Pamela Rushby is the author of over 200 books for children and young adults, as well as children's TV scripts, documentaries, short stories and freelance journalism. Pam has been an advertising copywriter, pre-school teacher, and producer of educational television, audio and multimedia.

She has won several awards, including the NSW Premier's Ethel Turner Prize, five CBCA Notable Books – and a bag of gold coins at a film festival in Iran! Pam believes the strangest, most riveting, heart-breaking, laugh-out-loud stories aren't fiction. They're real. They come from history. And she loves tripping over unusual incidents from history – and then writing about them.

Carmel Reilly is one of Australia's busiest educational writers, with over 300 titles to her name. She has written a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction for ages five to teens, with subjects that encompass topics from democracy, global cultures and the solar system to everyday life, adventurous aliens and silly superheros.

Outside of writing for children, she won the 2013 Partners in Crime Short Story Award for her entry Another Life. In 2016 she was awarded a Varuna Residential Fellowship, and was shortlisted for a 2018 Varuna Publisher Introduction Program Fellowship. Life Before is Carmel's first novel for adults. She currently lives in Melbourne.