BOTY 2021: meet the judges
Penni Russon is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of a number of books for children and teenagers, including Only Ever Always, The Endsister and the Undine trilogy. She’s a senior lecturer in writing at the University of Technology Sydney.
Jess Gately is a freelance editor and writer, the director of business development for Underground Writers, and the president of Editors WA, a branch of the Institute of Professional Editors. Her short stories appear in two anthologies: Beneath: KSP 2020 Spooky Stories Anthology and Twice Not Shy: One hundred short short stories.
Alexandra Dane is a lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on the circulation of power and perceptions of prestige in the contemporary book publishing sector. She is the author of Gender and Prestige in Literature: Contemporary Australian Book Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and editor of the forthcoming Post-Digital Book Culture: Australian Perspectives (Monash University Publishing, 2021).
Jing Xuan Teo and Marina Sano Litchfield are the co-founders of Amplify Bookstore, an online retailer dedicated to selling books by BIPOC authors. Born and raised in Singapore, Xuan is a writer, editor and pop-culture enthusiast. Her writing often reflects her interest in media (be it film, TV or books); the cultures that guide our sense of truth; and her search for identity. Marina grew up in Singapore, and moved to Melbourne for uni. Here, she faced the identity crisis of a lifetime when trying to decide if being half-white still meant she was a PoC (hint: she is). Both Xuan and Marina are currently completing the Master’s of Publishing and Communications degree at the University of Melbourne.
We’d like to thank the previous judging panel – Mel Cranenburgh, Jackie Tang and Jane Rawson – for all their hard work and excellent judgment on the 2020 BOTY and 2019 MUBA awards.