About the contributors
Jessica Adams
Jessica Adams is the astrologer for Vogue and the Australian Women’s Weekly. She is also a contributing editor at Cosmopolitan magazine in England. She is the author of six novels and a team editor on the Girls’ Night In and Kids’ Night In series, which have raised $3 million for the children’s charity War Child. Jessica lives between Bellingen, New South Wales, and Brighton, England.
Visit jessicaadams.com
Shalini Akhil
Shalini Akhil is an Indo-Fijian, Melbourne-based writer who has dabbled in stand-up comedy and is not afraid of hyphens. She’s had pieces published in Meanjin, Girls Night In 4, Sleepers Anthology, Silverfish New Writing 7, Growing Up Asian in Australia and the Age’s A2. Her first novel, The Bollywood Beauty, was published by Penguin Australia and she is currently working on her second. You can find her at shaliniakhil.com
Jimmy Barnes
With a 35-year career, Jimmy Barnes, lead singer of iconic Aussie band Cold Chisel and a multi-platinum-selling solo artist, is considered one of the most popular Australian performers.
Clem Bastow
Clem Bastow enjoyed a short but pointless career as a child actor in the mid-90s, and now spends most of her day updating her Facebook status. When she’s not doing that she is the editor of The Dawn Chorus and writes for the Age, Defamer Australia, Inpress, jmag and RocKwiz, and presents a weekly show on Melbourne’s 3RRR, Transference. She is currently writing a screenplay and playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1977–79 edition. Read more from clem at thedawnchorus.wordpress.com
Richard Berry
Richard Berry is a bestselling author and journalist. His books include Dear John: The Unrequited Correspondence of Richard Berry and Dear Mark/Kim: More Unrequited Correspondence of Richard Berry. His blog can be read on the Herald Sun’s website.
Yasmin Boland and Kelly Surtees
Yasmin and Kelly are friends who bonded over their shared love of stargazing. You can visit them at their respective websites yasminboland.com and kellysurtees.com.
Andrew Bolt
Andrew Bolt is a columnist with Melbourne’s Herald Sun, a commentator on ABC’s Insiders, Channel Nine’s Today and on
radio stations 3AW, 4BC and 6PR.
Loene Carmen
Loene Carmen is a singer / songwriter and sometime actor. Her most recent album, Rock 'n' Roll Tears, was released in 2007. Visit her at myspace.com/loenecarmensrocknrolltears
Paul Carter
Adrenalin junkie, oil rigger, motorbike fanatic, madman ... Paul Carter, author of Don’t Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs, She Thinks I’m a Piano Player in a Whorehouse and This is Not a Drill, has been working in the oil-exploration industry since he was eighteen years old, taking postings on some of the toughest oil rigs in the world’s wildest regions. Paul has lived, worked and been given a serious talking to in seventeen countries on three continents. He’s been shot at, hijacked, held hostage and locked in the toilet by his own monkey.
Libby-Jane Charleston
Libby-Jane Charleston is the author of novels Light Sweet Crude, The Mommy Mafia and the upcoming Memoirs of a Has-Been TV Reporter. She’s been a TV anchor, a Beijing correspondent and a newspaper and radio journalist in Australia and Hong Kong. Her writing has appeared in the anthology Some Girls Do: My Life as a Teenager and What Is Mother Love? She is also the author of the children’s books The Magic Twins and I Will Love You Until... Libby-Jane lives in Sydney with her husband and three sons. She will love them until the Statue of Liberty sits down. Find out more at ljcharleston.com
Andrew Cox
Andrew Cox is a member of rock group the Fauves. He has recently written his first book. Check out thefauves.com
Keish De Silva
Keish De Silva is the former drummer / lead singer of punk band the Hard Ons, Australia’s most successful independent band, and has toured with everyone from the Ramones to Henry Rollins and the Foo Fighters. Keish currently fronts Sydney band Feed the Horse.
Catherine Deveny
Catherine Deveny is a serial pest and professional pain in the arse. (Editor’s note: Catherine is also a comedy writer, comedian, opinion columnist for the Age, has been named one of the Top 100 Most Influential Melburnians and is clearly rather self-deprecating.)
Barry Divola
Barry Divola is the author of Fanclub, Searching For Kingly Critter and The Secret Life of Backpackers, and the co-author of M Is for Metal and Never Mind Your Ps and Qs: Here’s the Punk Alphabet. He is the long-time critic (and long-time receiver of hate mail) at Who, a senior writer for Rolling Stone, a columnist for (sydney) magazine and contributor to other magazines and anthologies. His short stories Nipple, Cicada Boy and Nixon have all won Banjo Paterson awards. He still plays in the Fluffy Boys once a year.
Joe Dolce
Joe Dolce is the writer and performer of the most successful song in Australian music history, ‘Shaddap You Face’, which was also number one in fifteen countries with over fifty foreign language cover versions (including in Aboriginal and Papua New Guinean languages). He is also a virtuoso guitarist/blues harp player and an acclaimed composer of choral works and classical oratorio, film soundtracks (including the first Terminator movie) and an in-demand festival performer. His latest release The Wind Cries Mary was recently voted Album of the Year by Melbourne radio station 3MDR. Joe is at joedolce.net
Tug Dumbly
Tug is known in a smallish circle, perhaps best for his work on ABC Radio. He started by spraying poems and rants on triple j’s Brekky Show and can currently be heard delivering his weekly news and current affairs satire, The Tug Report, on ABC’s Local Radio network. He never wants his mother to read this story.
Nick Earls
Despite underwhelming results in the 1980s, Nick Earls is the author of eleven novels and two collections of short stories which have won awards in the UK and Australia. Four of his novels have been adapted into plays and two into films. His latest novel is The True Story of Butterfish.
Tim Ferguson
Tim Ferguson is an original member of the Doug Anthony All Stars, plus a writer, director and producer of over twenty TV series. He is tall, dark, handsome, rich, famous and smells nice.
Greg Fleet
Greg Fleet is an unrealistically optimistic clown and an old friend of Mirabel’s Jane Rowe. He has made people laugh and weep in various locations around the world. He compered the very first Mirabel benefit and lived his rock ’n’ roll fantasy by singing a Dylan song with the who’s-who of Australian music. He loves his daughter and feels very lucky.
Kelly Foulkes
Kelly Foulkes likes to call herself a writer these days and is mother to one little girl she hopes will never read this book.
Andrew G
In between taking photos of things and surfing, Andrew G hosts radio and television, including Australian Idol, in Australia. More of his rants can be found at andrewg.tv
Mark Gable
Mark Gable has been the lead singer for Australian pub-rock band Choirboys for the last thirty years. He is guilty of such iconic hits as ‘Never Gonna Die’, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ and the anthem ‘Run to Paradise’. Mark is also the host of the Mark Gable Sunday Session on Vega 95.3FM.
Antonella Gambotto-Burke
Antonella Gambotto-Burke is a regular contributor to numerous international newspapers and magazines, including Harper’s Bazaar, the Mail on Sunday (London) and the Weekend Australian. Her interests include classic literature, figurative art, Nine Inch Nails and, above all, her husband Alexander, a writer for the Guardian (London), and
their daughter Bethesda. Antonella’s most recent book is The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide. Described by the American Association of Suicidology as ‘brilliant’ and published in four languages, The Eclipse put Antonella on the cover of the national paper’s review section. Her website is antonellagambottoburke.com
Luke Gower
Luke Gower is the bottom-end provider for and fisherman of Sydney rock trio Cog.
Justin Heazlewood
Justin Heazlewood currently writes for national magazines Frankie, jmag and The Big Issue. He has written an opinion column ‘Struth Be Told’ for Canberra street press BMA for five years. He performs folk-comedy as the Bedroom Philosopher and his song ‘I’m So Post Modern’ was included in triple j’s Hottest 100 for 2006. You can find him at bedroomphilosopher.com
Rex Hunt
Rex Hunt’s iconic fishing show, Rex Hunt’s Fishing Adventures, was screened across Australia for thirteen years, singlehandedly changing public views on catch and release with his oft-copied ‘fish kissing’. Rex was also a professional Australian Rules player, playing over 200 games including two premierships with Richmond. Through his lively VFL/AFL commentating on radio 3AW, he is best known for coming up with colourful nicknames for many players.
Shane Jacobson
Best known for his role as the ‘fair dinkum Aussie bloke’ Kenny, Shane won the 2006 AFI Award for Best Lead Actor, the 2006 Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role, the 2007 Film Ink Magazine Award for Best Newcomer and the 2007 Australian Star of the Year Award. Shane stars in TV show Kenny’s World, has been seen in flicks Newcastle and Cactus, and has trod the boards in Guys 'n' Dolls. Visit him at shanejacobson.com.au
K.K. Juggy
K.K. Juggy is a Sydney singer / performer, formerly of Machine Gun Fellatio. A circus runaway, she absconded from Circus Oz where she was the strutting ring mistress for over two years.
Steve Kilbey
Steve Kilbey is a 54-year-old almost-vegan and father of five daughters. He is the singer and bass player in the Church, which has been together nearly thirty years. He dabbles in writing, art and acting.
Dominic Knight
Dominic is one of the founders and destroyers of The Chaser newspaper, and has written for the group’s TV series, including CNNNN and The Chaser’s War on Everything. He appeared with insufficient clothing in their Age of Terror Variety Hour national tour in 2008, and his first novel, Disco Boy, will be published by Random House in 2009 unless they reread it more carefully first.
Kate Langbroek
Kate Langbroek is one of Australia’s most influential media personalities. Her career spans popular prime-time TV shows including The Panel, Thank God You’re Here and Dancing with the Stars, plus breakfast radio on Melbourne’s top-rating Nova 100 show with comedian Dave Hughes, and a host of writing credits. Life is always interesting around Kate -- she is celebrated for her original style, wit and free spirit. Kate never treads the expected path and somehow manages to juggle a frenetic career, busy social life and motherhood.
Dave Larkin
Dave Larkin is better known as the chief songwriter and vocalist of Melbourne’s legendary rock juggernaut Dallas Crane.
Belinda Luksic
From the leafy, comatose streets of suburbia, Belinda Luksic spent many nights plotting epic tales and her escape to a world of glamorous people, penetrating ideas and pretentious coffee. Along the way she discovered many incarnations as a writer: the young schoolgirl stirring friends and frightening teachers with her purpleprosed, bodice-ripping romances; the uni student with a deep love of literature and a casual fling with deadlines; and the agent whose passion for fiction created 5000 ‘celebrity’ biographies for Harry M. Miller’s Speakers’ Bureau. These days Belinda works as a freelance writer, copywriter and voiceover artist.
Dan Luscombe
Dan Luscombe is a Melbourne-based musician who spends most of his time in and around the Drones. After fourteen years of schlepping around the place with musical outfits, he has amassed at least five good stories and is very happy to share one of them with you here. He is currently in a very strange internet café in Tasmania.
Emily Maguire
Emily Maguire is the author of Princesses and Pornstars: Sex + Power + Identity and the novels The Gospel According to Luke and Taming the Beast, which was a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Kathleen Mitchell Award. Emily’s articles and essays on sex, religion, culture and literature have appeared widely in publications including the Sydney Morning Herald, the Financial Review, the Griffith Review, the Observer and the Age. Emily's website is emilymaguire.typepad.com
Lindsay McDougall
Lindsay McDougall is a serial contributor to charity compendiums. He is also the guitarist in vaguely unsuccessful rock band Frenzal Rhomb, and the lynchpin (by virtue of being the one who didn’t quit) of triple j’s Breakfast Show, which he uses to annoy the nation every weekday morning with Robbie Buck and Marieke Hardy. He is lactose intolerant, but in a moral rather than physical sense.
Kate Miller-Heidke
Kate is one of Australia’s most exciting musical talents. Classically trained as an opera singer, the ARIA-nominated singer is best known for her eclectic, whimsical pop albums Little Eve and Curiouser. Visit Kate at katemillerheidke.com
Lawrence Mooney
Lawrence Mooney is a stand-up comedian whose tour of duty has extended over fourteen years. He can be seen on stage and TV and down at the shops.
Robbi Neal
Robbi Neal began writing in 2001 when she was diagnosed with cancer and thought she would die. Her first manuscript Sunday Best -- published in 2004 and still in print -- won the Varuna HarperCollins Award. She has since been awarded Australia Arts Council grants, been published numerous times in newspapers and is currently working on her fifth manuscript, a non-fiction work (manuscripts two, three and four are tucked safely in a drawer). She was the instigator and director of the Victorian Regional Writers’ Festival in Buninyong. She is currently working as an artistic director at the Lockhart River Arts Centre, in a remote Aboriginal community in far north Queensland.
Mike Noga
Mike Noga was born on 25 April 1978 and grew up in Tasmania. As a young boy, Mike could be found sitting on the kitchen floor banging pots and pans with chopsticks, and has been pursuing a career in the ‘hitting things with wood in a rhythmic fashion’ field ever since. He can currently be found seated up the back of Melbourne musical group the Drones, and fronting his own band the Gentlemen of Fortune. You will not find Southern Comfort on the riders of either of these bands.
Rachael Oakes-Ash
Rachael is addicted to powder of the snow variety. You may know her as Fairfax’s Little Miss Snow It All, we know her as a ski journalist and travel writer for publications as varied as Wallpaper*, Luxe City Guides, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, the Sun Herald and Women’s Health. She is also the author of Good Girls Do Swallow and Anything She Can Do I Can Do Better. Her website is oakesash.com
Clare Press
Clare Press is a former features director of Vogue Australia and designer of the Mrs Press womenswear label. Her non-fiction writing has been published in magazines including Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Rolling Stone and The Monthly. Gaze upon the beauty at mrspress.com
Lisa Pryor
Lisa Pryor is a journalist and columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and the author of The Pinstriped Prison. She is also a writer for the Chaser.
Leigh Redhead
Leigh Redhead has worked as a stripper, dishpig, waitress and masseuse. She is the author of crime novels Peepshow, Rubdown and Cherry Pie featuring PI Simone Kirsch. Check them out at simonekirsch.com.au
Tim Rogers
Mr Rogers is 6' 3" and of no fixed weight or hairstyle. The frontman of You Am I, he has played in musical groups for all his adult life. He adores madeira cake, a brisk walk and cognac. He hopes to one day live and die on stage.
Chris Ryan
Chris Ryan, a Sydney-based writer, was the features editor of selfproclaimed ‘Aussie Bloke’s Bible’ Ralph magazine. After five years there he quit to become a struggling freelance journalist. He is not the Chris Ryan who has been called ‘one of the world’s finest cricket writers’. Nor is he the Chris Ryan who served in the British SAS and wrote The One Who Got Away about his part in the bungled Bravo Two Zero mission. He is happy to benefit from any confusion with the two.
Angus Sampson
Actor Angus Sampson* (Where the Wild Things Are, Thank God You’re Here, Underbelly and that Maggi noodle ad, among other stuff) is handsome, creatively curious and has evolved since birth. He hopes to continue on the aforementioned evolutionary trajectory.
*(so named by his parents)
Brendan Shanahan
Brendan Shanahan is a Sydney-based writer and journalist. His latest travel book is In Turkey I Am Beautiful, an account of his time running a carpet shop in Istanbul.
Tamara Sheward
Hi Mum! Tamara Sheward is a six-foot goofball with a penchant for tattoos, travel and unhealthy amounts of straight vodka. She is the author of Bad Karma: Confessions of a Reckless Traveller in South East Asia, the author / illustrator of half-a-dozen kids’ books, journalist / sub-editor at triple j’s magazine jmag, and features in an upcoming Lonely Planet/National Geographic TV program. Her clothes are on as she writes this, although speaking in the third person is making her shiver.
Jake Stone
My name is Jake Stone. I play in bluejuice, write songs and sing in the Breakup Band, and work as a freelancer for Rolling Stone magazine and The Brag. I like music and people, and making music with people.
Suffa
Matt Lambert is better known as Suffa from the Hilltop Hoods. He is cool and dangerous.
Chris Taylor
Norman Mailer is one of America’s most acclaimed novelists and intellectuals, but unfortunately this bio isn’t about him. Chris Taylor is a writer and performer with the Chaser team, responsible for the fairly patchy comedy shows CNNNN and The Chaser’s War on Everything on ABC TV. A former ABC journalist, he quit his day job to join the Chaser in 2001 because they needed a token fifth male. In addition to his Chaser work, Chris has written a number of short films and even shorter haikus. He also co-hosted the popular radio show Today Today on triple j, but was controversially sacked after refusing to broadcast the program in Braille. He is currently adapting this bio into a screenplay, with Nicole Kidman to play the part of the Norman Mailer joke. He lives in Sydney with his wife and two property brokers.
Austen Tayshus
Austen Tayshus has been performing as a stand-up comedian for more than three decades. He first came to prominence in 1983 with ‘Australiana’, the biggest-selling single in Australian recording history.
Mia Timpano
Mia Timpano’s writing appears in Frankie, Russh, Cosmo and various cult rags. She reviews cosmetics, speaks Latin, looks like a vamp, whirls like a dervish, blackens the cursed sun, and walks with me in hell.
Alison Urquhart
Alison Urquhart has worked as a book publisher, a barmaid, a literary agent, a reviewer and a music publicist -- AKA a babysitter, drug supplier, rider provider and tear mopper-upper. All necessary qualifications when dealing with the younger man. Alison has been successfully dating younger men for as long as she can remember given her advanced years. She objects to the word cougar and prefers to be known as a fine role model and sponsor.
Jenny Valentish
Jenny Valentish is a music journalist who harbours a motherly concern for interviewees and can often be found coaching young bands in the demonic nature of the pull quote. She has held senior positions at a few dodgy men’s mags -- without ruining lives -- and is editor of triple j’s magazine, jmag. Sixteen years after Jenny was stitched up like a kipper herself, her mum still hasn’t got to the ‘Of course, I laugh about it now’ stage.
Erin Vincent
Erin Vincent is a journalist and author of Grief Girl (published in Australia and the USA). She is also the type of person for whom life is one clumsy mishap after another, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Julia Wilson
Julia Wilson is described by many as the toughest woman in comedy. The former convent school girl, bouncer and accountant now tours the world with her dubious morals as a stand-up comedian. Appearances on stages around the globe as well as in TV, radio and film have honed her dynamic personality to a gutsy edge that can’t be rivalled. Julia doesn’t just take to the stage; she owns it. Her unique style of storytelling is delivered all around the world -- Britain, South Africa, Croatia, Germany and Canada. Yes, Australia: this chick represents you overseas. Good luck.
Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson is the bass player in Aussie rock band Jet.
Sarah Wilson
Sarah Wilson is a Sydney-based trend consultant and a columnist with the Daily Telegraph newspaper. She is also the former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. Her CV makes mention of a stint as fashion editor on Nine’s Today Show, restaurant critic, political commentator and ... model. She currently hosts MasterChef Australia on Channel Ten.
Julia Zemiro
Julia Zemiro is best known as host of AFI Award-winning SBS TV show RocKwiz. Her extensive TV credits include Thank God You’re Here, What a Year (co-hosting with Bert Newton), and winner of Australia’s Brainiest TV Star. Her theatre roles include Love Song for the Melbourne Theatre Company and Bronya in Eurobeat -- the Eurovision Musical. She has won Tropfest’s Best Actress Award twice for The Extra and Muffled Love. Julia is in constant demand as a corporate MC, and is co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show The Jonathan Coleman Experience.
Matt Zurbo
Eddy Current is still Matt Zurbo’s favourite band. He writes stuff and works in the bush. More info at mattzurbo.com
Adam Zwar
Adam Zwar co-wrote the AFI Award-winning series Wilfred for SBS as well as feature film Rats and Cats. Adam’s recent acting credits include Underbelly, Valentine’s Day, Rush, Rats and Cats and Wilfred, for which he won the AFI Award for best actor in a television comedy. His theatre credits include Cyrano de Bergerac and Kissing For Australia, which earned him a Green Room nomination. Adam is currently writing and performing in television pilot Lowdown, funded by Film Victoria.
