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Speaker Type: Journalist
Benjamin Law
Author, Corporate, Journalist, Social Commentator, Speaking Out, Well Within
Benjamin Law is a Sydney-based journalist, columnist and screenwriter. He is the author of two books: the black comedy memoir The Family Law (2010) and the travelogue Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East (2012). The Family Law has been translated into French and is currently being developed for television. Gaysia was published in India in 2013, with the US and other territories to follow in 2014. Both of his books were nominated for Australian Book Industry Awards, and he is currently working on his third.
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Andrew Rule
Author, Corporate, Journalist, Social Commentator, Speaking Out
Since starting on a country newspaper in 1975, Andrew Rule has worked on three metropolitan newspapers and in both radio and television production. He has written, co-written, edited and published many books, including the Underbelly true crime series and the Chopper series, which inspired the successful feature film. He hosts a regular fortnightly spot on Triple M’s Hot Breakfast called In The Rule World.
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Sonia Orchard
Author, Journalist
Sonia Orchard is an award-winning author, survivor advocate, writing teacher, speaker and festival founder and director. She has authored four books: a memoir Something More Wonderful; two adult novels The Virtuoso and Into the Fire, and her most recent memoir Groomed, which follows her journey through the justice system as a complainant in a historical sexual abuse case, coming to terms with the impact of her teenage experience of sexual abuse while parenting teenage girls. She also writes opinion pieces on issues including the environment, parenting and social justice. In 2019, she founded and was the festival director of the Mountain Festival, Australia’s first writers’ festival to focus exclusively on the environment. She has degrees in music, literature, environmental science/marine biology and a PhD in creative writing, and lives on Wurundjeri country, one hour from Naarm/Melbourne, with her family and many pets.
Since the publication of Groomed – part-memoir, part in-depth research into the cultural, social, and even biological factors behind child grooming – Sonia has dedicated herself to justice reform, survivor advocacy and raising awareness around the prevalence and impacts of child grooming. In this capacity, she has appeared on ABC TV breakfast and had a feature in The Age/SMH ‘Good Weekend’.
Topics:
Grooming – awareness, understanding and prevention
Sexual Assault Trauma
Child Protection
Justice Reform
The Victim / Survivor experience
Domestic/family Violence
Writing – creative writing, memoir, novel, opinion pieces
Consent and power
Teenage mental health
Feminism
Parenting
Importance of Community
Motherhood
Sonia Orchard is a freelance writer and author with a background in classical music, marine biology, teaching (music and environmental education), cooking and scuba-diving instruction.
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Ben Pobjie
Author, Journalist, Social Commentator
Ben Pobjie is the author of the Reality Recap of Australian History Error Australis and Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. He is the resident satirist for Medium and TV writer for the Saturday Age, he co-hosts the comedy podcast Gather Around Me, and is a regular voice on ABC radio,Triple R and 3CR as well as writing occasionally for TV.
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Tim Pegler
Author, Journalist, Social Commentator
Acclaimed YA author Tim Pegler is an award-winning journalist, extensively published in newspapers, magazines and online. Tim’s experience covering social issues, such as homelessness, disability and juvenile justice, provides the foundation for much of his writing for young adults.
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Angela Pippos
Author, Corporate, Inspirational Speaker, Journalist, Social Commentator, Speaking Out
Angela Pippos is a journalist, TV and radio presenter, columnist and author of The Goddess Advantage – One Year in the Life of a Football Worshipper. It’s as much about love, loyalty, stuffed tomatoes and Greek mythology as it is about Australian rules football.
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Sally Warhaft
Author, Corporate, Journalist, Speaking Out
Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer and the host of the Wheeler Centre’s live journalism series, The Fifth Estate, now in its third year. She is a former editor of The Monthly magazine and the author of the bestselling book Well May We Say: The Speeches that Made Australia. Sally is a regular host and commentator on ABC radio and has a PhD in anthropology. She did her fieldwork in Mumbai, India, living by the seashore with the local fishing community.
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Maxine McKew
Author, Corporate, Education Consultant, Journalist, Speaking Out
Maxine Mckewʼs background is in journalism and politics. For many years she was a familiar face to ABC TV viewers and was anchor of prestigious programmes such as Lateline and 7.30 Report. Her work has been recognised by her peers and she is a recipient of both Logie and Walkely awards. When she left broadcasting and made the switch to politics, she wrote herself into the Australian history books by defeating Prime Minister John Howard in the Sydney seat of Bennelong. In government she was both parliamentary secretary for early childhood, and later for infrastructure and local government.
Following the success of her political memoir, Tales from the Political Trenches, published in 2012, Maxine McKewʼs new book Class Act looks at some of the most important questions in Australian education. Maxine has been a Vice Chancellorʼs Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Located in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education she has drawn on the expertise and substantial research of the school to inform her stories of success and challenge in Australian education.
Maxine now lives in Melbourne where she continues to work on a range of activities at the University of Melbourne. She is a director of three boards, Per Capita, the John Cain Foundation and the State Library of Victoria.
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Gabrielle Tozer
Author, Journalist
Gabrielle Tozer is an internationally published author with a background in journalism, editing and copywriting. Her YA novel, The Intern, won the State Library of Victoria’s 2015 Gold Inky Award, and its sequel Faking It is out now. Gabrielle has shared her passion for storytelling and creativity at numerous events, including the Sydney Writers’ Festival’s Children’s Festival of Moving Stories, Somerset Celebration of Literature, National Young Writers’ Festival and the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s National Conference.
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Jake Wilson
Curriculum Specialist, Education Consultant, Journalist
Jake Wilson is a freelance writer whose film reviews appear weekly in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and other Fairfax Media publications. His book Mad Dog Morgan, a critical study of the film of the same name, was published in 2015 as part of the Australian Screen Classics series.
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Jenna Guillaume
Author, Inspirational Speaker, Journalist, Social Commentator
Jenna Guillaume is a lively and engaging author and journalist with a passion for empowering young people – and having a lot of fun along the way. She loves to talk about things like body image, social media and online toxicity, the intersection of feminism and pop culture, digital media, mental health and self-love.
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Michael Hyde
Author, Curriculum Specialist, Journalist, Social Commentator
Michael’s novels for young adults, Hey Joe, MAX and Tyger Tyger have experienced critical success and continue to be widely read and taught in many schools. Hey Joe – about the Vietnam War, the movement against it and the sixties in Australia – was named as a Notable Book in the 2004 CBC Awards. Many of his short stories for younger readers are published in the Trend/Awesome Series including the popular titles: The Footy Coach from Hell, Seal Saves the Island and How I Got a Girlfriend. Michael also edited two senior anthologies for the Australian Association of English Teachers (AATE), Hunger (CBC Notable Book 2004) and The Girl who Married a Fly (CBC Notable Book 2002). Both anthologies feature popular YA Australian writers (including Michael) and like his novels, enjoy significant sales. Michael’s Change the Game series – choose-your-own-adventure sports books became overnight favourites with young readers, 20,000 + copies being sold in one year.
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