Meet the 2023 BOTY Judges
We are very pleased to introduce our judges for the 2023 Book of the Year Award. While our inboxes begin filling with all the wonderful titles that our SPN member publishers have released, we thought you may like to get to know our judging panel for the year.
Bec Kavanagh
Bec Kavanagh is a writer, literary critic and academic. She has had fiction and non-fiction published in a variety of publications including Meanjin, Overland, The Big Issue and The Guardian. Bec is the Youth Programming Manager at the Wheeler Centre and a sessional tutor at LaTrobe University.
Tierney Khan
Tierney Khan is a Naarm based writer who, since winning the State Championship of the Plain English Speaking Award (PESA) in 2020, has facilitated and hosted numerous events with The Wheeler Centre. Most recently she was in conversation with feminist icon Wendy McCarthy, as well as guest programmed an event called ‘Something Old, Something New’ surrounding the experience of being multicultural in Australia.
Tierney’s writing has been published by Rosie, a blog run by the Victorian Women’s Trust in which she delves into the realities of being both queer and a woman of colour in Australian society. In 2019 she also became the youngest contributor to the literary magazine, Infusion 59, at the age of 16. Activism is always at the centre of Tierney’s work and writing.
Penni Russon
Penni Russon is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of a number of books for children and teenagers, including Only Ever Always (Delacorte Press), The Endsister (Allen & Unwin) and the Undine trilogy (Greenwillow Books). She’s a senior lecturer in writing at Monash University.