Authors based in Australia & New Zealand

James Bradley

James is the author of four novels: the critically acclaimed climate change narrative, Clade (Hamish Hamilton 2015), The Resurrectionist (Picador 2006), which explores the murky world of underground anatomists in Victorian England and was featured as one of Richard and Judy’s Summer Reads in 2008; The Deep Field (Sceptre 1999), which is set in the near future and tells the story of a love affair between a photographer and a blind palaeontologist; and Wrack (Vintage 1997) about the search for a semi-mythical Portuguese wreck. He has also written a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus, the novella, Beauty’s Sister, and edited The Penguin Book of the Ocean and Blur, a collection of stories by young Australian writers.

Twice one of The Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Novelists, his books have won The Age Fiction Book of the Year Award, the Fellowship of Australian Writers Literature Award and the Kathleen Mitchell Award, and have been shortlisted for awards such as the Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the NSW Premier’s Christina Stead Award for Fiction, the Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction and the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and have been widely translated. His short fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines and collections, including Best Australian Stories, Best Australian Fantasy and Horror and The Penguin Century of Australian Stories, and has been shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards for Best Science Fiction Short Story and Best Horror Short Story.

As well as writing fiction and poetry, James writes and reviews for a wide range of Australian and international newspapers and magazines. In 2012 he won the Pascall Prize for Australia’s Critic of the year.

Octavia Cade

Octavia Cade is a New Zealand speculative fiction writer. She has a Masters in biology and a PhD in science communication. She’s had over 50 short stories published, in markets such as Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, and Shimmer, and a number of books have been published by various small presses. She attended Clarion West 2016, and is a member of SFWA and HWA. In 2020 she was a visiting artist at Massey University in NZ, and she has been awarded a Michael King residency in 2021.

Danielle Celermajer

Danielle Celermajer writes at the interface of concerns about justice, ethics and the entangled lives of humans, animals and the environment. Her latest book, Summertime (Penguin Random House 2021) is a first person philosophical reflection on the Australian Black Summer fires of 2019-2020, as they were experienced by the human and more than human, and the future they index.

Carol Garden

Carol Garden has been writing for a living as a former journalist and communications manager for many years. In the 2020 Covid lockdown she wrote her first novel, Kidnap at Mystery Island in response to learning that children were becoming increasingly anxious about climate change. The novel won the 2021 Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award for an unpublished author. Published by Scholastic, it is in bookshops this month. When Carol is not writing or editing, she tutors students In NCEA English, writing and literacy.

Bren MacDibble

Bren is Kiwi-Australian based in Western Australia and the author of three climate-based books for middle grade. How to Bee, set in a time after bee loss, The Dog Runner, set in a world with no grasses, and Across the Risen Sea set in a time after rising seas have changed the world. How to Bee won an NZ Book Prize as well as the Australian Children’s Book of the Year and other awards. The Dog Runner also won an NZ Book Prize. Bren hopes her work encourages young people to keep the conversation about climate change and environmental management going.

Jennifer Mills

Jennifer Mills is an Australian author, essayist and critic currently based in Turin, Italy. Her latest novel, Dyschronia (Picador Australia) was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, Aurealis, and Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. She is the author of the novels Gone and The Diamond Anchor and the short story collection The Rest is Weight (UQP). In 2012, Mills was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist. Her fiction and essays have been published in Meanjin, Overland, the Sydney Morning Herald, Best Australian Stories, Best Australian Essays, Lithub, The Washington Post, and the Sydney Review of Books. She was the fiction editor at Overland for six years. Her next novel, The Airways, will be published by Picador Australia in 2021.

Michael Muntisov

Mike’s professional expertise was in making drinking water safe. He was the editor of a non-fiction book on water treatment, sales proceeds of which were donated to Water Aid. After a global consulting career spanning 35 years, Mike finally got around to writing his first work of fiction, Court of the Grandchildren. Among Mike’s other interests are college basketball, film, and working with start-up entrepreneurs.

Mark Smith

Mark Smith’s debut novel, The Road To Winter, was published in 2016. The sequel, Wilder Country, won the 2018 Australian Indie Book Award for YA. The third book in the trilogy, Land Of Fences was released in 2019. His fourth novel, If Not Us, will be published in September 2021. Mark is also an award winning writer of short fiction, with credits including the 2015 Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize and the 2013 Alan Marshall Short Story Prize, and his work has appeared in Best Australian Stories, Review of Australian Fiction, The Big Issue, Great Ocean Quarterly, The Victorian Writer and The Australian.

Lisa Walker

Lisa writes quirky, thoughtful novels for adults and young adults, with six published to date. She has also written an ABC Radio National play and been published in The Age, The Big Issue, Griffith Review and the Review of Australian Fiction. She has previously worked in environmental communication and as a wilderness guide. Her climate change comedy ‘Melt’ was published in 2018.

Rem Wigmore

Rem Wigmore is a speculative fiction writer based in Aotearoa. Their novel Foxhunt is forthcoming from Queen of Swords Press on August 21st 2021 and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Their other works include Riverwitch and The Wind City, both shortlisted for the Sir Julius Vogel Award. Rem’s short fiction appears in several places including the Capricious Gender Diverse Pronouns Issue, Baffling Magazine, and the second Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy anthology. They also have a story in Victoria University Press’s upcoming Middle Distance anthology. Rem’s probably a changeling, but you’re stuck with them now. The coffee here is just too good. Rem can be found at remwigmore.com or on twitter as @faewriter.

Linda Woodrow

Linda Woodrow is a Northern Rivers NSW based writer, researcher, and food gardener. She is the author of ‘470’ (Melliodora Publishing, 2020) and ‘The Permaculture Home Garden’ (Penguin, 1996) and has published widely in gardening and permaculture circles. She lives in a home-built, off-grid house and checks on the platypus in the creek most days. Linda recently completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Southern Cross University, investigating how to tell true stories. ‘470’ is her first novel.