My Life in Pop Culture

Emma A. Jane — formerly published as Emma Tom — is an Associate Professor at UNSW Sydney. Her research specialties are eclectic, and include sex and gender, misogyny on the internet, the future of work, and the social and ethical impacts of emerging technology. In 2021, Stanford University ranked her as being in the top 2% of researchers in the world based on citations of her academic work. Emma has presented the findings of her research to the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Australian government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House, and unsuspecting Uber drivers (sorry about that). Prior to her career in academia, she spent nearly 25 years working in the print, broadcast, and electronic media, much of which was spent fielding burlesque electronic rape and death threats. Over the course of her working life, Emma has received multiple awards and prizes for her research, her teaching, her journalism, and her fiction. Diagnosis Normal is her eleventh book. On the weekends, she makes GIFs of her dogs, fools around with Excel macros, and reads books about how to read books by Wittgenstein. She was surprisednotsurprised when she was recently diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.

Yumi Stynes is an author and broadcaster working on Gadigal land. She got her start as an interviewer when working as a music reporter on the Foxtel station Channel [V] in the year 2000. She still talks music when taking a shift on national music broadcaster Double J.

Right now she can be heard on the hugely popular ABC podcast 'Ladies, We Need to Talk' - currently in its eighth season talking about taboos around women's issues.

Her groundbreaking books co-authored with Dr Melissa Kang include this year's ABIA Winner for Book of the Year for older Children, Welcome to Sex. The Welcome to series of guidebooks have sold over a quarter of a million copies and been translated into 14 languages.

When it all gets too stressful, Yumi has a food podcast called 'The 5 Minute Food Fix' where she laughs with dear friend and cookbook editor/publisher Simon Davis while giving recipes, hacks and tricks for busy people who love food.

Myles McGuire is a writer, editor and semi-professional conversationalist. After starting at BWF as a clown in 2022, he joined the team as Programs Coordinator in 2023. His writing has been nominated for prizes including the Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Award and the Peter Carey Short Story Award.