The State of the Self

Julia Baird is a Sydney-based author and journalist. She writes columns for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the ABC. She is the former co-host of The Drum on ABC TV and senior editor of Newsweek. Julia’s latest book, Bright Shining, is shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year. 

Geraldine Brooks is an author and journalist. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her 2005 novel March. Her novels Caleb’s Crossing, People of the Book and The Secret Chord were New York Times bestsellers, and Year of Wonders was an international bestseller, translated into more than 25 languages. Her new book, Memorial Days, is a memoir centred on the loss of her husband, Tony Horwitz. 

Rachel Kushner is the author of the novels Creation Lake, The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers and Telex from Cuba; a book of short stories, The Strange Case of Rachel K; and The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000–2020. She has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and (twice) the National Book Award in Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 

David Marr is an author whose books include Patrick White: A Life, The High Price of Heaven, Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson) and Killing for Country. He has also written six Quarterly Essays and articles for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Saturday Paper and The Guardian, and worked as a reporter for Four Corners and presenter of Media Watch and Late Night Live.