11 Words for Love

Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of 9 books, including the Indie and ABIA award-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the memoir The Hate Race, the Boston Globe/Horn Prize and CBCA winning picture book The Patchwork Bike, and the recently released picture book Fashionista. She lives in Melbourne's glorious, diverse western suburbs, and has met many kids like Taj in her neighbourhood, who've journeyed to Australia in search of safe haven. Some struggle to fit in, but just like Taj, most eventually find their light.

Randa is a prominent Australian author, academic, human rights advocate, former lawyer and mother of four children. She has been nominated for Sweden's 2019 Astrid Lindgren Award, the world's biggest children's and young adult literature award (she was also nominated in 2018). The award-winning author of eleven novels, published and translated in over 20 countries, Randa writes across a wide range of genres and actively seeks to translate her academic work into creative interventions which reshape dominant narratives around race, human rights, multiculturalism and identity in popular culture. She has been publishing her op eds in Australia's national and international newspapers and journals since 1998. She has had regular appearances on Q&A, The Drum, Lateline and The 7.30 Report, and radio interviews (RN Drive, ABC Books and Arts, The Conversation Hour etc.).