Live Stream at wheelercentre.com: Risky Fictions (from Bendigo Writers Festival)

Emily Sexton is a former Head of Programming for the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas.

She was the recipient of a prestigious Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship in 2014. Previously, she was Artistic Director of Next Wave (2010–14), where her key achievements were a radical rethink of an arts festival model, and a series of landmark commissions, publications and talks featuring First Nations artists, co-curated with Tony Albert and Tahjee Moar and titled Blak Wave.

In 2013, she was Artistic Director of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust’s 20th Anniversary Celebrations at the Melbourne Recital Centre. She was also Creative Producer for Melbourne Fringe Festival for 2008–10.

Emily has been a proud Board Member for Arena Theatre Company, Snuff Puppets and Theatre Network Victoria, and is alumnus of the Australia Council’s Emerging Leaders Program (2011). She is a regular peer assessor for the Australia Council for the Arts, Creative Victoria, and other philanthropic trusts and foundations. Emily holds a Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications, English) from the University of Sydney (2005). She is a regular host and facilitator for writers’ festivals and arts organisations around Australia.

Anna George is a Melbourne-based writer. Initially trained as a lawyer, Anna has worked in the legal world as well as the film and television industries. What Came Before is Anna’s first novel; she is currently working on her second, set on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. Both books are to be published by Penguin Australia.

Anna has studied professional writing and editing and professional screenwriting at Melbourne’s RMIT. She has also written feature film scripts. Two of her scripts received development funding from Film Victoria and Screen Australia.

John Purcell (aka Natasha Walker) is the author of The Secret Lives of Emma trilogy published by Random House Australia.

The Secret Lives of Emma: Beginnings reached the top ten on the Australian fiction charts and Natasha/John was the tenth highest selling Australian novelist and third highest selling Australian debut author in 2012. The trilogy has since sold over 50,000 copies in print and ebook and has been translated into French and Polish.

John has worked in the book industry for the last twenty years. While still in his twenties he opened John’s Bookshop, a second-hand bookshop in Mosman in which he sat for ten years reading, ranting and writing. Now he is the Head of Marketing and Chief Buyer at booktopia.com.au.

Kirsten Krauth is a writer and podcaster based in Castlemaine. Her second novel Almost a Mirror, published in 2020, was shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize and named by The Guardian in ’The Best 20 Australian Books of 2020’. Her Almost a Mirror podcast series, inspired by the '80s pop and post-punk songs in her book, was released in September 2021, hitting #2 on the Australian Apple Music Podcast charts. A mash up of documentary and fiction, she is collaborating with musicians like Amanda Brown and Adalita on a soundtrack to the podcast.

Kate Belle is an author of challenging love stories. The Yearning and Being Jade (Simon & Schuster) received rave reviews.

Her short story, 'Cool Change', won the 2011 Southern Cross Literary Award and the script by the same name received a highly commended in the 2012 Fellowship of Australian Writers Awards. 

Kate is a strong advocate for women reclaiming their power through the stories they tell and blogs on gender issues, relationships, sexuality and books at The Ecstasy Files and elsewhere.