Embracing Nature

Kyo Maclear is a Canadian writer, essayist and beloved children's author. She was born in London, England (to a British father and Japanese mother) and moved to Toronto at the age of four. Kyo's latest book Birds Art Life Death follows two artists on a yearlong adventure to find birds in a big city. It is an intimate and exuberant meditation on creativity and life—a field guide to things small and significant. Her books have been translated into twelve languages, and published in nineteen countries. Kyo now lives in Toronto, Canada, where she shares a home with two children, two cats, and a singer.

Suzy Wilson is the owner of Riverbend Books and Teahouse in Oxford St, Bulimba. Riverbend Books has won the Australian Independent Bookshop of the Year Award twice; and the Queensland Independent Bookshop of the Year 8 times.  Suzy has received the Dromkeen Award for her efforts in 'being a catalyst in changing children's lives through literature”. In 2016 Suzy was appointed a Judge of the Stella Prize. The Stella Prize is a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing, and championing diversity and cultural change.

Don Watson's bestselling titles include Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: Paul Keating Prime Minister, which won the Age Book of the Year and Non-Fiction Prizes, the Brisbane Courier Mail Book of the Year, the National Biography Award and the Australian Literary Studies Association's Book of the Year, Death Sentence, which won the Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year, Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, and American Journeys, which won The Age Book of the Year and Non-Fiction Book of the Year, the inaugural Indie Award for Non-Fiction and the Walkley Non-Fiction Award. In 2010 Don was awarded the Phillip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Australian Literature.

Charles Massy gained a Bachelor of Science (Zoology, Human Ecology) at ANU (1976) before going farming for 35 years and developing the prominent Merino sheep stud ‘Severn Park’. Concern at ongoing land degradation and humanity’s sustainability challenge led him to return to ANU in 2009 to undertake a PhD in Human Ecology. His current book Call of the Reed Warbler came from this work. Charles was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his service as Chair and Director of a number of research organisations and statutory wool boards. He has also served on national and international review panels in sheep and wool research and development and genomics. Charles has authored several books on the Australian sheep industry, the most recent being the widely acclaimed Breaking the Sheep’s Back (UQP, 2011) - short-listed for the Prime Minister's Australian History Award.