Woollahra Writers’ Festival
Participant Bios
Nicole Abadee
Nicole Abadee is the curator of the Woollahra Writers’ Festival 2025. She is the books writer for Good Weekend magazine and a regular contributor to its Two of Us articles. Following her first career as a barrister, Nicole moved into the world of books, and has for many years been a regular interviewer at writers’ festivals including Sydney Writers’ Festival, Adelaide Writers’ Week and Canberra Writers’ Festival.
Nicole has been a literary judge, appeared on ABC Radio to discuss books and is a board member of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.
John Bell
Award-winning actor and director John Bell, one of Australia’s most illustrious theatre personalities, has played a key role in shaping the nation’s theatrical identity as co-founder of the Nimrod Theatre Company and founder of the Bell Shakespeare Company.
Recognised in 1997 as one of Australia’s Living Treasures, his many awards include a Helpmann Award for Best Actor, a Producers and Directors Guild Award for Lifetime Achievement and the JC Williamson Award (2009) for extraordinary contribution to Australia’s live entertainment industry.
He has written a number of best-selling books, including his memoir, The Time of My Life, and his latest, Some Achieve Greatness: Lessons on Leadership and Character from Shakespeare and One of His Greatest Admirers.
Christabel Blackman
Christabel Blackman is daughter of artist Charles and writer Barbara Blackman. She trained to become a Fine Art Conservator in Florence, Italy and is a specialist in easel painting. She lived in Valencia, Spain for 25 years, where she worked with Gothic and Renaissance artworks, and did her Masters Degree in Science for Art Conservation. She speaks five languages. She is also a visual artist, photographer, illustrator and author. Christabel has three children and now lives in Sydney with her partner, musician Jim Moginie. Charles and Barbara Blackman, A Decade of Art and Love is her first published book.
Shankari Chandran
Shankari Chandran is an Australian Tamil lawyer and author of Song of the Sun God, The Barrier, Safe Haven, Unfinished Business and Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, for which she won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2023. She spent two decades working as a lawyer in the social justice field, on national and international program design. She continues her work in social impact for an Australian retailer and is researching her new novel. She is the deputy chair of Writing NSW, and lives in Sydney with her husband and her four children.
Kate Evans
Kate Evans is the co-host (with Cassie McCullagh) of ABC Radio National’s The Bookshelf. She also regularly interviews writers onstage for festivals and other events. She has a PhD in history and too many books, and regrets neither.
Anna Funder
Anna Funder is the internationally bestselling author of Stasiland, All That I Am, and Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life. Stasiland won the UK’s most prestigious award for non-fiction, the Samuel Johnson Prize. Anna’s novel All That I Am won the Miles Franklin, and was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Wifedom was a Sunday Times Bestseller in the UK, a New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and won France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger. Anna has lived in Paris, Berlin and New York, and now lives in Sydney.
Nikki Gemmell
Nikki Gemmell is known as one of Australia’s most provocative and honest writers. She’s the bestselling author of some 20 books, including Shiver, The Bride Stripped Bare and After. Wing is her latest novel. She writes a popular and often controversial column in The Weekend Australian Magazine. Her books have been translated into 22 languages.
Michaela Kalowski
Michaela Kalowski is an interviewer, moderator and curator for writers and ideas festivals. Highlight interviews include Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Charlotte Wood, Tim Winton and Stan Grant. She’s the curator of Big Weekend of Books, ABC RN’s annual on-air writers’ festival.
She produces and hosts a monthly books conversation event for Petersham Bowling Club. Michaela has conducted radio interviews and presented programs across ABC radio and TV. She’s the co-presenter and co-writer of a two-part podcast for ABC RN, tracing part of her family’s history, called Laya’s Way Home.
Suzanne Leal
Suzanne Leal is the author of novels The Watchful Wife, The Teacher’s Secret and The Deceptions, winner of the Nib People’s Choice Prize. Her novel for junior readers, Running with Ivan, is on the Children’s Book Council of Australia Notables List for Younger Readers and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards and the ARA Historical Novel Prize. An experienced interviewer, Suzanne is the founder of Thursday Book Club, a relaxed book club connecting readers online. Her new novel for junior readers, The Year We Escaped, will be released in June 2025.
Suzie Miller
Suzie Miller is an international novelist, playwright and screenwriter with degrees in law and science. Miller’s plays have been produced in over 100 productions around the world and won multiple prestigious awards.
Her stage play, Prima Facie, starring Jodie Comer in the West End and Broadway productions, was nominated for five Olivier Awards in 2023, winning for Best New Play and Best Actress; and nominated for four Tony Awards in 2023, winning for Best Actress. It has been translated into over 30 languages, produced all over the world and also published as a novel in six countries. Her new play Inter Alia, starring Rosamund Pike, premieres in 2025 at the National Theatre in London. Miller is currently under commission for a number of new plays, alongside major film and TV productions around the world. Her second novel is near completion.
Heather Mitchell
Heather Mitchell AM is one of Australia’s most acclaimed actors. With a career spanning four decades she has performed in hundreds of productions and her film and television credits are countless.
She is on the board of the Sydney Theatre. Her acting credits include: Suzie Miller’s one-woman show RBG of Many One, the soon-to-be-released The Narrow Road To The Deep North, Fake, Upright, Love Me, The Unusual Suspects, Operation Buffalo, Wakefield, Rake, A Place to Call Home, Palm Beach, The Great Gatsby and Rogue. Everything and Nothing is her first book.
Richard Morecroft
Richard Morecroft may be best known for 20 years of presenting the ABC TV news and more recently hosting the quiz show Letters and Numbers on SBS, but he also has a long-standing focus on the visual arts as an interviewer, writer and exhibitor – and he is an associate artist with Olsen Gallery. His most recent exhibition was in October 2024.
James O’Loghlin
James O’Loghlin is the author of 12 books, most recently the crime novel Liars. His previous novel was Criminals, and his other books include Innovation Is a State of Mind, five novels for children and Minding Your Mind (co-authored with Professor Ian Hickie).
James hosted The New Inventors on ABC TV and has also hosted several shows on ABC Local Radio. He currently co-hosts with Ian Hickie the mental health podcast Minding Your Mind, which has been listened to over 350,000 times. The sequel to Liars, The Writers Room, will be published in late 2025.
Tim Olsen
Tim Olsen is a prominent figure in Australia’s contemporary art scene. As the son of the late John Olsen, he naturally gravitated toward the art world, opening his own gallery in 1993. In 2017, Tim launched a gallery in New York’s Lower East Side, where he continues to champion contemporary Australian and international artists, especially First Nations women artists from APY lands. Tim has served as a foundation member of the Art Gallery of New South Wales for over 15 years. In 2020 Allen & Unwin published his memoir, the bestselling Son of the Brush, which won the Waverley Council Nib People’s Choice Prize in the category of People’s Choice.
Ailsa Piper
Ailsa Piper’s book, For Life, is a moving insight into loss, hope and starting again – aided by the healing power of nature and some unexpected angels. Previous books were her walking memoir, Sinning Across Spain; and The Attachment: Letters From A Most Unlikely Friendship, co-authored with Tony Doherty. Her script, Small Mercies, was co-winner of the Patrick White Playwright’s Award. Ailsa has written for publications including Griffith Review, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian. She’s also an accomplished audiobook narrator.
Diana Reid
Diana Reid is the Australian author of the bestselling novels Love & Virtue and Seeing Other People. Her debut, Love & Virtue, won the ABIA Book of the Year Award, the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year Award, the ABA Booksellers’ Choice Fiction Book of the Year Award, and the MUD Literary Prize. She was also named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist in 2022. Born in Sydney, she is currently based in London. Signs of Damage is her third novel.
Susan Wyndham
Susan Wyndham is a journalist, writer and former literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. Her books include Life in His Hands, about the neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, My Mother, My Father: On Losing a Parent, and most recently Hazzard and Harrower: The Letters, co-edited with Brigitta Olubas. As a teenager Susan lived in Spicer Street, Woollahra, and now lives in Paddington.