Authors: A

Belinda Alexandra
Belinda Alexandra's first novel, White Gardenia, was published to wide acclaim in Australia and New Zealand, France, Germany, Holland and Poland. Belinda is the daughter of a Russian mother and an Australian father, and has lived in New York, California and Melbourne. She has a Masters degree in Creative Writing and a BA in Asian Studies. She currently lives in Sydney and enjoys ballroom dancing and studying French. She is also a volunteer rescuer with the NSW Wildlife Information and Rescue Service (WIRES). You can write to Belinda care of HarperCollins Publishers Australia, 25 Ryde Road, Pymble NSW 2073.

Barbara Angell
Barbara Angell has worked as an actress and a dancer-comedian with the Tivoli Circuit, which took her to the UK in 1959-60 where she began writing comedy sketches, music and lyrics. She then spent twenty-plus years writing and performing for theatre and television shows. In the early 1970s, Barbara turned to writing books and has had much success. Most of her prolific writing career, however, has been for television and the stage. Her recent book, A Woman’s War: The exceptional life of Wilma Oram Young, AM, was published by New Holland Publishers in August this year.

Franca Arena
Genoa-born Franca migrated to Australia in 1959. She was the first woman from a non-English-speaking background elected to the NSW Parliament, and server as a member of the Australian Parliament for 17 years. Franca has been a crusader all her life championing such causes as rights for women, social justice, ethnic minorities and the protection of children. Her autobiography, Franca: My Story, tells of her amazing and inspirational life.

Diane Armstrong
Diane Armstrong is a Polish-born journalist whose family memoir Mosaic, a Chronicle of Five Generations, was nominated for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, and for the National Biography award. A best-seller in Australia, it was also acclaimed in the United States where Amazon.com named it one of the top memoirs of 2001. The Voyage of Their Life, the story of a post-war migrant hellship and its passengers, also a bestseller, was nominated for the NSW Premier's Community Relations Award. Her first novel, Winter Journey, was published by HarperCollins to acclaim in 2005 and was republished under their Perennial imprint in 2006. Her second novel, Nocturne, was published in May 2008. Diane is currently working on her new novel Empire Day which will be published by HarperCollins in 2011.

To contact Diane, please visit dianearmstrong.com or email diane@dianearmstrong.com

Bunty Avieson
Bunty Avieson worked for 20 years as a journalist on newspapers and magazines in Australia and Britain. She was editor of Woman’s Day and Editorial Director of New Idea, winning three Magazine Publishers Association Awards. She is a Williamson fellow (1999). In 2000 Bunty took up fiction writing full time. Her first novel Apartment 255 won two Ned Kelly Crime Writing Awards and has been translated into German and Japanese. She has written two other novels, The Affair and The Wrong Door, and her first non-fiction book, A Baby In A Backpack To Bhutan, was published in April 2004. Bunty lives with her partner and daughter, dividing her time between Sydney and India. You can visit Bunty at buntyavieson.com.