Writers Series

Dr. Monika Schott is an Australian based writer and researcher. Life’s intricacies and curiosities inspire her to write and give voice to stories that haven’t been heard. She’s particularly interested in lost industrial communities and communities that have been isolated or segregated, and interpreting these stories of past communities before they’re lost forever. She once practiced as a metal artist and painter and as such, writes like an artist creating texture on metal or canvas. She wrote the social history of Melbourne’s first sewerage farm community as part of her PhD research into sewerage ghost towns and how these communities flourish in their abject margins. Her novel, ‘The Faraway Land of the House and Two Cows’, and song, ‘A Land Faraway’, were released in July 2022.Her latest book, ‘My Dad built me the best and wackiest cubby ever’ is a timely and compassionate story about a child and father navigating the dad’s mental health struggles, and is inspired by Monika’s own lived experience. The heart-warming chapter book is a gentle interpretation of what Monika observed within her own family, and is ideal for children aged 5-12 years. Credit: Dr. Monika Schott.

Meet Damon! Multifaceted, passionate, and skilled all describe Damon “DaRil” Nailer. With over 1 million views on the popular advice site Quora, 1K speaking engagements, and many published works under his belt, Damon is known as a “Renaissance Man”, “Inspirational Communicator” and “Gift Guru”, who provides direction, inspiration, and education to any audience. Mr. Nailer is the owner of Kitril Consultancy, where he serves as an author, speaker, content creator, and consultant, specializing in personal development, communication, leadership, entrepreneurship, spirituality, and parenting.  As a result of his experience and expertise, he has been featured 200+ times in various media outlets, including The Huffington Post, Reader’s Digest, Thrive Global, Goalcast, MSN, Yahoo, Yahoo Finance, Redbook, Insider, podcasts, radio/TV shows, magazines, newspapers, etc. Credit: Damon Nailer.

Dr. Simon Craig has written a book 'From Hurting To Healing: Delivering Love to Medicine and Healthcare' where he outlines ways to improve the health system in Australia, but it is also relevant everywhere. The Senior Obstetrics and Gynecology clinician holds more than 30 years of experience in the public and private systems. He says healthcare has reached a crisis point and positive change is urgently needed. Dr Craig's book has been endorsed by fellow senior medical practitioners, administrators and university professors including Royal Children’s Hospital Professor Catherine Crock AM and University of Melbourne's Professor Dr. Susan Walker – who says Dr. Craig’s “voice ought to be heard” and his book “should be mandatory reading for everyone involved in providing care, from medical students to policymakers”.  Dr. Craig left the health system last year to concentrate on cultural change. He is now a Chief Executive of PosMed, a private company which promotes coaching an organizational culture change in hospitals. Credit: Dr. Simon Craig; PosMed.

Sonia Palleck was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. One of five children, she was an avid athlete and excelled in school. She studied at Western University in London, Ontario and graduated from Dentistry in '93 and Orthodontics in '99. She became a clinical instructor and taught residents for ten years at the Graduate Department of Orthodontics.  After marrying her dental school sweetheart, Sonia moved to Dorchester and welcomed her child, Djuka, to the world. In 2018, following her divorce and the death of her parents, Sonia searched for healing to bring meaning and peace to her life. In 2020, Sonia wrote a series of four books called “Leave the Little Light On,” a fictional memoir based on her life, with each volume named after the four cities where she has lived and worked. The series is her contribution to the world; a new modern love story for humanity to heal. Sonia designed and painted each cover of the books. She is an advocate for love. Credit: Sonia Palleck.

Maryan is based in Sydney Australia, is a Transformational Coach, workshop facilitator and speaker. Passionate, values driven, and dedicated to seeing you realise the most exceptional version of yourself, Maryan brings together all of her work, life and personal experiences, to serve you at the highest level. She draws on her 28 years in the health industry, personal development and positive psychology space to coach in health, relationships, self-care and resilience, leadership and teams, parenting and career transition. In addition she consults with businesses on easy solutions and ideas to improve staff and management experience and simple ideas to potentially increase revenue. As a Mum of 3, recently celebrating 25 years of marriage and an entrepreneur, she brings an intelligent, strategic approach, infused with lightheartedness, depth of insight and emphasis on self-awareness, helping you create the results and inner transformation you desire. Maryan is currently writing her book “My Mother, My Rock, a spiritual perspective on death and dying” after her Mum was diagnosed with Grade 4 brain cancer in 2020. She hopes to offer the audience  hope, purpose and connection  when faced with life’s challenges. Credit: Maryan Bova.

Sarah Winkler is the founder of Everyday Recycler, an educational website that offers its readers simple and actionable recycling tips. She has been passionate about environmental issues all her life. Her mission is to create a world where recycled products are commonplace, and waste is scarce. She holds an honors degree in science and training in business analytics and the circular economy. She has spent more than 25 years working in various facets of project management, where her aptitude for developing reports, procedures, and training manuals has helped set many projects up for success. Through her varied project and life experience, she has developed an entrepreneurial style with strong conceptual thinking and problem-solving skills. Skills she now applies to solve the world’s recycling questions.Sarah spent the first half of her life living and working in many different countries. Now based in Melbourne, Australia, she still loves traveling for fun, whether locally or internationally. She is an avid hiker and loves exploring the outdoors with her husband. Credit: Everyday Recycler.

CJ Scarlet, aka the Badass Grandma, is a danger expert and author of books that help parents empower their kids to avoid predators and escape from dangerous situations. She knows first-hand how violence can destroy lives. A survivor of childhood abuse and teen sexual assault, CJ spent years dealing with the emotional aftermath of her experience. After taking her power back, she became an advocate for others who had been victimized, running a child advocacy center and serving as Director of Victims Issues for the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office. Over her 30 years as a victim advocate, CJ has helped thousands of survivors claim their power too. The former roller-skating carhop, forest firefighter, and U.S. Marine photojournalist holds a master’s degree in human violence. Named one of the “Happy 100” people on the planet, CJ’s story of triumph over adversity is featured in several bestselling books. Credit:  CJ Scarlet.

Christine Blosdale is an International #1 Best Selling Author, Expert Authority Business Coach and Podcast Expert. She’s also an award-winning radio personality with over two decades of experience on the microphone who has raised over 20 Million dollars for non-profit organizations and private companies. Christine has been a featured contributor to America Online, MSN, Woman’s Day, Ticker News, Pacifica Radio, Take 5, Google News and Hollywood.com. She runs her global coaching business at ChristineBlosdale.com.

Meet Nicklas Stitle, fantasy author of his first book Stormless. Injuries forced Nicklas to stop playing tennis after his freshman year of high school which granted him an opportunity to begin working on the story he had been carefully putting together in his mind.  He began writing Stormless at the age of fifteen, waking up early everyday to work on the story before school by crafting characters he could relate to and creating a new fantasy world. By incorporating valuable advice from industry experts wanting to help the young author, Nicklas completed Stormless at the age of seventeen. His second book The Fire King is close to completion; as well he's currently planning books three and four in the series. He hopes to inspire other young writers to achieve their dreams. Credit: Nicklas Stitle; www.nickstitle.com. 

Karen, born in Australia to an English mother and Italian father, discovered a passion for historical fiction after twenty years in the Financial Services industry. As an escape from corporate writing, Karen began writing short stories and, in 2009, published her first collection All That and Everything. Many of the short stories won awards, including the Society of Women Writers Victoria, Biennial Literary Award and the Free XpresSion Literary Award. Her first novel, Torn was followed by its sequel, Inviolate, and more recently, Counterpoint a raunchy, adults only companion to Torn from another character’s point of view. Stormbird, published in 2019, was written as the final installment in the Torn series, but can also be read independently. It tells the story of an unexpected relationship that builds between a British war widow and a German fighter pilot, shot down and in hiding, despite their countries’ bitter differences. Karen is currently working on her next book, Fever, set in the Victorian goldfields of Australia. Additionally, Karen writes for several financial magazines, speaks at public events and facilitates writing workshops. In her spare time, Karen volunteers at an animal shelter, enjoys running and drinks too much coffee. Credit: Karen Turner

Michael Marvosh, a new author and aspiring speaker and thought-leader. He is working to make real his vision of a world no longer divided by religion--a vision which grew out of his upbringing and ongoing inner struggle with what to believe about the truth, along with a keen awareness of the myriad ways the modern world seems to be tearing itself apart. His first book, The Forest is the Tree, is the result of a nascent version of this vision. He is starting a 21st-century conversation about what it means to be human--about what brings us together and what pulls us apart. Credit: Michael Marvosh, michaelmarvosh.com.

Meet Kate Toon, a business and digital marketing mentor and an okaish parent. She's on a mission to help other business-owning parents avoid all of the mistakes she made when starting her business 14 years ago. Her soon to be released new book Six Figures in School Hours: How to run a successful business and still be a good parent is full of practical advice and tips to help parents save their sanity. (Out June 28th 2023). She's a seasoned podcaster, with three podcasts of her own as well she's made over 150 podcast appearances.  She joins us today to share real-life tips on how to be a parent to human babies and business babies, including to discuss her publishing experience as someone who has self-published and now also published with a third party publisher. Credit: Kate Toon

Bestselling Australian author Lee Christine proves that at 60, it’s never too late to turn lifelong dreams into reality. Lee is the writer of six romantic suspense novels and three alpine-crime novels, including the best-selling and award winning Charlotte Pass, and best-selling Crackenback. In the past decade she has firmly cemented herself as one of Australia’s most compelling crime writers.Born and bred in Newcastle, Lee always hankered to write. During her high school years, she sang and played guitar in a band, playing regular gigs around town - often penning her own songs, something she says is the very essence of storytelling. And in what Lee describes as a writing career highlight, both Charlotte Pass and Crackenback were chosen to be published in Reader’s Digest. ‘It was like I had just done a ten-year apprenticeship in writing, with my previous six books,’ Lee says, ‘and suddenly it all came together.’Lee’s 10th book, The Precedent, set in Newcastle, will be out in early 2024, published by Allen and Unwin. Credit: Lee Christine.

A.B. Patterson is an Australian writer who knows first-hand about corruption, power, crime and sex. He was a Detective Sergeant in the WA Police, working in pedophilia and vice, and later a Chief Investigator with the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption. His multiple award-winning, debut novel, Harry’s World, introduced the jaded and flawed PI Harry Kenmare. Harry’s Quest was the sizzling, award-winning sequel in the PI Harry Kenmare series of novels. The third novel, Harry’s Grail, is in progress. The Harry Kenmare short stories, some previously published in the USA in Switchblade magazine, were collected together and published in 2020 as Harry Kenmare, PI – At Your Service. He has had other short stories, all crime related, published in other anthologies. In a non-fiction vein, he was a contributing editor to a volume dealing with the trauma for male survivors of English boarding schools published by Routledge, Men’s Accounts of Boarding Schools: Sent Away. For his fiction, his hard-boiled, gritty, and noir writing style has been likened to that of Raymond Chandler and Ken Bruen. He’s a massive fan of both of them. Credit: A.B. Patterson.

Rashida Tayabali is a features writer and copywriter based in Sydney, Australia. As a young girl she loved writing and reading. She always harboured a secret dream of becoming an author one day and seeing her books in libraries and bookshops. Life after Ali is her debut novel. Credit: Rashida Tayabali