Chenée Marrapodi is a children’s author and journalist, based in Perth, Western Australia. Her middle grade novel, One Wrong Turn, was published by Fremantle Press in 2023. Its sequel Breaking Pointe was released mid 2024. Chenée is also an experienced MC, and the host of the Writers off the Page podcast.

Chenée has worked in the media industry for almost a decade and is currently a producer for Channel Nine News. She has also worked as a reporter for Channel Seven's Today Tonight, as well as online news and radio. As a journalist, Chenée travelled the State in search of the perfect story, meeting an assortment of fascinating characters along the way. Her work has featured on Channel Seven’s Today Tonight, Seven News, WAtoday.com.au, Radio 6PR and in Landscope Magazine. It has seen her win multiple awards, including Best New Journalist at the 2014 WA Media Awards. Outside of the media, Chenée has danced ballet and jazz her whole life, loving the stories that can be created through movement. She has now turned that passion into words, choreographing her way through the pages of One Wrong Turn. She is assisted in her work by her writing buddy, muse and pet dog, Taco. While rumours of Taco being a horse are greatly exaggerated, he is indeed a ginormous, loveable, Great Dane.

James Foley makes children’s books for children who read books. If you’re a child and you’re eating his books, you’re doing it wrong. He is the author and illustrator of many picture books and graphic novels, including Stellarphant, Happy Barry Capybara, Secret Agent Mole, Brobot and Gastronauts. His upcoming books are Bigfoot vs Yeti: A Love Story (March 3) and Dungzilla (April 1). Legend says James can grow a beard in an afternoon. He is a massive Marvel movie nerd and comes from a long line of queuing enthusiasts. He lives near Freo/Walyalup in Western Australia with his wife Renae, their 2 kids, and a labrador called Frankie. 

Term 1  - HM Waugh

Term 2  - Kate Emery

Term 3  - Justin Somper

Term 4  - Aśka

Term 1  - Meg Caddy

Meg Caddy is a West Australian YA novelist with three published novels. Meg started their first novel, a standalone YA fantasy titled Waer, when they were just fourteen, and Waer was published by Text Publishing in 2016 after being shortlisted for the 2013 Text Prize. In 2017, Waer was also shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year Award. Meg's second novel, Devil’s Ballast, was longlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year Award and shortlisted for the Readings Young Adult Book Prize (2020). The sequel Slipping the Noose was also longlisted for both the CBCA Book of the Year Award (2023) and the ARA Historical Novel Prize (2022). 

When they are not writing, elbows-deep in archives, or chasing around their toddler, Meg plays an unhealthy amount of Dungeons & Dragons.

Meg is represented by Abigail Nathan from the Alex Adsett Literary Agency. 

Term 2  - Alexander Thorpe

Alexander Thorpe is pretty bad at crime (he’s never managed to commit a good one) but not too bad at crime writing. He is the author of historical murder mysteries Death Leaves the Station and Death Holds the Key, both published by Fremantle Press, and his first non-fiction story appeared in the Night Parrot Press anthology Ourselves. Born in WA on Whadjuk Noongar country, he has also lived and worked in Mexico, China and the republic of Georgia.

Term 3  - Chemutai Glasheen

Chemutai Glasheen is a teacher and sessional academic at Curtin University in Western Australia. Her fiction writing for young people is inspired by her passion for human rights and education. She's written a collection of short stories set in East Africa, which have been published in ACE: Arresting Contemporary Stories by Emerging Writers and on the Museum of Freedom and Tolerance website. She holds a PhD in creative writing from Curtin University.

Term 4  - Will Kostakis

Will Kostakis writes for young adults. First published at nineteen, he is best known for writing whip-smart comedies that break (then mend) hearts, and occasionally making national news for resisting local book and author bans. We Could Be Something is his latest novel. It’s a humorous yet heart-rending look at family, fame and falling in love. It won the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Literature, and was shortlisted for the Victorian and New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards and the Queensland Literary Award.

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Young Writers in the WA Regions

The WA Regions will not be missing out! Young Writers will be traveling to host schools in Albany, Busselton/Bunbury, and Geraldton. It's not too late, you can still enrol your student or child in the program for the regions.

Scroll down to read about our diverse range of presenters traveling to a host school near you.

Term 1  - Kathryn Lefroy

Kathryn is an author and screenwriter who not-so-secretly wishes she lived in a dance movie. Her published novels include the ALEX AND THE ALPACAS series and most recently THE SECRET OF THE STONE. Her heartwarming family feature film, WHALE SHARK JACK, is filmed on location around WA. She's lived and worked at many places across the globe, including Melbourne, Dublin, London, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but she currently calls Fremantle home.  

Term 2  - Shane McCarthy

Shane McCarthy is a freelance writer whose work has been published internationally by the likes of DC Comics, Marvel Comics and more. Shane began his career in 2004 by writing DETECTIVE COMICS (starring Batman) making him the first Australian to write Batman for DC Comics since the character’s creation in 1939. Since then he has written for BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT, more DETECTIVE COMICS, STAR WARS, DEADPOOL TEAM UP and TRANSFORMERS: ALL HAIL MEGATRON to name a few.

Term 3  - TBC

Term 4  - Justin Somper

Justin Somper is best known as the author of the VAMPIRATES books, which have been published in 35 countries and 25 languages. The six VAMPIRATES books follow the fortunes of Grace and Connor Tempest, twins who have grown up in a lighthouse on the Australian coast but whose lives and adventures truly begin after they are shipwrecked and “rescued” by markedly different ships. Justin is now based in Perth, where he is busy writing PIRATE ACADEMY – a new middle-grade series taking readers inside an elite school 500 years in the future, where a select group of kids are being trained by legendary sea captains to become the next generation of pirate heroes. Justin is a hugely engaging speaker and enjoys running creative workshops on many aspects of writing - including building character, plotting and world-building.

Term 1  - Kathryn Lefroy

Kathryn is an author and screenwriter who not-so-secretly wishes she lived in a dance movie. Her published novels include the ALEX AND THE ALPACAS series and most recently THE SECRET OF THE STONE. Her heartwarming family feature film, WHALE SHARK JACK, is filmed on location around WA. She's lived and worked at many places across the globe, including Melbourne, Dublin, London, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but she currently calls Fremantle home.  

Term 2  - Mabel Gibson

Mabel Gibson is a Yamatji woman studying Arts at the University of Western Australia. Her childhood was spent in Albany before moving to Geraldton as a teenager. Mabel's work has been published in Once : A selection of short fiction, Night Parrot Press, 2020.

Term 3  - Justin Somper

Justin Somper is best known as the author of the Vampirates books, which have been published in 35 countries and 25 languages. Justin is now based in Perth, where he is busy writing Pirate Academy – a new middle-grade series taking readers inside an elite school 500 years in the future, where a select group of kids are being trained by legendary sea captains to become the next generation of pirate heroes. Justin is a hugely engaging speaker and enjoys running creative workshops on many aspects of writing.

Term 4  - Brenton McKenna

Brenton McKenna is a respected Yawuru artist based out of Broome, WA, who is the first ever published Indigenous graphic novel author in Australia. In 2011 Magabala Books published Brenton’s first work – Ubby’s Underdogs: The Legend of the Phoenix Dragon. The Ubby’s brand has gone on to become an iconic three-part series and affirmed Brenton's place as an exciting voice in the Australian literary scene. Additional published works to date include notable Penguin and Allen & Unwin titles. Brenton also has a weekly comic strip in The West Australian called Old Champ.