8-12 Judge
Coral Vass is an award-winning children’s author, presenter, editor and reviewer. She has a background in Media, and this year marks her 25th published children’s book. Her books include Sorry Day 2018 (Speech Pathology Awards Book of the Year and 2019 CBCA Book of the Year – Eve Pownall Award), Grandma’s Treasured Shoes (2021 Caleb Book of the Year), Jørn’s Magnificent Imagination (2023 CBCA Notable and shortlisted for 2023 Speech Pathology Book of the Year) and The Forgotten Song: Saving the Regent Honeyeater (2024 CBCA Notable).
Coral’s books have appeared on ABCTV’s Playschool, the UK’s Milkshake TV, as well as on StoryBox Library. Coral is an ambassador for Reading Out of Poverty and is passionate about children’s literacy and giving all children equal opportunity to learn.
13-17 Judge
Samantha-Ellen Bound is a children’s author, editor and podcast host who lives on the Surf Coast. From humble beginnings writing Goosebumps rip-offs, she now has many years experience working with books in all areas of the industry. Sam-Ellen has been published in literary journals and shortlisted for short story awards, including most recently the Geelong Writers Prize. She has been shortlisted for the Vogel Prize and a recipient of a May Gibbs Creative Time Fellowship. Her current work is the epic folklore-inspired middle grade series, Seven Wherewithal Way.
18+ Judges
Else Fitzgerald’s writing has appeared in various publications including Australian Book Review, Meanjin, The Suburban Review, The Guardian and Award Winning Australian Writing. Her collection of short fiction, Everything Feels Like the End of the World, won the 2019 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers and was published by Allen & Unwin in 2022. Everything Feels Like the End of the World was shortlisted for the 2022 Aurealis Awards and the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards.
Monica Dux is a writer and commentator. She is the author of two memoirs: Lapsed: losing your religion is harder than it looks (HarperCollins ABC Books, 2021) and Things I Didn’t Expect (when I was expecting) (MUP, 2013). She is the co-author of The Great Feminist Denial (MUP, 2008) and editor of the anthology Mothermorphosis (MUP, 2015). Monica was a founding board member of the Stella Prize and the Feminist Writers Festival. From 2013 until 2022 she was a columnist for The Saturday Age. She is currently working on a third memoir and doing a PhD in Creative Practice at RMIT.
Barry Reynolds is a freelance journalist and writer whose work has been published in the Australian Book Review, The Australian, the Melbourne Herald Sun (where he was books editor and a senior sub-editor), as well as in London newspapers. He has written numerous stories on authors including Garry Disher, Gerald Murnane, Helen Garner, Jock Serong, Rodney Hall, Susan Orlean and Lynda La Plante, among many others. In London he wrote about travel, food, wine and walking, while in his early career he won awards for his stories on basketball.
