2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Judges

2019 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Judges

head shot of Suzanne Leal

Suzanne Leal

Senior Judge

Suzanne Leal is the author of novels The Teacher’s Secret and Border Street.  A lawyer experienced in child protection, criminal law and refugee law, Suzanne is a former legal commentator on ABC radio and a regular interviewer at Sydney Writers' Festival and other literary events. www.suzanneleal.com  You can also read more about Suzanne on our blog.

photograph of james tierney

James Tierney

Christina Stead Panel

James Tierney is a Sydney-based writer currently working on a book on the act of attention. He has written for The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Kill Your Darlings, Meanjin and Island among others.

Photo of Felicity Castagna

Felicity Castagna

Christina Stead Panel

Felicity Castagna won the 2014 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction for her previous novel, The Incredible Here and Now, which was shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia and NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and adapted for the stage by the National Theatre of Parramatta. Her collection of short stories, Small Indiscretions, was named an Australian Book Review Book of the Year. Castagna’s work has appeared on radio and television, and she runs the storytelling series Studio Stories coordinating the mentorship program The Finishing School. Her latest book No More Boats was a finalist in The Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Stephen Romei

Christina Stead Panel

Stephen Romei is a writer and critic. He is literary editor of The Australian, and one of the paper's film critics.

Photograph of Joel Becker

Joel Becker

Douglas Stewart Panel

Joel Becker has been CEO of the Australian Booksellers Association since 2010.  Prior that that he was Executive Director of the Victorian Writers’ Centre for eight years. Joel has been an active contributor to the literary sector for 45 years – as a bookseller, writer and editor, cultural project manager and industry advocate.  Joel has judged numerous literary awards, including chairing the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for Fiction and Poetry; been involved in the successful bid to make Melbourne a UNESCO City of Literature; advocated for the creation of what became the Wheeler Centre, a literary hub for books and writing; and developed National Bookshop Day (now Love Your Bookshop Day).

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Caroline Baum

Douglas Stewart Panel

Journalist Caroline Baum is the author of ONLY: A Singular Memoir (Allen & Unwin 2017) and has contributed non-fiction to  the My Mother, My Father: On Losing a Parent and Rebellious Daughters anthologies.  She is the winner of the 2015 Hazel Rowley Fellowship and currently the inaugural Reader in Residence at the State Library of NSW.

Caroline has been a judge for the Stella Prize, the Kibble Awards and the Ned Kelly Awards. She writes about books and contemporary life for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian.

Tim Low

Tim Low

Douglas Stewart Panel

Tim Low is a Brisbane biologist, environmental consultant and best-selling author of seven books. His latest, Where Song Began, won the ABIA for Best General Non-fiction in 2015. It also won People’s Choice at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and was shortlisted for other awards. An earlier book, Feral Future, inspired the formation of a conservation group, the Invasive Species Council. The New Nature won the inaugural Nib prize for excellence in research. Tim has served on the Australian environment minister’s advisory committee and has written for a wide range of publications including Australian Geographic, The Weekend Australian, Wildlife Australia and Vogue. 

Deirdre Macken

Douglas Stewart Panel

Deirdre Macken started her journalism career at The Australian, was Sydney Bureau Chief for The Age, then columnist and feature writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Good Weekend and then writer and columnist at The Australian Financial Review. She is currently a regular columnist and freelance writer for The Australian, among others. She won the EU Journalist Award in 2002. Two works of non-fiction have been published – Smoke (1996) and Oh No, We Forgot to Have Children (2005). 

Meg Stewart

Douglas Stewart Panel

Meg Stewart is the daughter of artist Margaret Coen and poet Douglas Stewart. She has worked in film, radio and print media; and has written both fiction and non-fiction. In non-fiction she is best known for Autobiography of My Mother, the life story of her mother which was first published in 1985 and Far from a Still Life the biography of artist Margaret Olley, published in 2005 and then updated after Olley’s death in 2011. In 1993, as the first Nancy Keesing Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, she edited The Woman I Am, a collection of Keesing’s poetry.

Jamie Grant

Kenneth Slessor Panel

Jamie Grant has worked as a publisher, bookseller, proof-reader, and journalist. He has published eight books of poetry, and has edited five literary anthologies, including The Longest Game, a collection of cricket writing, and 100 Australian Poems You Need to Know, which is issued as a new edition in 2016. He has been a judge of the Waverley Library Literary Awards for seventeen years, and has also been a judge of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. His latest book Lasting Lines was published in 2018.

 

Photograph of Anthony Lawrence

Anthony Lawrence

Kenneth Slessor Panel

Anthony Lawrence’s most recent collection is 101 Poems’ (Pitt Street Poetry, 2018). Headwaters’ (Pitt Street Poetry, 2016) won the 2017 Prime Ministers Award for Poetry. His individual poems and books have won a number of other awards, including the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize and the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal. He is a Senior lecturer at Griffith University, where he teaches Creative Writing and he lives on Moreton Bay.

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Judy Johnson

Kenneth Slessor Panel

Judy Johnson has published six full-length poetry collections.  Her individual poems have won the Josephine Ulrick, Val Vallis and Bruce Dawe prize, amongst others. Her collections have taken out the Victorian Premier’s Award for poetry, the Wesley Michel Wright prize (twice) and have been shortlisted in the WA and NSW Premier’s awards. Her verse novel Jack, published by Picador, was on the syllabus at both Melbourne and Sydney University.  She is one of four editors of a 25 year retrospective Contemporary Australian Poetry published by Puncher and Wattmann in 2016.

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Libby Hathorn

Patricia Wrightson Panel 

Libby Hathorn is an author, poet and librettist. Her work has been translated and adapted for stage and screen. Recent awards include the 2017 Asher Literary Award for A Soldier, A Dog and a Boy, and The Alice Award in 2014.

Of her picture storybooks, Grandma’s Shoes was performed by Opera Australia and Theatre of Image; Libby won an AWGIE for the libretto; Sky Sash So Blue was performed in Alabama; and Outside is in development with the outstanding music of Elena Katz Chernin.

Libby acts as literary judge, is a guest at festivals most recently The Sydney Writers Festival in 2018. She’s completed three videos on Poets of Australia. Her upcoming picture book is about Miles Franklin. 
 

Robin Morrow AM

Patricia Wrightson Panel

Robin Morrow is National President of IBBY Australia (International Board on Books for the Young). She founded the first specialist children’s bookshop in Sydney and managed it for 25 years. She was children’s book reviewer for The Weekend Australian for 10 years. She has worked as a children’s publisher, and taught children’s literature at universities including Macquarie and UTS. In 2012 she devised and has since been teaching (online) for Simmons College, Boston, a postgraduate course in Australian children’s and YA books. Robin has served on a number of literary award judging panels.

Photo of Gregg Dreise

Gregg Dreise

Patricia Wrightson Panel

Gregg Dreise is an award winning author and illustrator of childrens’ books. He has and continues to work with Penguin Random House, Magabala Books, ABC Books, Harper Collins, Pearson Publishing and the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.
He writes about the things he loves, and hopes that people will love joining in for the ride. To Gregg, books are about the journey, the bond and memories created by families, but most importantly the joy that stories bring to children. 
He is very proud to be helping to bring stories, books, laughter, confidence and fun to communities around Australia and other parts of the world.

Paul Macdonald

Ethel Turner Panel

Paul Macdonald is the owner of The Children's Bookshop, established in 1971, the oldest specialist children's bookshop in NSW. Paul has a Master of Education, working almost 20 years as a teacher of Upper Primary and Secondary. He has won numerous awards in teaching such as a Quality Teacher Award, The Premier's English Scholarship and awards for his co-ordination of Regional Shakespearean Festivals. Paul won the inaugural Maurice Saxby Award in 2012 for his contributions to raising the profile of teen fiction and was the winner of the 2016 Lady Cutler award for services to children's literature and literacy in Australia.