Jan Carstenszoon or more commonly Jan Carstensz was a 17th-century Dutch explorer. In 1623, Carstenszoon was commissioned by the Dutch East India Company to lead an expedition to the southern coast of New Guinea and beyond, to follow up the reports of land sighted further south in the 1606 voyages of Willem Janszoon in the Duyfken.
Francis Edward de Groot was an Irish-Australian soldier and furniture maker. He is best known for dramatically interrupting the official opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, attempting to slash the ribbon with a military sword while on horseback.
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Zora Bernice May Cross was an Australian poet, best-selling novelist and journalist.
Leslie Allan Murray was an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spanned over 40 years and he published nearly 30 volumes of poetry as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings.
Roper Bar is a location in Australia's Northern Territory. It lies on the traditional land of the Ngalakgan people, who refer to it as Yurlhbunji. This part of Australia is extremely remote for travellers, although there are a number of Aboriginal communities in the region including Ngukurr, Urapunga and Minyerri. A four-wheel drive trek through these parts can be an extension of the Gulf Track on a journey further up north to Darwin or Arnhem Land.
Angus & Robertson (A&R) is a major Australian bookseller, publisher and printer. As book publishers, A&R has contributed substantially to the promotion and development of Australian literature. The brand currently exists as an online shop owned by online bookseller Booktopia. The Angus & Robertson imprint is still seen in books published by HarperCollins, a News Corporation company.
Burketown is an isolated outback town and coastal locality in the Shire of Burke, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, the locality of Burketown had a population of 204 people.
J. S. Harry, or Jan Harry, was an Australian poet described as "one of Australian poetry’s keenest satirists, political and social commentators, and perhaps its most ethical agent and antagonist."
Jennifer Maiden is an Australian poet. She was born in Penrith, New South Wales, and has had 38 books published: 29 poetry collections, 6 novels and 3 nonfiction works. Her current publishers are Quemar Press in Australia and Bloodaxe Books in the UK. She began writing professionally in the late 1960s and has been active in Sydney's literary scene since then. She took a BA at Macquarie University in the early 1970s. She has one daughter, Katharine Margot Toohey. Aside from writing, Jennifer Maiden runs writers workshops with a variety of literary, community and educational organizations and has devised and co-written a manual of questions to facilitate writing by Torture and Trauma Victims. Later, Maiden and Bennett used the questions they had created as a basis for a clinically planned workbook.
The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the Australian Literature Society, then from 1983 by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, when the two organisations were merged.
Alexis Wright is a Waanyi writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria and for being the first writer to win the Stella Prize twice, in 2018 for her "collective memoir" of Leigh Bruce "Tracker" Tilmouth and in 2024 for Praiseworthy.Praiseworthy also won her the Miles Franklin Award in 2024, making her the first person to win the Stella Prize and Miles Franklin Award in the same year.
Giramondo Publishing is an independent Australian literary small press founded in 1995. It is a publisher of poetry, fiction and non-fiction by Australian and overseas writers, and works in translation from Chinese, German, Spanish, French and Hindi. It also published HEAT magazine in two series from 1996 to 2012.
Phantom Gold is a 1937 Australian adventure film about the search for Lasseter's Reef. It was the first feature from director Rupert Kathner.
Booktopia Group Ltd is an Australian online bookseller founded in 2004 in Sydney. The company also owns Angus & Robertson, a major Australian online bookseller, publisher, and printer. In July 2024, the company was placed in voluntary administration, before being bought in August 2024 by digiDirect.
The Waanyi people, also spelt Wanyi, Wanji, or Waanji, are an Aboriginal Australian people from south of the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Eliza Emily Donnithorne was an Australian woman best known as a possible inspiration for the character of Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' 1861 novel Great Expectations.
Lisa Gorton is an Australian poet, novelist, literary editor and essayist. She is the author of three award-winning poetry collections: Press Release, Hotel Hyperion, and Empirical. Her second novel, The Life of Houses, received the NSW Premier's People's Choice Award for Fiction and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction (shared). Gorton is also the editor of Black Inc's anthology Best Australian Poems 2013.
Cathie Koa Dunsford is a New Zealand novelist, poet, anthologist, lecturer and publishing consultant. She has edited several anthologies of feminist, lesbian and Māori/Pasifika writing, including in 1986 the first anthology of new women's writing in New Zealand. She is also known for her novel Cowrie (1994) and later novels in the same series. Her work is influenced by her identity as a lesbian woman with Māori and Hawaiian heritage.
Praiseworthy (2023) is a novel by Australian writer Alexis Wright. It was initially published by Giramondo Publishing in Australia in 2023.
