Dr Amy Matthews

“Fiction in all its glory! I write commercial fiction under the name Tess LeSue with Penguin Random House USA. Publisher’s Weekly calls my work ‘witty and memorable’; RT Book Reviews praised it for being ‘a delightful rollercoaster ride’; Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews gave my latest book five stars and All About Romance summed it up as ‘funny, romantic and appealingly entertaining, [while] unflinchingly portraying the ugly underbelly of the old west’.”

An award-winning novelist, Dr Amy Matthews is the Chair of Writers SA and a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Flinders University. Amy’s academic and teaching skills have also been recognised in multiple honours and awards.

As Tess LeSue, Amy’s romance fiction novels have seen her stamp her mark on an industry worth over $1 billion and accounting for over 50% of all paperbacks sold.

Amy is a highly skilled, engaging lecturer in touch with both the scholarly and commercial aspects of Creative Writing.

Dr Sean Williams

Dr Sean Williams is one of Australia’s most-awarded speculative fiction writers. With over forty novels and one hundred and twenty short stories for adults, young adults and children, the #1 New York Times-bestselling author certainly ‘walks the walk’ as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Flinders.

“My work has been nominated thirty times for the Aurealis Award, in the categories of Science Fiction Novel and Short Story, YA Novel, Children’s Novel, Fantasy Novel, Horror Short Story, and Collection. Also, for the Ditmar Award my work has been nominated seventeen times in the categories of Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Collection, and Professional Achievement. In 1999, I received the “SA Great” Award for Literature.”

Sean’s literary achievements are incredible, ranging from speculative fiction to realism, resulting in him being named the “King of Chameleons” by Australian Book Review for the diversity of his published output.

Dr Lisa Bennett

"As author Lisa L. Hannett, most of Dr Lisa Bennett's works are categorised as 'Dark Fantasy' or 'Horror', which is hilarious considering all versions of Lisa are afraid of the dark."

Lisa Bennett teaches undergraduate and Honours classes in Creative Writing and English, and she is a specialist in Old-Norse Icelandic literature, the Viking Age, genre fiction, and creative practice. She is the author of Writing Bestsellers: Love, Money and Creative Practice (with Kim Wilkins; Cambridge University Press, 2021). Lisa regularly writes reviews for the ABR and is a frequent guest on ABC Radio's 'Book of the Week' segment. 

Under her pen name, Lisa L. Hannett, she is an internationally recognised, multiple award-winning writer of five short story collections, a novel, and over 80 speculative fiction short stories (fantasy, science fiction, horror, and historical fiction). Lisa's recent book, Viking Women: Life and Lore (Thames & Hudson, 2023) combines her research expertise and her skills as a storyteller, presenting speculative biographies of Viking women from all ages and social strata (slaves, housewives, mothers, far-travellers, young girls, old widows, and anchoresses) alongside engaging historical context.

Dr Alex Vickery-Howe

Creating a stage show that appeals to both a Japanese and an Australian audience is a challenge few would take on, but Flinders University Lecturer in Drama Critical Studies, Dr Alex Vickery-Howe not only took on the challenge, he created a sell-out success.

Alex’s Once Upon a Midnight, a bilingual, bicultural horror rock musical, opened in Okinawa, Japan, before selling out again at the Adelaide OzAsia Festival. For Alex, the biggest issue was developing a script that worked with two completely different senses of humour. 

"Sarcasm is lost. I offended a lot of people just being myself... it's that Australian thing of saying 'I hate you' but really meaning 'I like you' which is taken literally."

A passionate, witty lecturer, Alex has written for the stage in partnership with several theatre companies, has written and directed a number of short films and recently completed an internship with StudioCanal in Sydney working in screen assessment/development.