Kevin Hart was born in 1954 in Ockendon, Essex (Great Britain) and grew up in London. In 1966 his family moved to Brisbane, Australia. Hart studied English and Philosophy at the Australian National University, took a writing scholarship at Stanford University and spent several months travelling in Europe. He returned
Julia Leigh was born in 1970. She studied philosophy and law at the University of Sydney. 1999 saw the publication of her debut »The Hunter«, which was received enthusiastically by the critics. The British newspaper »The Observer« placed Leigh immediately on its list of the »21 authors to keep an
John Mateer was born in Roodepoort, a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1971. After emigrating to Australia in 1989, he lived in the cities of Perth and Melbourne. In 1994 he published his first volume of poetry, »Burning Swans«, followed by other collection of poems like »Barefoot Speech« (2000).
John Tranter was born in Cooma, Australia, in 1943 and grew up on his parents’ farm on the south coast of New South Wales. In the 1960s he started writing poetry and his work was published in different magazines before his first poetry volume ‘Parallax’ appeared in 1970. From the
Jakob Ziguras was born in Wrocław to Polish and Greek parents in 1977 and moved to Australia in 1984. After originally studying art, he switched to philosophy and received his degree from the University of Sydney. His poetry was initially published in Australian and international periodicals. His first volume of
John Maxwell Coetzee was born in Cape Town in 1940. He studied Mathematics and English at the University of Cape Town, and worked as an IT Developer in London, before writing his doctor’s thesis in Linguistics about Samuel Beckett at the University of Texas. He returned to South Africa in
Herb Wharton was born in 1935 in Cunnamulla (in the south-west of the Australian state of Queensland) in the Yumba Aborigine camp. He is an indigenous Murri. His grandmother was a Kooma woman from that area, while the family of his grandfather originally came from England and Ireland. Wharton already
Gail Jones was born and grew up in Western Australia. She studied at the University of Western Australia, where she later also worked as a lecturer in English, communication studies and cultural studies. Following that she was appointed to the University of Western Sydney, where she has since been teaching
Australian author Favel Parrett was born 1974 and grew up on the island of Tasmania. She started off by writing short stories for magazines. In the year 2008, she won a place on the Hachette Australia/Queensland Writers Centre Manuscript Development Program and was one of the participants in the Australian
is a published award winning Australian poet and a multi-slam champion (»Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup« etc.). She has performed her poetry at all big Australian festivals and all around the world: 2009 in New York, Chicago, Toronto, Montréal, Ottawa and Vancouver. Emilie is coordinator of »Liner Notes«, a legendary
Dianne Touchell was born in 1966 in Fremantle, Western Australia, where she also grew up. As a child, she developed a great passion for music and books. At age twelve, she won a scholarship to a music school, where she learned to sing and play the cello. While studying art
DBC Pierre was born as Peter Warren Finlay in a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, in 1961. The first seven years he lived mostly in England. Then his family moved to Mexico City, where he spent the rest of his childhood and youth. His father, a scientist, fell ill when
