Phillip Adams is Australia’s most ancient newspaper columnist— fifty years and counting—and the ABC’s most biased broadcaster. Although he has published twenty collections of jokes—and despite being described by Gough Whitlam as “Australia’s greatest humour-ist”—he despises all forms of levity. He gets particularly angry when people describe his film The Adventures of Barry McKenzie as a comedy. Both that film and this column were “deadly serious”.
David Astle has written two novels, a true-crime book plus a trivia-travel guide to Australia—and his publishers wish he’d settle for a single genre. “Oxtales”, a short story, won the James Joyce Suspended Sentence in 2001, while his short plays have been performed in Sydney and Melbourne. He reviews books for Radio National, teaches journalism at RMIT and is also an incurable maker of cryptic crosswords.
Graeme Blundell is an actor, director, producer and writer who has been associated with many pivotal moments in Australian theatre, film and television. Now the national TV critic for The Australian, his autobiography, The Naked Truth, has just been published. He lives on the NSW coast with writer Susan Kurosawa.
The Chaser team has created the ABC TV series The Election Chaser, CNNNN, The Chaser Decides and The Chaser’s War on Everything. Since founding the widely acclaimed but mostly unread newspaper The Chaser in 1999, the team has produced comedy in all major media, including TV, radio, books and Christmas cracker jokes. The Chaser is now a satirical media empire which rivals Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in all fields except power, influence, popularity and profitability.
Barry Cohen was a federal MP from 1969 until 1990, including Minister for Home Affairs and Environment from 1983 to 1984, Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment from 1984 to 1987 and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Bicentennial. He is the author of several books and a regular contributor to some of Australia’s leading magazines and newspapers including The Australian.
Kaz Cooke is a columnist and author. Her website is www.kaz.cooke.com
Ian Cuthbertson began his liquorice allsorts freelance writing career in the 1980s. He was engaged by The Australian as a contributor in late 1996, and his adoption was made formal following a full-time job offer in 2002. He builds his own computers, runs a project music studio and is currently The Australian’s television and DVD editor.
Mark Dapin is a writer for Good Weekend Magazine in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. His latest book is Strange Country, the story of his travels around Australia. In another life, he was editor-in-chief of Ralph Magazine.
Catherine Deveny is a serial pest and professional pain in the arse. She writes columns for the big paper with the big words despite being dyslexic and half-cocked.
Frank Devine has been editor of the New York Post, the Chicago Sun Times and The Australian. He now lives in Sydney and writes regularly for The Australian.
Alexander Downer was Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister for twelve years. He was instrumental in delivering independence in East Timor and played a pivotal role in Australia’s response to the Middle East conflicts. He has been an active participant and diplomatic force on global issues of human rights, climate change and natural disasters. He is now a United Nations Special Envoy for Cyprus.
Larissa Dubecki is a news reporter for The Age. She was the editor of The Age’s weekly entertainment lift-out EG until August 2006, and currently writes on topics relating to entertainment and popular culture, including reviewing television for the Green Guide and restaurants for the Good Food Guide and Cheap Eats Guide.
Suzanne Edgar, as a member of Seven Writers, wrote Canberra Tales, and her short stories were published as Counting Backwards. Her poetry collection, The Painted Lady, was short-listed for the ACT’s Best Book of the Year and for the 2007 ACT Writing and Publishing awards.
Charles Firth is a leading think-piece writer, boasting more than 55 000 opinions about the world, all of them less than one sentence long. He delivered the keynote at the 2008 World Cynicism Symposium in San Diego, where he expressed thirty-seven controversial opinions in under twenty seconds, setting a new world record.
Germaine Greer was born in Melbourne and educated in Australia and at Cambridge University. Her first book, The Female Eunuch, remains one of the most influential texts of the feminist movement. Germaine has had a distinguished academic career in Britain and the US, and makes regular appearances in print and other media as a broadcaster, journalist, columnist and reviewer. Since 1988 she has been director (and financier) of Stump Cross Books, a publishing house specialising in lesser known works by early women writers.
Gideon Haigh is vice-president and chairman of selectors at South Yarra Cricket Club.
Marieke Hardy is a writer, radio broadcaster, hedonist and raconteur. After an ill-advised early career as a child actress she carried on polluting Australian television airwaves via her work as a screenwriter and producer. She is very sorry about any damage caused to your carpets.
Matthew Hardy is a Melbourne-based comedian who was the first Aussie to cement himself full-time on the UK live circuit, spending eight years there in the 1990s. He is the author of the bestselling book Saturday Afternoon Fever, and his television credits include The Big Schmooze and The Fat. Matthew was also a part of the BAFTA-winning writing team for The Sketch Show on ITV in the UK, and subsequently wrote for Kelsey Grammer’s sketch series on Fox in the US.
Wendy Harmer hosted The Big Gig on ABC TV and Sydney’s highest rating FM radio breakfast show for eleven years. She has written seven books for adults and ten for children, and she wrote, produced and presented the documentary series Stuff for ABC TV. Wendy is currently writing and producing an animated television series based on her Pearlie books, and her third novel for adults.
Barry Humphries is a multi-talented actor, artist and author. As an actor, he has invented many satiric Australian characters, but his most famous creations are Dame Edna Everage, Barry (Bazza) McKenzie and Sir Les Paterson. Edna, Bazza and Les between them have made several sound recordings, written books and appeared in films and on television and have been the subject of exhibitions. Since the 1960s Humphries’ career has alternated between England, Australia and the US. He was given an Order of Australia in 1982.
Clive James is the author of more than thirty books. As well as his four volumes of autobiography, he has published novels and collections of literary and television criticism, essays, travel writing and verse. As a television performer he has appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Literature.
Danny Katz is a columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He is the “Modern Guru” in the Good Weekend Magazine. He is the author of several books including Spid the Dummy, Dork Geek Jew and the Little Lunch series for kids. Danny is originally from Canada, but came to Australia at a young age because he was allergic to maple syrup.
Malcolm Knox is the author of ten books, most recently On Obsession. His works of fiction and non-fiction have won several awards and have been published around the world. A journalist since 1994 for The Sydney Morning Herald, he has won two Walkley awards.
Peter Lalor is a senior sports writer with The Australian and has written a number of books including Blood Stain, winner of the 2004 Ned Kelly Award for True Crime Writing. He lives with his wife, two children and a brown dog in Sydney, but learned about darkness in 1980s Melbourne.
John Lethlean is fortunate enough to write about the subjects he loves—food and restaurants—for a living, mostly for titles associated with The Age. When he’s not being a proper critic, he has a bit of fun with a food-related column in the Saturday Age, where the pieces in this collection were first published.
Mungo MacCallum has been writing and broadcasting irreverently about politics for more than forty years. His work has appeared in most major Australian and some overseas publications. He is the author of seven books, the most recent being Poll Dancing: The Story of the 2007 Election.
Shane Maloney is the editor of Speleology Today, the world’s biggest selling glow-in-the-dark monthly magazine. He is better known as the author of the Murray Whelan series of comic thrillers.
Shaun Micallef is a writer, comedian actor, TV producer and professional tennis player. He is married and has three children.
Paul Mitchell’s latest books are a collection of short stories titled Dodging the Bull, and a poetry collection, Awake Despite the Hour, both published in 2007. He’d like to say something else but is too busy answering his email.
Les Murray is a fair poet but a poor cook at best. He lives in the Australian bush.
Olga Pavlinova Olenich was born in Australia of Russian parentage. She is a Melbourne-based writer whose stories, articles and poetry are widely published in Australia and overseas. She has one son, who is a musician.
Rod Quantock is one of the reasons that Melbourne is the live comedy capital of Australia. For forty years he has remained a contemporary stand-up comedian, evolving and staying at the forefront of the craft. That he continues to build new, younger audiences is testament to possibly the most impressive career in Australian comedy.
Guy Rundle is currently the US correspondent for Crikey. He was co-editor of Arena Magazine between 1992 and 2006 and is a frequent contributor to a wide range of Australian publications, and the writer of a number of hit stage shows with the satirist Max Gillies.
Roy Slaven, together with HG Nelson, has presented This Sporting Life on Triple J for more than twenty years.
Garry Williams is the Sunday Herald Sun’s TV guide editor. A journalist for more than twenty-five years, his main claim to fame is as a former TV Week editor, although he is happy to report that he has upset enough people to never again be invited to the Logie Awards.
Tony Wilson is an author who has written one novel (Players), a World Cup fan’s memoir (Australia United) and four picture books for children. In 2006 he was a Sydney Morning Herald Young Australian Novelist of the Year. He has also worked in radio and television. Tony’s website is www.tonywilson.com.au
Julia Zemiro is best known as host of AFI Award–winning SBS TV show RocKwiz. Her TV credits include Thank God You’re Here and What a Year, co-hosting with Bert Newton, and her theatre roles include Love Song and Eurobeat—The Eurovision Musical. Julia is the co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show The Jonathan Coleman Experience.