Meet our 2019 Youth Ambassadors

In 2019 our Youth Ambassador program provides young people the opportunity to be part of Brisbane Writers Festival, supporting the Word Play and Love YA programs. The Youth Ambassadors will champion youth programming, contribute to blogs, write reviews and work behind the scenes with our team.

The 2019 Youth Ambassadors are:

Madeline McGregor (Love YA)

Maddie is a blogger/writer/reader, working retail in a bookstore. She recently finished a degree of creative writing at QUT and dreams of being an author like some of her Aussie favourites. You can read up on Maddie’s love for books over on her blog at pasomaddie.wordpress.com.

Emily Winter (Love YA)

Emily has lived through sixteen Brisbane summers. The fabric of language has long fascinated her; how simple sounds, or symbols, are woven together to create the complex mesh that is human communication. She grew up reading anything and everything, though she has since become more selective in her tastes, favouring YA fiction (particularly of the Australian and New Zealand variety) as well as the occasional plunge into novels from the eighteenth century, especially the work of the Brontë sisters. She also aspires to one day bring her own stories to page. Music is another constant companion in her life, from the songs of last-century’s rock bands to the classical pieces she plays as a cellist and pianist.

Luke Waghorn (Word Play)

Luke loves reading in his spare time. He has been attending Word Play with his Mum and brothers since 2013 when he was 8 years old. He has more recently enjoyed attending the YA program at The Brisbane City Library during the Brisbane Writer’s Festival. Over the years, he has enjoyed hearing some of his favourite authors and illustrators speak passionately about their love of writing and how they became published writers. He particularly enjoyed listening to Andy Griffiths, Emily Rodda, Michael Gerard Bauer with his son Joseph and more recently, Garth Nix at the 2017 YA program. I am currently reading The Great Hunt, the second book in The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. My favourite genres are fantasy and adventure.

Claudia Blomberg (Word Play)

Claudia is 14 years old and describes herself as an artistic person, easily lost in any form of art. She enjoys music, writing, reading, acting, painting and drawing the most. She's in grade nine this year and spends most of her time at school with her friends and/or in the library. In terms of reading, her taste varies wildly, but she tend towards sci-fi or thrillers.