Digging Deeply into People and Place

Sarah’s first novel for readers aged 9+, Big Magic, is a 2023 CBCA Notable Book. The sequel, Magic Awry came out last year. In a previous life, she was an award-winning ABC Radio journalist before moving to Mullumbimby in northern NSW where she wrote novels including the Miles Franklin shortlisted Salt Rain. She's found her home writing for kids and her next middle-grade novel will be out in 2025. She teaches writing in schools, for writers’ festivals and at university and she co-hosts the podcast: Five Writers Five Minutes. 

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.