The Art of Reading

Phil Brown is Arts Editor of The Courier-Mail and has a popular column in the lifestyle magazine Brisbane News. He has written for a range of national and international newspapers and magazines and has published his poetry widely in the mainstream press and literary journals. He is the author of two books of verse - Plastic Parables (Metro Community Press) and An Accident in the Evening (Interactive Press). His book of humorous travel stories, Travels with My Angst (UQP, 2004) was short-listed for the Arts Queensland Steele Rudd Award at the 2005 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. Any Guru Will Do (UQP 2006) was the second in his memoir series. From 1963 to 1970 he lived in Hong Kong where his father ran a construction company. He lives in Brisbane’s north with his wife Sandra, son Hamish and a Maltese Shi Tzu called Sarge.

Megan Daley is passionate about children’s literature and sharing it with young and old alike. In daylight hours, Megan is a teacher librarian at a girls’ school in Brisbane and was recently awarded the Queensland Teacher Librarian of the Year by the School Library Association of Queensland, as well as the national Dromkeen Librarian’s Award, presented by the State Library of Victoria. A former national vice-president of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, she is currently on the Queensland chapter of the board of the Australian Children’s Laureate and is a judge for the Queensland Literary Awards. She blogs about all things literary, library and tech at childrensbooksdaily.com and is the author of Raising Readers. She also thinks sleep is overrated.