PRESENTERS
KEYNOTE: Freya Blackwood (over zoom)
Illustrator & Author
Freya Blackwood is a multi-award-winning illustrator and author. Her picture books are beloved for her warm and perceptive drawing that perfectly capture the complexity of growing up. Since publishing her first picture book in 2003, Freya has worked with writers such as Libby Gleeson, Margaret Wild, Jan Ormerod, Nick Bland and Danny Parker and has written and illustrated a number of her own stories including The Unwilling Twin and The Boy and the Elephant.
www.freyablackwood.com.au
IN CONVERSATION: Alyson O’Brien with Mandy Foot
Little Book Press
Alyson O’Brien is the Publishing Director at Little Book Press. She has worked in children’s publishing for 15 years, across both the editorial and commissioning departments. In 2020, Alyson led the imprint Bright Light, a fresh new list of picture books that explore big issues, such as sovereignty, equality and gender.
Alyson has published a wide range of beloved titles, such as Our Home, Our Heartbeat (Briggs, Kate Moon and Rachael Sarra), The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name (Sandhya Parappukkaran and Michelle Pereira), Jetty Jumping (Andrea Rowe and Hannah Sommerville) and Come Over to My House (Eliza Hull, Sally Rippin and Daniel Gray-Barnett). Alyson currently works on the lands of the Bunurong people of the Kulin nation.
littlebookpress.com.au
PANEL: Writing for Middle Grade and Young Adults
Beverley McWilliams
Beverley McWilliams loves sharing history with young children. In August 2019, she published her debut picture book Born to Fly, which tells the story of South Australian aviator Captain Harry Butler and received a notable commendation from the CBCA. Beverley is the author of two historical middle-grade novels, The Reindeer and the Submarine (2022) and Spies in the Sky (due for release in November). Beverley also has two picture books and a historical fiction novel contracted for 2024. When she is not writing, Beverley spends her time renovating a dilapidated pioneer village beside a wombat sanctuary.
www.beverleymcwilliams.com
Charlie Archbold
Charlie is a free-lance writer and teacher. She has worked in Australia, the UK, and Indonesia. Charlie was born in London and grew up in the UK before settling in Australia. Mallee Boys was her debut YA novel. It won the Adelaide Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award and was a 2018 Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour book. Her middle grade novel The Sugarcane Kids and the Red Bottomed Boat won the 2022 Readings Children’s Prize and was shortlisted for the Text Prize. It is a 2023 CBCA Notable book. The Sugarcane Kids and the Empty Cage is the next instalment. Her 2021 YA novel Indigo Owl is a speculative fiction adventure, and her first picture book, Raised by Moths will be released in 2023. Her blogs, short stories and poems are about resilience, curiosity, and the beauty of our world. Charlie is also the recipient of an Arts South Australia Grant and is writing her first adult novel.
charliearchbold.com
Mike Lucas
Mike was born in Plymouth, England, and moved to Adelaide, Australia, in 2010. His first picture book, Olivia’s Voice, was a CBCA Notable in 2018. Later that year, Vanishing, a book that discusses animal extinction, was published. Bad Herbert arrived in 2020. Let's Build a House, the first book in the Let’s Build series was published by Hachette Australia in April 2021. Let’s Build a Backyard followed in 2022 and a third title is due in 2024. His first YA novel, What We All Saw, was published in May 2022 by Penguin Australia and is a shortlisted CBCA title. The Christmas Train will be published by Little Hare in October 2023. Cheeky Monster and a second YA novel will follow in 2024.
Mike owns and helps to run a bookshop, Shakespeare's, in Blackwood, South Australia. Each year he writes a poem with the CBCA Book Week theme as a title. In 2017 and 2022 he was one of the main organisers of the Adelaide Festival of Children's Books. He also works full time as an engineer and is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He is married with two grown up children, three cats and Holly the Bookshop Dog. Mike has very little time to sleep, but often thinks up a poem or two while he does.
www.mikelucas.com.au
Sean Williams
Sean Williams is a #1 New York Times-bestselling, multi-award-winning author of over sixty books and one hundred and twenty shorter publications for readers of all ages. His published works include series, novels, stories and poems that have been translated into multiple languages for readers around the world. He has collaborated with other authors, including Garth Nix, was part of an expedition to Casey research station in Antarctica, and is Discipline Lead of Creative Writing at Flinders University, South Australia.
seanwilliams.com
CREATIVE JOURNEY: Andrew Joyner
Illustrator & Author
Andrew Joyner is the illustrator and author of numerous children’s books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Dr. Seuss’s The Horse Museum, The Pink Hat, Love Was Inside, as well as Too Many Elephants in this House and The Terrible Plop, both by Ursula Dubosarsky. His forthcoming picture books include Back to the Storks by Cressida Gaukroger (Little Hare, Australia) and The Story of a Roar by Beth Ferry (Simon and Schuster, US). His books are published in more than twenty-five countries. He lives with his family in Strathalbyn, South Australia.
andrewjoyner.com.au
