Australian women who have changed the world: Read an extract from Amazing Australian Women

Sophie Beer is an award-winning illustrator living in Brisbane, Australia. She completed a dual degree in Law and Creative Industries with distinction at Queensland University of Technology, but found her true calling in children's and editorial illustration after winning the 2016 SCBWI Penguin Random House Portfolio Award. Revelling in colour, shape and texture, she lives by one simple rule:

Dr Pamela Freeman is the award-winning author of more than 28 books. Her most recent book, published under the name of Pamela Hart, is The Soldier’s Wife (Hachette Australia), an historical novel set in World War I. For children, her most recent publication is the Princess Betony series published by Walker Books. Her new book for kids, Lake Eyre, is a non-fiction picture book due out in late 2015.Pamela also writes fantasy fiction for adults. She is best known for the Castings trilogy (published in the US, the UK, France, Spain, Portugal and Germany as well as Australia) and for Ember and Ash, winner of the Aurealis Award for best fantasy novel . Another children’s book, Victor’s Challenge, was published in 2009 in Australia and the UK and won the Aurealis Award for Best Children’s Fantasy.Pamela started as a children’s writer, and many of her books have been shortlisted for the State Literary Awards, the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Awards, the Koala Awards and the Wilderness Society Environment Awards. Pamela – who is also an accomplished scriptwriter – taught creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney for many years. She has also been a guest lecturer at the University of Sydney and taught writing workshops around Australia for the National Book Council and various state libraries. Pamela has a Doctor of Creative Arts in Writing from the University of Technology, Sydney.She has published numerous short stories and has spoken at various writers’ festivals around the country. Her most recent book for young adults, The Black Dress, a fictional account of the childhood of Mary MacKillop in the Australia of the 1840s to 1860s, won the NSW History Prize for Young People.