Happenstance (Online)

Alice Bishop is a writer from Christmas Hills, Victoria. Her first book, A Constant Hum, explores the lingering aftermath of Australian bushfire. It was inspired the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009 which destroyed her family home. Bishop was named Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelist in 2020. A Constant Hum has featured in the New York Times, and was shortlisted in the 2020 Queensland Literary Awards. 

Melissa Lucashenko is a Goorie (Aboriginal) author of Bundjalung and European heritage. Her first novel was published in 1997 and since then her work has received acclaim in many literary awards. Killing Darcy won the Royal Blind Society Award and was shortlisted for an Aurealis award. Her sixth novel, Too Much Lip, won the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Stella Prize, two Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, two Queensland Literary Awards and two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Melissa is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside. She writes about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead. Her latest book is Edenglassie.

Josephine Rowe is the author of three story collections and a novel, A Loving, Faithful Animal. Her writing has appeared in Granta, The Monthly, Meanjin, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, the Paris Review, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. Rowe is a fellow of the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University. Her most recent story collection, Here Until August, was shortlisted for the 2020 Stella Prize. She is currently working on her second novel.

Nardi Simpson is a Yuwaalaraay writer, musician, composer and educator from North West NSW freshwater plains. A founding member of Indigenous folk duo Stiff Gins, Nardi has been performing nationally and internationally for 20 years. Her debut novel, Song of the Crocodile, was a 2018 winner of a black&write! writing fellowship.

Dr Meredith Lake is a historian of religion, society and culture with a PhD from the University of Sydney. Her books include Faith in Action: HammondCare (UNSW Press, 2013), a study of one of Australia’s largest but least known Christian charities from the Great Depression to the 21st century, and The Bible in Australia: a cultural history (NewSouth, 2018) which won the Australian History prize at both the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards and the 2019 NSW Premier’s History awards. It was also named winner of the Non-Fiction award at the 2020 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, the 2019 CHASS Book of the year and 2018 Australian Christian Book of the Year.

Meredith took up a Distinguished Undergraduate Scholarship at the University of Sydney, where she studied with some of the leading cultural historians in the country. Her PhD explores religious narratives about land in colonial Australia.

Now an Honorary Associate of the Department of History at Sydney University, Meredith has presented Soul Search since January 2019.