The Ties that Bind

Tracey Lien is the author of the debut novel All That's Left Unsaid. Born and raised in South Western Sydney, Australia, she earned her MFA at the University of Kansas and was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Madelaine Lucas is the author of the debut novel Thirst for Salt and a senior editor of the literary annual NOON. Born in Melbourne and raised in Sydney, she moved to New York in 2015 to complete her MFA at Columbia University, where she now teaches in the graduate writing program. Her writing has been awarded the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, and appeared in publications such as The Guardian, The Believer, Literary Hub and BOMB. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog.

André Dao is a writer, editor, and researcher. His debut novel, Anam, won the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. Anam will be published in May 2023 by Penguin Random House Australia and in August 2023 by Picador UK. He is the co-founder of Behind the Wire, an oral history project documenting people’s experience of immigration detention, and a producer of the Walkley-award winning podcast, The Messenger.

Jessica Au has worked as a writer, editor and bookseller. Her novel Cold Enough for Snow (2022) won the inaugural Novel Prize and was published by Giramondo, New Directions and Fitzcarraldo Editions, with translations in eighteen languages. It won the Victorian Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year Award and the Queensland Literary Awards.

Laura Elvery is a writer from Brisbane. She is the author of two short story collections, Trick of the Light and Ordinary Matter. Laura's next book is a novel called Nightingale that reimagines Florence Nightingale's final hours.