On Beauty

Christos Tsiolkas

Christos is the author of nine novels: Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head-On, The Jesus Man, Dead Europe, which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award, Barracuda, his fifth novel, Merciless Gods (2014) and Damascus (2019). He won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award, long listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for The Slap, which was also announced as the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year. Christos is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer who lives in Melbourne.

Holden Sheppard

Holden is an award-winning West Australian author. His debut novel Invisible Boys (Fremantle Press, 2019) won multiple accolades, including the 2019 West Australian Premier's Prize for an Emerging Writer and the 2018 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. The book was recently acquired by a France-based publisher and is now being translated into French for forthcoming publication in Europe. In 2023, Invisible Boys was greenlit for production as a ten-episode TV series by Stan Australia. Holden's second novel The Brink (Text Publishing, 2022) won the Young Adult Book of the Year Award at the 2023 Indie Book Awards. The Brink was also shortlisted for the 2023 NSW Premier's Literary Awards and the 2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs). When he's not writing, Holden can be found working out at the gym, watching or playing footy (AFL), or working as a labourer. Originally from Geraldton in the Midwest, he now lives in Perth's far north with his husband.

A.J. Betts

A.J. is a West Australian author of young adult fiction. Her books include One Song (Pan Macmillan, 2023) the duology Hive and Rogue (Pan Macmillan, 2018/2019), Zac & Mia (Text Publishing, 2013), Wavelength (Fremantle Press, 2010), and Shutterspeed (Fremantle Press, 2008). She is also a speaker, teacher, columnist and cyclist.

Madison Godfrey

Madison is a writer, educator, and emotional feminist. They have performed poetry at The Sydney Opera House, St Paul's Cathedral and Glastonbury Festival. Madison is a previous recipient of the Kat Muscat Fellowship, the Varuna Poetry Flagship Fellowship and was recently awarded a WA Youth Award for their 'Creative Contributions' to the state. Currently Madison is completing their PhD and living on Whadjuk Noongar land with a rescue cat named Sylvia. Madison's brilliant poetry collection, Dress Rehearsals, documents a decade of performing womanhood in a non-binary body.