Hallowed Ground Panel Confirmed

Hallowed Ground is almost upon us and we can now share with you our panelists on the Future of the Storybook.

Don't forget to register HERE to join us next Monday night, 6pm at Customs House Library!!!

Panel:

Chris Cheng is the award winning author of more than 40 children’s books in print and digital formats including the picture books One child, andSounds Spooky, the historical fiction titles New Gold Mountain and the Melting Pot and the non fiction titles 30 Amazing Australian Animals and Australia’s Greatest Inventions and Innovations. In addition to his books, Christopher writes articles for online ezines and blogs and he wrote the libretto for a children’s musical. He is co-chair of the International Advisory Board for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), an International Advisory Board Member for the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) and a recipient of the Lady Cutler Award for Children’s Literature. He is also the director of the digital publishing company Sparklight. He presents in schools, conferences and festivals around the world and he established the international peer voted SCBWI Crystal Kite Awards.

Heather Curdie is a Senior Editor for Penguin Books and is part of a small Sydney contingent of the Penguin Young Readers, a division of Penguin Australia. She works on a wide range of children's books that includes picture books, middle fiction and young adult. While at Penguin, she has been fortunate to be editor to Oliver Phommavanh, Tohby Riddle, Aaron Blabey, Jane Godwin, Anna Walker, Andrew Joyner, Judy Horacek, Nicole Pluss, Michael Wagner, Ursula Dubosarsky, Robert Newton, and Morris Gleitzman. Heather love her family, music, swimming, chocolate (hence the swimming), and is a sucker for a good waterfall or spectacular sunset.

Alex McDonald is the Studio Manager of We are Wheelbarrow, a digital interactive studio that develops children's books into creative, innovative and entertaining apps. We are Wheelbarrow was founded in 2011 by Tim Kendly, Nick Bland, Adrian Shapiro, and Matt Tanner. Wheelbarrow works to translate pages to screens, providing a digital platform coupled with art direction and design, as well as cutting edge design. Wheelbarrow's latest project, to be released on the 8th October is a digital app of Shaun Tans' brand new book 'Rules of Summer'. Alex is also a Production Assistant and project Manager at the company. She is also Studio Manager of Wheelbarrow's sister companies XYZ Studios and Crayon.

Judith Ridge is internationally recognised as one of Australia’s leading experts on writing for children and young adults. Judith has worked as an editor, teacher, writer and critic. Her experience as an editor encompasses more than six years at the NSW School Magazine, in-house at ABC Children’s Books and as a freelancer for Random House, Penguin, Walker Books Australia and O’Brien Publishers Ireland. She has taught children’s literature at Macquarie University and established the Writing for Children and Young Adults course in the MA of Creative Writing program at the University of Sydney. For the past 8 years she has taught a short course in writing children’s books at the Australian Writers’ Centre. Judith is an Honorary Associate in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. Judith has written about children’s and youth literature for journals such as Viewpoint and Magpies, Australian Book Review,Publishers Weekly (US), AustralianBookseller and Publisher, The Horn Book(US) and The Melbourne Age. She has spoken at numerous conferences, festivals and seminars in around the world. 

Currently, she acts as a consultant to the Sydney Writers’ Festival on their children’s and youth program, including coordinating the Festival’s School Days programs for the 2013 and 2014 Festivals. Judith has been a judge four times on the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, is a Churchill Fellow and has an MA in children’s literature. Since 2007, she has been Project Officer on WestWords: the Western Sydney Young People’s Literature Project.