judging panel
Rachel Bin Salleh
Rachel Bin Salleh is descended from the Nimunburr and Yawuru peoples of the Kimberley region of WA. Rachel is passionate about Indigenous people telling their stories and started her career in publishing at Magabala Books in the 1990s.
In 2014 Rachel became Magabala’s Publisher and in 2018 she wrote her first book Alfred’s War, a poignant account of the contribution made by Indigenous servicemen.
FREDA CHIU
Freda Chiu is an illustrator and author from Sydney, Australia. As well as illustrating children's books, her work spans comics, editorial, public art and retail graphics. Her selected clients include Allen and Unwin, Hardie Grant, Walker Books and Penguin Random House among others. Outside her art practice, Freda lectures in Illustration and Animation Design at the University of Technology Sydney. Her debut picture book, A Trip to the Hospital, was short-listed for the IBBY Australia Ena Noël Award and for the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA)’s New Illustrator Award.
ReBecca Lim
Rebecca Lim is a writer, illustrator, editor and lawyer, and the author of over twenty books, including Tiger Daughter (a Kirkus, Amazon and Booklist Best Book, CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award-winner), The Astrologer’s Daughter (A Kirkus Best Book and CBCA Notable Book) and the bestselling Mercy. Her work has been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Queensland Literary Awards, Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award and Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, shortlisted multiple times for the Aurealis Awards and Davitt Awards, and longlisted for the Gold Inky Award and the David Gemmell Legend Award. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Turkish, Portuguese, Polish, Vietnamese and Russian. She is a co-founder of the Voices from the Intersection initiative and co-editor of Meet Me at the Intersection, a groundbreaking anthology of YA #OwnVoice memoir, poetry and fiction.
Miriam Rosenbloom
Miriam Rosenbloom is the founder and publishing director of Scribble, Scribe’s first children’s imprint. Since its launch in 2016, Scribble has gone on to win many local and international awards, including the 2019 BOP-Bologna Prize Best Children's Publishers of the Year for Oceania. Scribble focuses on books that both kids and adults will delight in, and that reflect the many varied experiences of our shared lives and communities.
Miriam’s background is in book design, and design and illustration are at the heart of Scribble’s books. Scribble’s mission is to push boundaries and contribute to wider design conversations beyond the world of publishing, while remaining accessible to the mainstream market. Miriam has commissioned a list of widely loved books, including Daniel Gray-Barnett’s CBCA-winning Grandma Z, Felicita Sala’s award-winning and internationally bestselling Lunch at 10 Pomegranate Street, and Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys’ wildly successful All the Ways to be Smart, as well as other beloved books in this exceptional creative duo’s emotional intelligence-focused picture-book series.
Jane Stratton
Jane Stratton is the CEO and founder of the Think+DO Tank Foundation.
In 2017, Jane created the highly successful social enterprise LOST IN BOOKS, a multilingual kids’ bookshop, creative community hub and safer space for women and children in Fairfield, South Western Sydney.
Jane works to elevate the voices of low socio-economic and excluded community members to inform and to model systems change. She enables multi-disciplinary collaborative projects, enterprises and enquiries in response to the question: “What would make life here easier, better or more affordable?”.
Jane’s intelligent and empathetic approach has fostered her reputation as a courageous leader at the forefront of collaborative work with communities,inspiring those within them and beyond them to broaden the horizon of what is possible.
Omar Sakr
Omar Sakr is the author of three acclaimed poetry collections, including The Lost Arabs (UQP), which won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the John Bray Poetry Award, the Judith Wright Calanthe Award, and the Colin Roderick Award. His first novel, Son of Sin (Affirm Press), was published in 2022 and is being released in the UK in November 2024 through the87press.
His latest poetry collection, Non-Essential Work, has been shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize and the ALS Gold Medal. Omar is a widely published essayist and editor whose work has been translated into Arabic and Spanish.
Omar is the Literary Programs Lead at Think+DO Tank Foundation in Fairfield, and the curator of A Western Sydney Book Club in Parramatta. Born to Lebanese and Turkish Muslim migrants in Western Sydney, he lives there still, on unceded Dharug land.