Speed Reads Salon

Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. She has written for Overland, the Guardian, BBC, The Monthly, Sydney Review of Books, and other publications. In 2019 she was a CA-SRB Emerging Critic, and in 2021 she was a finalist for the Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism. She has an MSt in English from the University of Oxford and is a current doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester. Green Dot is her first novel. 

Yen-Rong is an arts critic and award-winning writer based between Yugambeh and Jaggera and Turrbal lands. She won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer in 2022 and the Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Award in 2020. Her work has appeared in many print and online publications, including The Guardian, Meanjin, The Sydney Review of Books, and Griffith Review. Me, Her, Us (UQP) is her debut work of non-fiction. 

John Morrissey is a Melbourne writer of Kalkadoon descent. His work has been published in Overland, Voiceworks, Meanjin and the anthology This All Come Back Now. He was the winner of the 2020 Boundless Mentorship and the runner-up for the 2018 Nakata Brophy Prize.

John Richards was educated in the UK and lived in London and Singapore before settling in Brisbane. He was shortlisted for the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Award in 2021 and the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer in August 2022. The Gorgon Flower is his first published work of fiction. 

Kirsty Iltners is a writer and photographer living on Jagera and Turrbal Country in Brisbane with her two daughters, her border collie, and three axolotls. Depth of Field (UWA Publishing 2024) is her first novel and the winner of the 2023 Dorothy Hewett Award.

Michelle Prak is author of The Rush, a fast-paced outback thriller. She has a thirty-year career in PR, social media, politics, and journalism. Her short stories have been published in The Westerly and Meanjin, and in 2021 she was shortlisted in the Furphy Literary Prize. She lectures at the University of South Australia.

S. E. Tolsen is the pseudonym of husband and wife writing team, Emma Olsen and Vere Tindale. Emma was born in Wellington, New Zealand and Vere in Johannesburg, South Africa. Bunny is their first novel and was adapted from their screenplay Crepuscular, which was a nominee for Best Feature Screenplay at the 2018 Renegade Film Festival. They live in Brisbane, Australia.

Sam Elkin is a writer, event producer and co-editor of Nothing to Hide: Voices of Trans and Gender Diverse Australia (Allen & Unwin, 2022). Born in England and raised on Noongar land, Sam now lives on unceded Wurundjeri land. Sam’s essays have been published in the Griffith Review, Australian Book Review, Sydney Review of Books and Kill Your Darlings. He hosts the 3rrr radio show Queer View Mirror and is a Tilde Film Festival board member. Detachable Penis: A Queer Legal Saga is his first book.

Sarah Smith is a highly regarded TV drama writer and Executive Producer. She created Amazing Grace, Bite Club, Winter, Wild Boys and Rescue Special Ops, which won a Gold Medal at The New York Festival TV and Film Awards. 

She wrote and produced the telemovie Dripping in Chocolate for BBC Worldwide. Other credits include House of Bond, The Killing Field, Last King of the Cross, Wanted, The Alice, All Saints, McLeod’s Daughters, Sea Patrol, and Bloom. 

She is currently writing her second novel. 

Sharlene Allsopp was born on Bundjalung Country into the Olive mob. She has been published in Griffith Review, Portside Review, Aniko Press, and Jacaranda Journal. As a recipient of The Wheeler Centre’s Next Chapter program in 2020/21, she completed her debut novel The Great Undoing, released with Ultimo Press in February 2024. Sharlene lives in Meanjin/Brisbane with her family and beloved doggo—Morty.

Troy Henderson is a fiction writer from Brisbane, Australia, where he has lived his whole life aside from a two-year stint in London.

His first book, Head Grenade, shortlisted in the Hawkeye Publishing Manuscript Development Prize and Queensland Writers Centre’s Adaptable and Publishable Programs, respectively.

His short stories have longlisted in the Australian Writers’ Centre Furious Fiction competition, and placed in Genrecon’s Short Story competition, and FLEUR Flash Fiction Contest.

Head Grenade was published through Hawkeye Publishing in October 2023.

Georgia Harper is a psychologist who has worked with both serious violent offenders and victim-survivors of crime. Her career spans correctional, forensic mental health, mental health and rural psychology roles. She advises on LGBTIQ+ workforce matters and, in keeping with her passion for animal welfare, was the Senior Inspector Prosecutions for RSPCA Queensland. Born in Brisbane, Georgia currently lives and works on the beautiful Darling Downs, where she enjoys writing in her paddock under the supervision of her shire horse. What I Would Do to You is her first novel.

Dominic Gordon is from Melbourne. His work has appeared Meanjin, The Suburban Review, and other literary journals. In 2016, he created and produced a radio play that was broadcast on Radio National’s, Soundproof program, called Cooked in the Big Smoke. In 2018, Dominic was awarded a Berry Family Fellowship at the State Library Victoria, where he began what would become his first book, Excitable Boy: Essays on Risk. 

Winnie Dunn is the General Manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and the editor of several critically acclaimed anthologies, including Another Australia (Affirm Press, 2022). She is a writer of Tongan descent from Mount Druitt and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Sydney University. Her work has been published in The Guardian, HuffPost Australia, Griffith Review, Meanjin and SBS Voices. In 2022, she was a finalist for Western Sydney University's Breakthrough Alumni Award. Winnie is currently completing her debut novel, Dirt Poor Islanders (Hachette, 2024), which has been assisted by the Australia Council for the Arts.

Anna Kate Blair is a writer from Aotearoa living in Naarm. Her short stories and essays have appeared in publications including Cordite, Slow Canoe, The Appendix, Landfall, Meanjin, Litro, Archer and Reckoning. She holds a PhD in History of Art and Architecture from the University of Cambridge. Her first novel, The Modern, was published by Scribner in September 2023.

Brydie Lee-Kennedy is an Australian TV writer. She has written on shows for Netflix, Apple TV and Disney. In a former life she was a cabaret performer, kid's party entertainer and sex columnist. Go Lightly is her first novel.

Dave Witty is an Australian writer raised in the United Kingdom. He is the recipient of the 2021 Rosina Joy Buckman Award in The Nature Conservancy Nature Writing Prize, and his work appears in publications including Island, Griffith Review and Meanjin. What the Trees See is his first book.

David Goodwin is the author of Servo, a side-splitting and darkly mesmeric memoir of six long years of weekend graveyard shifts in service stations across Melbourne's wild west. He is, thankfully, no longer a day-sleeper with a halogen tan, but still maintains a ruinous predilection for vodka-spiked slurpees and sausage rolls with too much tomato sauce.

Esmé Louise James (@esme.louisee) is a PhD Candidate, TEDx Speaker, and creator of the Kinky History with over 3 million followers. She has produced a range of non-fiction articles for publications such as the Age, the ABC and the Conversation, as well as short stories and poetry, for publications such as Hardie Grant Press and Archer. Esmé’s book Kinky History was published by Pantera Press in Australia, and TarcherPerigee worldwide, in 2024. She received funding from Screen Australia's Every Voice initiative for the TikTok series, SexTistics, and was nominated for Best Digital Creator at the 2022 AACTA Awards. In 2023, Esmé was honoured with the University of Melbourne's Rising Star Alumni Award.

Graham Akhurst is a Kokomini writer who grew up in Meanjin. He is a Lecturer of Indigenous Studies and Creative Writing at UTS. Graham began his writing journey in a hospital bed in 2011. He read and started journaling while passing the time between treatments for Endemic Burkett Lymphoma. As a Fulbright Scholar, Graham studied for an MFA in Fiction at Hunter College, NYC. He is a board member for the First Nations Artists and Writers Network and Varuna. 

Jarad Bruinstroop’s debut poetry collection, Reliefs, won the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and is available now through UQP. He won the 2023 Val Vallis Award. His work has appeared in The Best of Australian Poems, Meanjin, Overland, and elsewhere. As the University of Queensland Fryer Library Creative Writing Fellow, he is developing a novella cycle that draws on Brisbane’s Queer history. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from QUT where he also teaches.  

Bebe Oliver is a descendant of the Bardi Jawi people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and an award-winning writer based in Naarm. A leader in Aboriginal advancement, he is Chairperson of Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival, and a Board Director of Magabala Books, Australia’s leading Indigenous publishing house. A writer, poet, illustrator, speaker, and facilitator living on unceded Kulin land, Bebe's widely published work encompasses love, loss, identity, Aboriginal and gay existence, place, and Country. Bebe’s debut solo poetry collection is more than these bones (Magabala, 2023).

Bianca Valentino is a writer and editor, she also publishes underground music magazine, Gimmie. She got her start making punk fanzines in the ‘90s and has written for national and international music, arts, and culture magazines for three decades. She’s a music fan, not a critic. Conversations with Punx is her first book.

Walter Marsh is an award-winning journalist and critic based in Tarntanya/Adelaide and the author of Young Rupert: the making of the Murdoch empire. A former editor and staff writer at The Adelaide Review and Rip It Up, his work has appeared in The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Crikey, and InDaily.