After completing her BA and PhD in literature at UWA, Fiona Burrows is now focusing on her first love, children’s picture books. She has had work published in journals including the Australian Poetry Journal, Writ Review and Westerly, exhibited in local galleries, and won awards and commendations including the Town of Mosman Park’s Open Art Prize, the CYA Writing and Illustrating Competition, and the ASA’s Ray Koppe Young Writers’ Residency.

Fiona’s picture book, The Day We Built the Bridge, with Samantha Tidy, was published by MidnightSun in February 2019.

Fiona’s picture book, The Friendly Games, with Kaye Baillie, was published by MidnightSun in June 2020.

Samantha Tidy is a writer of children’s, young adult and adult fiction. She has a Masters in Creative Writing and is the author of Cappuccino Diva, The Blue Polar Bear and The Flying Dream. Her most recent novel for adults, The Happiness Jar, won the ACT Writing and Publishing Award for Fiction, among several other award nominations.

Samantha’s picture book, The Day We Built the Bridge, was published by MidnightSun in February 2019.

S.J. Morgan grew up in the UK and arrived in Australia many years ago, via a twelve-month round-the-world air ticket. She lived in New Zealand for ten years before settling in South Australia. In her former life she was an Occupational Therapist, but she now writes full-time. She writes across several genres and has won prizes for short fiction as well as an Australian Society of Authors mentorship for her children’s writing.

She has been writing for over ten years and, in addition to short stories and articles, has written six novels. She won first prize for short fiction at the Salisbury Writers’ Festival and was awarded a year-long mentorship by the Australian Society of Authors. Continue reading S. J. Morgan →

Originally an actress, debut novelist D.M. Cameron is an AWGIE nominated radio dramatist, award-winning playwright and celebrated short film writer. She received funding to begin work on her first novel and was then selected for a Varuna residency to further develop this initial draft into what became Beneath the Mother Tree.

www.dmcameron.com

Narelda Joy grew up in a creative household with an inspired mum and a large sewing room, which contained a plethora of goodies with which she could use to create. She continues to create anything in two or three dimensions including puppets, models, creatures and illustrations. She considers herself fortunate to be able to create imaginary worlds anytime she wants to.

Narelda Joy lives surrounded by beautiful flora and fauna in the Blue Mountains, Australia. She has two dogs and a cat, as well as lots of native birds who visit her garden daily.

Narelda’s picture book Message in a Sock with Kaye Baillie was published in May 2018.

Timothy Ide is an Adelaide-based illustrator. He is best known locally for his work as a sketch artist for the TV News, capturing some of South Australia’s most notorious cases over the last thirty years.

Timothy has also illustrated a number of children’s books, one of which, Tom the Outback Mailman written by Kristin Weidenbach and published by Hachette in 2012 won the Eve Pownall CBCA award in 2013. His most recent children’s books are Continue reading Timothy Ide →

Jennifer Harrison lives in Adelaide with her son Nathaniel. Since leaving university she has worked as a graphic designer, commercial artist and art director. Her illustrations have been commissioned for book covers, magazines and packaging for overseas and local markets and she has exhibited in Adelaide galleries.

MidnightSun published her children’s book Olivia’s Voice in March 2017 and Vanishing in November 2018, both written by Mike Lucas.

Mike Lucas is the author of several collections of humorous poetry for children and has had work published in anthologies and literary magazines. Originally from the UK, he now lives in Adelaide, where he works as an engineer and runs an independent book store with his wife, Becky. He has a passion for encouraging children to use imagination and creativity to produce original stories and poetry.

MidnightSun published his children’s book Olivia’s Voice in March 2017 and Vanishing in November 2018, both beautifully illustrated by Jennifer Harrison.

Allayne Webster is Adelaide-based Children’s and Young Adult Fiction author who grew up in rural South Australia. Her middle-grade title Paper Planes was a 2016 Children’s Book Council Notable Book and shortlisted for the 2016 Adelaide Festival Awards for Children’s Literature. Allayne is the author of two Young Adult novels (plus a third with Penguin Random House – released in Feb 2018) and the author of two Junior Fiction novels with Omnibus Scholastic. Allayne is also the proud recipient of three South Australian Arts Grants. She travelled to Paris in 2010, and suitably inspired, she wrote A Cardboard Palace.

Lucy Durneen lectures in English and Creative Writing in Plymouth, England, and is Assistant Editor of the literary journal Short Fiction. Her short stories, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in World Literature Today, The Manchester Review, The Letters Page, The Lightship Anthology and Litro, amongst other places.

She has been shortlisted four times for the Bridport Prize, Highly Commended in the 2014 Manchester Fiction Prize, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the 2017 Saboteur Award.

Lucy’s short story collection Wild Gestures was published by MidnightSun in January 2017.

Paul Mitchell’s wry and moving considerations of society’s undercurrents chronicle an unsettlingly recognisable Australia. His three poetry collections have received national prizes and wide acclaim, and his short story collection Dodging the Bull was included in the 2008 The Age Summer Read program. He is also a playwright, screenwriter and essayist.

Mitchell’s varied oeuvre explores the beauty in the seemingly mundane, the troubled history of Australian masculinity, and finds spirituality in the murky depths of life. He has continued this exploration with his sensitive and rugged first novel, We. Are. Family.

Z.F. Kingbolt has had a varied career including lawyer, scientist, engineer, journalist, biologist and teacher, so it took a while to discover that writing books was the best thing ever. A slitherphobe, Kingbolt hates snakes and burnt toast, but loves gaming, technology, geology and skateboarding.

MidnightSun Publishing published his/her/their novel Into Torden in November 2016.

Cameron Raynes is a prize-winning author who has chosen in First Person Shooter to explore the deeply personal experience of adolescent stuttering. Having survived bruising encounters with three psychopaths by the age of 30, Raynes turned away from welfare work and anthropology to find his voice as a writer. He teaches history at the University of South Australia and is the author of The Last Protector and the short story collection The Colour of Kerosene.

After being a classroom teacher for 35 years, Jane Jolly now works part-time in the Resource Centre at Eastern Fleurieu School teaching creative writing and immersing classes in literature.

Jane has had three Notable picture books in the Children’s Book Council Australia Book of the Year awards, one CBCA Shortlisted and two CBCA Honour books. Jane strongly believes in the fight to rid the world of landmines and cluster munitions. On the road to getting One Step at a Time published she has met with the Safe Ground group in Adelaide and a representative from Medical Association for the Prevention of War.

Jane Jolly and Sally Heinrich‘s beautiful picture book One Step at a Time was published in February 2015, and was chosen as an Honour Book in the 2016 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Awards.

Jane and Sally’s second collaboration, Papa Sky, was published by MidnightSun in October 2017.

Jane and Sally’s third collaboration, Mama Ocean, was published by MidnightSun in August 2020.

Sally Heinrich is a writer, illustrator and printmaker, who has published more than forty books. Her work has been recognised through fellowships from the Asialink Foundation, the May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust, Varuna – the Writers’ Centre, Arts SA and the Ian Reed Foundation and her original artwork and linoprints have been exhibited widely in Australia and Asia including in the Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize. Her commissioned artwork ranges from wine labels to a mural for the Singapore Zoo, painting a life-size baby elephant sculpture for Melbourne Zoo and community arts projects. Sally believes that picture books are a powerful tool to communicate ideas and build bridges of understanding between people from different cultures and Continue reading Sally Heinrich →