah Day was born in England and grew up in Tasmania, Australia. The Ship (Brandl & Schlesinger 2004) won the Judith Wright Calanthe Queensland Premier’s Award, the University of Melbourne Wesley Michelle Wright Prize and was joint winner of the Judith Wright ACT Award for poetry 2005.
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Anthony Lawrence has published twelve books of poems and a novel. His individual poems and books have won many of Australia’s major awards. A new collection, Bark, was published by UQP in 2008. He is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland.
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