Nailbiters

Fiona McIntosh is an internationally and million-copy bestselling author of novels for adults and children across several genres. Alongside her highly successful historical fiction titles, for which she has been nominated at the Australian Book Industry Awards for commercial fiction book of the year, her popular Detective Jack Hawksworth series will soon be released across the UK. Several of her historical titles as well as the ‘world of Hawksworth’ crime novels have been optioned for the screen. Her debut children’s picture book, Harry and Gran Bake a Cake, was published in 2025. Fiona roams the world for her research and lives between Adelaide in South Australia and Wiltshire in England.

Gabriel Bergmoser is an award-winning Melbourne-based author and playwright. He won the prestigious Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award in 2015 and was nominated for the 2017 Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing. In 2016 his first young adult novel, Boone Shepard, was shortlisted for the Readings Young Adult Prize. His first novel for adults, The Hunted (2020), became a bestseller and a film adaptation is currently in development. Since then he has published the thrillers The Inheritance (2021) and The Caretaker (2023), along with the YA coming-of-age novel The True Colour of a Little White Lie (2021) and the middle-grade adventure Andromache Between Worlds (2024).

Sam Guthrie writes international political thrillers based on his experience working at the nexus of business, politics, and international diplomacy. Prior to publishing his first novel, The Peak, Sam had a twenty-five-year career in international relations serving as a trade envoy to China, an Asia Pacific corporate affairs adviser, political lobbyist and a senior government official.

Zahid Gamieldien is an author, screenwriter, editor and writing tutor. His debut novel, All the Missing Children, was published by Ultimo Press in 2024. He’s had short fiction published in literary journals including Overland, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Island Magazine and many others. His work was listed for the Richell Prize and selected for inclusion in the ‘best of’ fortieth anniversary edition of The UTS Writers’ Anthology. His unproduced screenwriting has been listed for awards in Australia and overseas, and as an editor and writing tutor he’s helped several authors get their work into print. He’s received funding to undertake a residency at Varuna House and two major arts grants from Create NSW. He has a new short story coming out in Overland, and his second novel will probably be released in late 2026.

Ian Kemish AM served as Australian Ambassador to Germany, High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea and in many other diplomatic roles across Europe and the Asia-Pacific. He was a leader for DFAT in international crisis management, including during major emergencies such as the 2002 Bali bombings. Today he works across the not-for-profit humanitarian and academic sectors, including as an Adjunct Professor at UQ, and is a regular commentator on international affairs. Ian’ first book, The Consul, was published by UQP in 2022. It provided an insider account of more than two decades of international crisis response by the Australian consular service. Ian’s first novel, Two Islands, will be published by UQP in early 2026. It draws both on his time working as a diplomat in the Balkans in the 1990s and his love for his ancestral Scottish Hebrides.