Each year, EWF invites five Ambassadors to participate in the National Writers’ Conference to share their experience, insight and knowledge with the next generation of writers.

This group of Ambassadors–an award-winning poet, rapper and author from Queanbeyan, a beloved lawyer, food writer and television chef, an internationally acclaimed writer and academic, an esteemed writer, journalist and essayist, and a Walkley award-winning political cartoonist and national treasure–represent an extraordinary range of talents, and the best of writing in Australia today.

We are thrilled at the prospect of spending a weekend in the company of these five brilliant minds. Let us introduce you to:

Adam Liaw

Adam Liaw is a cook, writer and television presenter based in Sydney, Australia. He is the author of four cookbooks. His popular television series, Destination Flavour, has travelled through Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Europe.  Adam is a regular columnist for Fairfax newspapers’ GoodFood, Sunday Life magazine and The Guardian. In 2010 Adam won MasterChef Australia. His victory is still the most watched non-sporting television event in Australian history. Adam is also UNICEF Australia’s National Ambassador for Nutrition.

Alice Pung

Alice Pung is an award-winning author, journalist and essayist. Her first book, Unpolished Gem, is an Australian bestseller which won the Australian Book Industry Newcomer of the Year Award and was shortlisted in the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards. Her Father’s Daughter won the Western Australia Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction, and Alice’s third book, Laurinda, has been shortlisted for numerous awards in 2015. Alice was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015.

Chandani Lokuge

Chandani Lokuge migrated to Australia from Sri Lanka. She has published 14 books, 3 of which are critically acclaimed novels, including Moth and Other Stories. Her first novel, If the Moon Smiled was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and her short fiction is widely anthologised. She is also the editor for Oxford University Press of the Classic Reissue series of Indian women’s autobiographies and fiction written in English.

Among Chandani’s international appointments include the Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack Chair in Australian Studies at Freie University Berlin (2012), and she has also held a guest professorship at Goethe University Frankfurt, and at Harvard University’s Humanities Centre. Chandani founded and directed the Monash Centre for Postcolonial Writing from 2002-2011.

Chandani lives in Melbourne and works in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University as an Associate Professor and is the Higher Degree Research Coordinator for Creative Writing.

First Dog on the Moon

First Dog on the Moon is a Walkley Award-winning Australian cartoonist. Up until early 2014 he was the in-house cartoonist for Crikey, a prominent Australian politics and news website, and he now works as the cartoonist for both The Guardian Australia and The Monthly.  His third book, A Treasury of Cartoons, was published in 2015.

Omar Musa

Malaysian-Australian author, rapper and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia, Musa’s debut novel “Here Come the Dogs” was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award and he was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015.

Our 2016 Ambassadors will be appearing at The National Writers’ Conference, 18-19 June, at the Emerging Writers’ Festival 2016.

Early Bird tickets to The National Writers’ Conference are available to book now. To witness our Ambassadors inspiring us at the Conference, make sure you secure your place!

Golden Tickets to the festival are also available. A Golden Ticket is your passport to the 2016 Emerging Writers’ Festival, including The National Writers’ Conference, an invitation to the Artist Party, VIP seating at all performance and panel events, and selected access to masterclasses and workshops.