Digging Deeply into People and Place

Sarah Armstrong was an award-winning journalist and has written three novels, including Salt Rain, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. Her first novel for young readers is Big Magic. Its sequel is out later this year.

Sarah Ayoub is a freelance journalist, bestselling author and academic based in Sydney, Australia. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, SBS, Marie-Claire, ELLE, Sunday Life, Sydney Review of Books, and more, and regularly appears at Australia's major literary festivals. She is the author of teen novels Hate is Such a Strong Word, The Yearbook Committee, and The Cult of Romance; an author of children's picture books The Love that Grew and Nice and Slow; and a contributor to the anthology Arab, Australian, Other. Sarah attained her PhD with a thesis examining migrant narratives in Australian teen lit and currently lectures in journalism and writing at the University of Sydney and the University of Notre Dame. She is interested in the intersections of gender, culture and society and is passionate about cultural diversity in the arts. She has been a Stella Prize Schools Ambassador, hosted writing workshops with the Australian High Commission in Brunei, and most recently been a judge for the NSW Premiers Literary Awards. She is a writer-in-residence of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and sits on the board of the Australian Society of Authors.