Alice Zaslavsky is an award-winning author, broadcaster and taste-maker. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Alice grew up with a cuisine that reaches for the veg first. It’s no surprise, then, that this is at the heart of her food philosophy – Alice helps others across the world do the same through her books, radio and television work, and columns in global publications. Alice is the long-time Culinary Correspondent for ABC News Breakfast and ABC Radio nationally, and host of A Bite to Eat with Alice on ABC TV. In 2025, she was inducted into the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival Legends Hall of Fame as a Trailblazer for her work as an educator and communicator. Her vegetable bible In Praise of Veg has been translated into seven languages in 15 countries, winning such accolades as a Gastronomisch gold medal in Germany, an ABIA in Australia, and James Beard finalist in North America. 

Antoun Issa is a Lebanese-Australian journalist and co-founder of Deepcut News. After completing his Master of International Relations at the Australian National University, he moved to Lebanon in 2011 where he worked as news editor for Al-Monitor during the heights of the Arab Spring. Issa relocated to Washington DC in 2015 where he spent two years at the Middle East Institute, a US thinktank, before joining The Atlantic as an editorial strategist. He returned to Australia in 2020 and worked for the Guardian Australia until his departure in 2024.

Jessica Mansour-Nahra was a communications consultant and writer in Brisbane, London and Sydney, before tree-changing to Tasmania, where she lives with her husband and their beloved dog. Jessica holds degrees in history and law from The University of Queensland. Her first novel, The Farm, was an Australian bestseller.

Marieke Hardy is a screenwriter and playwright, having written for series such as Laid, The Family Law, and Seven Types of Ambiguity. Her adaptation of Dario Fo’s No Pay? No Way! premiered at the Sydney Opera House in 2020. She was co-curator of international literary salon Women of Letters and a panelist on the ABC’s Book Club. She co-curates the monthly spoken word event Better Off Said. Her new play, Losing Face, opens at Melbourne Theatre Company in June 2026 and she is a 2015 recipient of the Sidney Myer Fellowship.

Michael Williams is the editor of The Monthly. He was previously the artistic director of Sydney Writers’ Festival. He has spent the past decade at the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in Melbourne as its founding Head of Programming in 2009 and then as its Director from September 2011. A regular host and interviewer for literary and ideas events around Australia – including a long-standing association with Sydney Writers’ Festival – his background is in publishing and broadcasting. He has hosted two shows on ABC Radio National – Blueprint for Living (2015–2016) and Talkfest (2017–2018) – was a regular on ABC TV’s The Book Club and remains a regular guest on ABC radio and TV. Michael has also worked as a breakfast presenter for Melbourne’s 3RRR, as a member of the Australia Council’s Literature Board, in publishing in Australia and New York and has written extensively for The Guardian, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and elsewhere. He is currently also host of Guardian Australia’s monthly book club.

Rebecca Lim is an Australian writer, editor and lawyer, and the author of over twenty books, including Tiger Daughter (a Kirkus, Amazon and Booklist Best Book, CBCA Book of the Year, and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award-winner), Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky (NSW History Award-winner) and the bestselling Mercy. Her work has been twice shortlisted for the NSW Literary Awards and Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award, shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards and ARA Historical Novel Prize, shortlisted multiple times for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, Aurealis Awards and Davitt Awards, longlisted for the David Gemmell Legend Award and the Tasmanian Literary Awards, and has been optioned for film.