Graeme Base, celebrated Australian author and illustrator

After failing heroically as a professional musician in the mid 1980’s (an exceptionally fertile period for wannabe rockstars) a 20-something-year-old Graeme Base took a good hard look at himself and decided to make use of his art school education, courtesy of Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia, and have a go at making picture books. He has been focused on creating imaginative artwork for the children’s publishing industry ever since (although a passion for music has still been evident in various stageplay adaptions he has created, most notable for The Sign of the Seahorse, My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch, Jungle Drums and The Worst Band in the Universe.)

Some better-known of his book titles are Animalia, The Eleventh Hour, The Sign of the Seahorse, The Waterhole and Uno’s Garden. His most recent titles are Moonfish, The Tree, BumbleBunnies: Superheroes of the Garden and The Curse of the Vampire Robot, a mash-up of vampire mythology and geeky computer-speak set in the Scottish Highlands.

Graeme lives and occasionally works in Melbourne, Australia, but spends a lot of time an hour north in regional Victoria on a block of land with a pretty view, lifting rocks, making decks and worrying about the weeds.

Tania McCartney, Canberra based author, editor and illustrator

Tania McCartney is a book creator. She has made around 60 for children and adults and has illustrated, edited and designed many of them, too. Her works have reached the hands of children in 20 countries around the globe and have been shortlisted for an array of awards including the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, the World Illustration Awards and Museums Australasia Publication Design Awards.

An ambassador for the ACT Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge, Tania is a fierce advocate for juvenile literacy. She is also the founder of Kids’ Book Review (the #1 kids’ book site on the web) and The Happy Book podcast.

In 2013, Tania reconnected with her love of illustration and has gone on to produce several illustrated maps, jigsaw puzzles, greeting cards and a library of books, specialising in junior fiction, non-fiction and picture books. Recent titles include Fauna (National Library Publishing), I Heart the World (Hardie Grant Explore), junior fiction series Evie and Pog (HarperCollins) and the first in a multi-territory picture book series Plume: World Explorer (Hardie Grant Explore).

Tania has lived in Paris, London and Beijing, and currently lives in Canberra where she spends her time reading, writing, drawing (and sometimes working) in her sunny book-filled studio.

Belle Alderman, Director of the National Centre for Australian Children’s Literature

Dr Belle Alderman AM has spent a lifetime in children’s books as an early reader, a secondary English teacher, teacher librarian in a primary school, and a university academic teaching and researching children’s literature. She has reviewed children’s books for newspapers, magazines and the radio, written countless articles and a couple of books about them, served as a judge for the CBCA Awards and the Prime Minister’s Awards for children’s and young adult books. Since retirement, she became the Director of the National Centre for Australian Children’s Literature Inc, a not-for-profit, deductible gift recipient collection of over 48,000 Australian children’s books, including 4,700 of these in 66 languages, original artworks, manuscripts and much more. Here she is ever involved in all things children’s literature through events, exhibitions and wide-ranging activities relating to this ever-mesmerising field.

Sarah Steed, Director of Content and Engagement, Libraries ACT (Moderator)

Sarah Steed is Director of Content and Engagement for Libraries ACT. She has worked in a variety of roles in public libraries for 26 years, having begun her career as a children’s librarian. Sarah was the recipient of the Dromkeen Librarian’s Award in 2016 and the Marjorie Cotton Award in 2000. She writes for Kids’ Book Review and her extensive personal collection of books shows a love of history (especially family history), architecture, art, travel, mystery novels, and children’s books.