This two-hour creative writing masterclass features award-winning critically-acclaimed international and Australian authors sharing the ways in which they write the South as home. The masterclass will focus on the practice of writing, and each author will speak and share practical exercises, before an open discussion and participant Q&A. Appropriate for writers of all career stages, and those interested in the craft behind the polished and produced publications we see on bookshelves. Spaces are limited, book now to avoid disappointment.

Authors: Gail Jones, Fabián Martínez Siccardi, Intan Paramaditha, Jennifer Mills, and Kim Scott.

Moderator: Matt Hooton

Gail Jones is the author of two short-story collections and ten novels, which includeSixty Lights, Dreams of Speaking, Sorry, The Death of Noah Glass, Salonika Burning and most recently, One Another (2024). Shortlisted four times for the Miles Franklin Award, her prizes include the the Age Book of the Year Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Fiction, the WA Premier’s Prize, the ASAL Gold Medal and the Nita B Kibble Award. She has also been shortlisted for international awards, including the Dublin IMPAC and the Prix Femina Étranger. Her fiction has been translated into many languages. Originally from Western Australia, she now lives in Sydney.

Fabián Martínez Siccardi was born in Patagonia, Argentina. His novel,Bestias afuera, set in that region, received Argentina’s Clarín Award for Best Novel in 2013. He has published several books in Spanish (Patagonia iluminada, Perdidas en la noche, Los hombres más altos, and Margot en el lago Cardiel). His two autobiographical essays in English, Patagonian Fox (Zyzzyva, 2018) and Feeling Southern (Granta, 2019), explore his relationship with the Indigenous laborers on his grandparents' estancia, where he spent his childhood summers. In 2023, he produced the podcast Originarios: Muerte y Resurrección to address the genocide of Indigenous people in Argentina in the 19th century and its ongoing consequences. His work has been translated into Portuguese, Italian, Czech, and French.

Intan Paramaditha is an Indonesian fiction author and a media scholar focusing on decolonial feminist knowledge production, travel, and transnationalism. Her fiction work includes The Wandering, a novel longlisted for the Stella Prize and awarded the PEN Translates Award from the English PEN, and the feminist horror story collection Apple and Knife. She is also the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas (2023) with Zhang Zhen, Debashree Mukherjee, and Sangjoon Lee. Intan received a Ph.D from New York University and is now a Senior Lecturer in Media and Film Studies at Macquarie University. She is the co-founder of Sekolah Pemikiran Perempuan, a trans-archipelagic decolonial feminist collective in Indonesia.

Jennifer Mills is an author, editor and critic based on Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide). Her latest novel, The Airways (2021), was longlisted for the Miles Franklin award and shortlisted for an Aurealis Award for Horror. Dyschronia (2018) was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, Aurealis (for Science Fiction), and Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. Mills is a widely published essayist, an advocate for the rights of writers and artists, and a current Director of the Australian Society of Authors.'

Kim Scott is an award-winning novelist. A proud Noongar man, Kim is also founder and chair of Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories (www.wirlomin.com.au). He is currently Curtin University Distinguished Professor in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry at Curtin University.