Dr Charmaine Papertalk-Green (Keynote Speaker)

A Wajarri, Badimaya and Wilunyu woman of the Yamaji nation. Charmaine is an author, poet, artist, storyteller and social change agent. She has written five books, won several awards including the prestigious Australian Literary Gold Medal and Victorian Premier Literature Award for poetry. Her poetry is studied as part of school curricula.

Dean Alston

Dean Alston began working life as a cartographer with the WA Lands and Survey’s Department. After leaving at age 30 to become a publican, he then moved to the UK, where Dean joined British Gas as a graphic artist. Returning to Perth two years later, Dean joined The West Australian as Editorial Cartoonist and has been there ever since.

Aśka

Aśka, (pronounced ‘Ash-ka’), is creative dynamite. A shortlisted graphic novelist, an ex-quantum physicist, and a hugely engaging and popular presenter. Aśka is passionate about visual literacy, and has published more than ten books, comics and graphic novels, including the CBCA Notable: Stars in their Eyes, with Jessica Walton. Aśka is a recipient of several government arts grants, prizes, and the May Gibbs Fellowship.

Dr George Criddle

George Criddle is a British-Australian artist, writer and occasional curator, currently teaching at RMIT University and the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. They completed a PhD in 2021 at Monash University and have previously studied at Curtin University in Perth and École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Since 2005, George has been part of international exhibitions and residencies in Kassel, Zurich, Paris and Prague as well as exhibitions in Melbourne at The Living Museum of the West, MADA Faculty Gallery, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, and artist-run spaces such as Kings Artist Run, West Space, Blindside, Slopes Gallery and TCB Gallery.

Nadine Gassie

French translator of American literature (Debra Magpie Earling, Eden Robinson, Melanie Rae Thon, William Kittredge, Stephen King) and Australian literature (Tim Winton, David Malouf, Rohan Wilson, John Danalis, Randolph Stow).

Dr Chemutai Glasheen

Chemutai Glasheen is a teacher and a writer. She writes fiction for young people and her work is influenced by her interest and experience in human rights and education. Her collection of short stories I am the Mau and other Stories was published by Fremantle Press and due for release August 2023. Her creative work has been published in Unlimited Futures, Meniscus Volume 9 Issue 2, ACE: Arresting Contemporary Stories by Emerging Writers, and in the Museum of Freedom and Tolerance.

She has been a writer-in-residence at the Centre for Stories as well as an invited guest and presenter at the Australian Short Story Festival, In Conversation: Human Rights, Disrupted Festival of Ideas and the Great Big Book Club Tea Party.

Anthea Hodgson

Anthea Hodgson is from the Wheatbelt WA. Anthea’s first novels were The Drifter and The Cowgirl. The War Nurses is about the nurses of the Vyner Brooke, and the victims of the Bangka Island Massacre, and is inspired by her aunt Minnie and all the nurses who survived with courage, strength and love.

Suzanne Ingelbrecht

Suzanne is an author, professional playwright, director and performance-maker based in Perth, Western Australia. She has been entertaining others since the tender age of nine when she wrote a play to cheer up her classmates during their sewing lessons. Now she loves nothing more than to pass on her passion for tall tales to the next generation of storytellers and fabulous imaginers of wonder.

Dr Bruce Mutard

Dr. Bruce Mutard is a comics maker, publisher and researcher. His graphic novels include The Sacrifice, The Silence, A Mind of Love, The Bunker and Post Traumatic. His latest graphic novel Bully Me, was published as Souffre Douleur in France in 2019. He completed his PhD at Edith Cowan University with his thesis The Erotics of Comics, and likes to make scholarship as comics.

He has been director of the Comic Arts Awards of Australia and editor/publisher of the Australian Comic Annual. He has been a founding organizing committee member of the Perth Comic Arts Festival since 2018.

Gemma Nisbet

Gemma Nisbet is a WA-based writer whose work has appeared in Westerly, Australian Book Review and TEXT, among other publications. A former travel journalist, she is undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing at UWA, teaches Creative Writing and Literary Studies at universities, and writes a weekly books column for The West Australian. She lives on Whadjuk Noongar land with her husband and a dog named Pickle. The Things We Live With is her first book.

Dr Laurie Steed

Laurie Steed is an author and arts industry professional. His debut novel, You Belong Here, was shortlisted for the 2018 WA Premier’s Book Awards. His memoir, Love, Dad, will be published by Fremantle Press in August 2023, and his third book, Greater City Shadows, will be published by UWA Publishing in 2024.

Rachael Treasure

Tasmanian-born Rachael Treasure is a mother, author and founder of Ripple Farm Landscape Healing Hub – demonstrating holistic grazing and soil management. A graduate of Universities in Orange and Bathurst, Rachael uses story to empower women and change mindsets towards healthier food systems.

Former jillaroo and rural journalist, Rachael’s first novel, Jillaroo (2002) became an iconic contemporary work of fiction. Her 8th novel Milking Time (HarperCollins) is due out in 2024. Her daily work farming means she never has fancy nails.

Terri-ann White

Terri-ann White was Director of UWA Publishing (2006-2020). She has been an independent bookseller, writer, editor and festival organiser, and is passionately interested in writing and expression that makes a difference. In 2021 she established a new independent publishing house, Upswell Publishing, to build a list of distinctive literary works in fiction, poetry and narrative non-fiction.