Christopher Paolini was educated at home by his parents. His abiding love of fantasy and science fiction inspired him to write his debut novel, Eragon, when he graduated from high school at 15.

Eleanor Catton was born in 1985 in Canada and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand. She won the 2007 Sunday Star-Times short-story competition, the 2008 Glenn Schaeffer Fellowship to the Iowa Writers' ...

Journalist, columnist and author Thomas Friedman has been one of the world’s most influential media figures for over a decade. In his twice-weekly New York Times column he’s written widely on issues ...

Dame Stella Rimington joined the Security Service (MI5) in 1968 and was appointed Director General in 1992, the first woman to hold the post. Her latest novel is Rip Tide. During her career, Stella ...

The Wheeler Centre’s Hot Desk Fellowships are back for 2025 – this year made possible by the generous support of the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne, the Readings Foundation and the Just ...

Rafael Epstein is a journalist who has worked in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Timor, Indonesia, Europe and the Middle East. He has covered national elections in the UK and Australia, East Timor’s vote ...

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Nyadol Nyuon is a commercial litigator with Arnold Bloch Leibler and a community advocate. She was born in a refugee camp in Itang, Ethiopia, and raised in Kakuma Refugee camp, Kenya. At eighteen, ...

Bertrand Tungandame has worked as a journalist in print media in Belgium and Rwanda covering events in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa. He migrated to Australia in 1997 and joined SBS in 1998 ...

Kate Auty is a Vice Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Melbourne. She was the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability in Victoria from 2009 to 2014. During that appointment her office ...

Nadia Niaz is a writer and academic who is now mostly from Melbourne, and still a little bit from lots of other places. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and Cultural Studies, and teaches poetry and ...