Madeleine Hamilton is a long-term aficionado of mid-20th-century design and popular culture, and the owner of an extensive collection of posters, books and ephemera relating to American pin-ups girls. In 2003 she commenced a four-year mission to uncover Australia’s pin-ups of the 40s and 50s that resulted in a PhD from the University of Melbourne as well as the award-winning SBS documentary 'Paper Dolls: Australian Pin-up Girls of World War II'. (Check out Madeleine's blog, or follow her on twitter.)

Simon Caterson writes on literature, art, ideas, history and popular culture for newspapers and magazines. Born in Melbourne he trained as a lawyer before traveling to Ireland where he completed a postgraduate degree in Irish literature at Trinity College, Dublin.

LM Robinson moved to Melbourne from a farm in South Gippsland 18 years ago. She’s worked as a tutor, university lecturer, freelance writer and teacher. In January 2009 she submitted the final copies of her PhD thesis. Three weeks later, and while completing the final draft of This Moral Pandemonium, she went into labour with her first child, Ruby Rose.

Jenny Lee came to Melbourne for a few weeks in 1979 and decided to stay. Since then, she has lived in five houses, raised two daughters and worked variously as an archivist, editor and university lecturer.

Lisa Lang wrote EW Cole: Chasing the Rainbow with the assistance of a City of Melbourne grant. It's her first work of creative non-fiction. In 2007 she was awarded a place on the Australian Society of Authors’ mentorship program and in 2009 co-won the Australian/Vogel literary award for 'Utopian Man', based on Cole's life.