Children's Book Festival 2015

Oliver is a young Thai-Australian writer for children. He has featured on panels at the Sydney Writers' Festival among many other appearances at festivals and writing events, as well as in blogs. He has worked as a primary school teacher and now spends his time writing – and sharing his passion for storytelling with kids and engaging them with humour.

He's also a stand-up comedian and has appeared on national TV and radio, as well as at a number of well-known comedy venues including the Comedy Store in Sydney. His first book, Thai-riffic!, was published to critical acclaim, followed by Con-nerd, Punchlines, Thai-no-mite and Ethan in the Stuff Happens series in 2015, The Other Christy and, most recently, Super Con-nerd.

Tristan Bancks is a children’s and teen author with a background in acting and filmmaking. His books include Two Wolves – a crime mystery novel for middle-graders, Mac Slater Coolhunter, and the My Life series of weird-funny-gross short stories.

His short films as writer and director have won a number of awards and have screened widely in festivals and on TV. His most recent book is My Life & Other Massive Mistakes (March 2015), illustrated by Gus Gordon. Tristan is excited by the future of storytelling and inspiring others to create.

Andy Griffiths started having adventures the moment he was born, and has been having them (and writing about them) ever since. You can find out more at www.andygriffiths.com.au

Best known for There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake, Hazel Edwards writes across media, for adults and children. She is currently writing her autobiography.

In 2013, she was awarded an OAM for Literature. As a national literary ambassador, Hazel supports various reading organisations. She mentors 'Hazelnuts' and is a director on the Australian Society of Authors' board. She is the recipient of the 2009 ASA Medal awarded by her writing peers.

Hazel has been nominated three times for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. This is the world's largest prize for children's and young adult literature.

Based on her Writing a Non Boring Family History, Hazel runs workshops for genealogists. Her junior history books include Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, Professor Fred Hollows and Edith Cowan; A Quiet Woman of Note  in the Aussie Heroes series.

Apart from going on an Antarctic expedition in 2001, she has co-written adventure memoirs including Trail Magic; Going Walkabout for 2184 Miles on the Appalachian Trail with her son Trevelyan Quest Edwards, originator of the hippo concept. Difficult Personalities with Dr Helen Mc Grath has been translated into Polish, Korean and Russian. 

f2m: the boy within, a YA novel co-written with Ryan Kennedy, tackles coming of age for a youth who transitions gender. 

Pocket Bonfire Production's Hippo film premiered at St Kilda Film festival and screened internationally at Edinburgh Film Festival.

Hazel is married with two adult children and two grandsons, for whom she writes stories each birthday. 

Gabrielle Wang is an author and illustrator born in Melbourne of Chinese heritage and the Australian Children’s Laureate for 2022 and 2023. Her maternal great grandfather came to Victoria during the Gold Rush and ...

Shaun Tan grew up in Perth and works as an artist, writer and film-maker in Melbourne, best known for illustrated books that deal with social, political and historical subjects through dream-like imagery. The Rabbits, The Red Tree, Tales from Outer Suburbia and the graphic novel The Arrival have been widely translated throughout the world and enjoyed by readers of all ages.

Shaun has also worked as a theatre designer, a concept artist for Pixar and won an Academy Award for the short animated film The Lost Thing. In 2011 he received the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden, in recognition of his services to literature for young people. His recent titles include Cicada, Rules of Summer and The Singing Bones. Tales from the Inner City will be published in September 2018.

Bernard Caleo is a comic book teacher, maker, and communicator. He was the editor and publisher of the romance comics anthology Tango, made the feature film Graphic Novels Melbourne with filmmaker Daniel Hayward and is part of the graphic novel publishing enterprise Twelve Panels Press. In 2021 he started a PhD at the University of Melbourne's Creative Writing program, the outcome of which will be a comic book set in Melbourne in 1888, and a written thesis examining how Australian comic books create Australian places.

Josh Earl is a comedian with a very weird family. His latest show for children is called My Family is Weider Than Your Family. And believe us, he's not lying.

Marc Martin is an illustrator, artist and book maker based in Melbourne, Australia. His illustrations have been commissioned by clients such as Monocle, Wired, the Financial Review, Capital, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and various festivals. 

He is also the author and illustrator of four books, A Forest (Penguin Books, 2012), Silent Observer (Erm Books, 2011), The Curious Explorer's Illustrated Guide to Exotic Animals A-Z (Penguin Books, 2013) and Max (Penguin Books, 2014). 

Marc's books are published internationally, and A Forest won the 2013 Crichton Award for Children's Book Illustration.

Nicki Greenberg is a writer and illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. Her first books, The Digits series, were published when she was fifteen years old. They sold more than 380,000 copies in Australia and New Zealand.

In 2008 Nicki’s innovative graphic adaptation of The Great Gatsby was selected as a White Raven at the Bologna Book Fair. She then went on to tackle Hamlet in a lavish 425-page “staging on the page”. Hamlet was joint winner of the 2011 Children’s Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year award.

Nicki’s recent picture books for young children include The Naughtiest Reindeer, Monkey Red, Monkey Blue and BOM! Went the Bear. She has also written and illustrated non-fiction for children.

Nicki is currently working on several picture books for children, including a sequel to The Naughtiest Reindeer.

Ron Murray is a Wamba Wamba man (Swan Hill area) living at Yapeen, near Castlemaine, in central Victoria on Jaara country. He is a cultural educator, storyteller, musician, didgeridoo maker and wood sculptor.

He has made beautiful art pieces for Muhammad Ali, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Sir Bob Geldof, American composer Philip Glass, and Harlem Dance Company, to name a few.

Ron has an international reputation as a didgeridoo soloist, having performed widely in Australia, and also in New York, Jordon, Canada and New Zealand. He also performs as part of the Celtic-Indigenous fusion duo, Kinja, with fiddler/vocalist Sarah James.

He has recently received his MA (Education) from RMIT University. His thesis looked at how Indigenous knowledges can combat racist attitudes in the wider community. He has been employed by Victoria Police, Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and is currently Indigenous trainer for Diversity@Work.

‘Uptown’ Brown is a man who has worn many hats in his colourful life – inventor, musician, aviator and adventurer, to name but a few.

Without a doubt, his crowning glory is the patented “Goodtimes Gyratorscope”, a musical machine which permits an athletic fellow to play multiple instruments at once. . Using leftover parts from a disused biplane (which he himself had crashed), Brown's One Man Band is now (mostly) safe and ready to hit the streets of Paris, Marrakesh or Wagga Wagga.

Favouring a repertoire drawn largely from the 1920-50s, Uptown Brown makes regular appearances at christenings, funerals, ‘exotic’ dances, weddings (both regular and ‘shotgun’), medical procedures and any other occasion that may require the services of a singing gentleman-adventurer.

Allison Colpoys is an award-winning designer and illustrator, and the Associate Art Director at Scribe Publications. Her picture books include The Underwater Fancy-dress Parade, Under the Love Umbrella, If All the World Were... and All the Ways To Be Smart.

As well as receiving numerous Australian Book Design Awards for her illustration and cover design, she has won the CBCA Crichton Award for Best New Talent and an Australian Book Industry Award. As a freelancer, Allison is represented by the Jacky Winter Group.

Alex Papps is a Greek Australian actor and television host. He has been a presenter on Play School since 2005.

Andrew Joyner is an internationally published illustrator and author. His books include The Terrible Plop, written by Ursula Dubosarsky (shortlisted for the CBCA awards and the Prime Minister's Literary Awards), and the Boris series. He lives in Strathalbyn, South Australia.

Boris Gets a Lizard was shortlisted for the Speech Pathology Awards and Ready, Set, Boris was a Notable book in the CBCA Awards. Recent Boris books include Boris on Show and Slow Down Boris.

His picture books include Too Many Elephants in this House (with Ursula Dubosarsky) and coming soon How Big is Too Small (with Jane Godwin) and Bob, the Builder's Dog (with Jen Storer). 

Davina Bell is a writer from Western Australia. She is the author of the award-winning picture book The Underwater Fancy-Dress Parade, which won the 2016 Australian Book Industry Award for Best Children’s Book from a Small Publisher, and Under the Love Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the same award in 2018 (both illustrated by Allison Colpoys). She is also author of the ‘Alice' books in the best-selling Our Australian Girl series.

For six years she was a Senior Editor at Penguin Books in the Young Readers Division, where she worked with some of our country’s most beloved children’s book creators. Davina lives and works in Melbourne, where she still dreams about the Western Australian beaches while drinking a lot of very good Melbourne coffee.

Ben Target is a comedian.

After completing a degree in International Development, Becky has come to the world of circus arts over 11 years ago, with a sincere curiosity for circus arts and a deep desire to make people laugh.  She now has a wide variety of performing experience, from corporate events, under the big top, festivals, cabarets to social circus missions; solo, duo and with groups.

Her main discipline is hula hoops, although she also practices acrobatic adagio, contact juggling and clown. Over the last 8 years she has written, created, performed and produced three different successful street shows.

Her passion is to combine circus skills with the exploration of comic characters and scenarios. Creating and performing these shows around the world has been an incredibly rich experience, in which she has learned to dialogue and communicate with diverse audiences with and without language. 

She has performed in many countries, including Canada, China, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, Japan, Sweden, to name a few. 

Mitch Vane has had a long career working as an illustrator and artist. She works in a variety of media, but is at her happiest drawing with a good old-fashioned dip pen and Indian ink. 

Mitch particularly loves inventing quirky, humorous characters that have a bit of attitude. She has illustrated a number of children's books, both in Australia and the U.S, and often collaborates with her partner Danny Katz. Together, they have created many funny books including the YABBA award-winning Little Lunch series — soon to appear as a 26-episode series on ABC3.

Peter Combe is a children's singer/songwriter. Having sold over one million CDs and DVDs througout his career – including seven Gold and two Platinum albums, and one Gold DVD – he was inducted into the South Australian Music Hall of Fame in November 2014.

He has been awarded 3 ARIAs for Best Children's Album, and was a presenter of Ticklepot on the ABC and BBC TV's Music Time.

He is currently experiencing a career resurgence, with young adults who grew up on Peter's music now bringing their kids to his concerts.

The Hoodangers are a six-piece band from Melbourne who draw on a rich jazz tradition, embracing it, and morphing it into something completely their own. Their influences are as diverse as their musical moods, from turn of the century New Orleans jazz to post 2000 genre-mix-match pop.

Since the late nineties, the Hoodangers have toured Europe three times, with dates that took in cities across Russia, Scandinavia and Switzerland, as well as Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. They've played large festivals in countries as diverse as the US, Canada, India, New Zealand and Fiji. They’ve been crowd favourites and unofficial monarchs for years at festivals all over Australia. Over their twelve year career, the band has recorded five independently released records - Dang On (1996), Astronaughties (1998), Cheep (2001), Live in Fitzroy (2005) and their latest double album recorded in Denmark, Stor Fisk, Lille Fisk.