Kay Kerr

Kay Kerr is an autistic author and journalist from the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.

PLEASE DON'T HUG ME is Kay's first book, and was shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) Book of the Year for Older Readers. It was also a Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) 2021 Notable Book for Older Readers.

Her second novel, SOCIAL QUEUE, is a YA romance with an autistic girl at the heart of it. It was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards, and also a CBCA Notable Book for Older Readers.

Her narrative non-fiction book, LOVE & AUTISM, is out now. It is an exploration and celebration of autistic lives, as well as a return to her journalistic roots.

If you like author Kay Kerr here is the list of authors you may also like

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Total similar authors (21)

Michael Gerard Bauer

Michael Gerard Bauer was born and lives in Brisbane Australia. In 2000 he resigned from his full-time position as an English/Economics teacher to pursue his dream of becoming a writer.

In 2004 his first YA novel The Running Man was published to great acclaim. It subsequently won the 2005 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year for Older Readers and was short-listed for the NSW, Victoria and South Australian State Premiers’ Literary awards.

In 2008 the German translation of The Running Man was short-listed for the German Youth Literature Prize and won the German Catholic Children’s and Young People’s Book Prize. In 2014 it was short-listed for the Prix Farniente in Belgium. In 2009 the Italian translation of The Running Ma
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Alice Pung

Alice was born in Footscray, Victoria, a month after her parents Kuan and Kien arrived in Australia. Alice’s father, Kuan - a survivor of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime - named her after Lewis Carroll’s character because after surviving the Killing Fields, he thought Australia was a Wonderland. Alice is the oldest of four - she has a brother, Alexander, and two sisters, Alison and Alina.

Alice grew up in Footscray and Braybrook, and changed high schools five times - almost once every year! These experiences have shaped her as a writer because they taught her how to pay attention to the quiet young adults that others might overlook or miss.

Alice Pung’s first book, Unpolished Gem, is an Australian bestseller which won the Australian Book Indus
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Will Kostakis

Hi. A teacher-librarian yelled at me to update this, so here goes. Time to talk about myself in the third-person.

Will Kostakis is an absolute delight.

In the past, he has written everything from celebrity news stories that score cease and desist letters, to tweets for professional wrestlers.

Nowadays, he’s best known (but not particularly well known) for his award-winning YA novels.

His first novel, Loathing Lola, was released when he was just nineteen. His second, The First Third, won the 2014 Gold Inky Award. It was also shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year and Australian Prime Minister’s Literary awards, among others. The Sidekicks was his third novel for young adults, and his American debut. It went on
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Anne Buist

Anne Buist is the Chair of Women’s Mental Health at the University of Melbourne and has over 25 years clinical and research experience in perinatal psychiatry. She works with Protective Services and the legal system in cases of abuse, kidnapping, infanticide and murder. Medea’s Curse is her first mainstream psychological thriller.

Professor Buist is married to novelist Graeme Simsion and has two children.
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Catherine Greer

Hello, I'm Catherine Greer. Thank you for being here, and for taking the time and care to share your thoughts on the books that I write with love and put out into the world. If you're a reader and / or a writer, you'll know that it takes years to write and bring a book into the world -- and our greatest hope is to find readers who enjoy resonate with a story.

My debut YA novel was sophisticated and felt very Atwood-esque, based on her compelling poem "Siren Song". I'm sorry that I didn't redeem the main character, Annie, who is an unreliable narrator and also a girl living with quite a lot of pain. I love her still, and all she went through in Love, Lie, Repeat.

My new novel is for adult women like me. It's called The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe,
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Ellie Marney

Ellie Marney is a multi-award-winning, bestselling author of thrillers for teens and adults. Her titles include the New York Times bestseller None Shall Sleep, the Kirkus-starred sequel, Some Shall Break, and the electrifying finale All Shall Mourn. Ellie's other titles include ARA Historical Novel Prize-nominated The Killing Code and Australian library favorite Every Breath. Her debut adult thriller No One Is Safe is arriving 10th February 2026.

Ellie has spent a lifetime researching in mortuaries, talking to autopsy specialists, and asking former spies how to make explosives from household items - now she lives quite sedately in south-eastern Australia with her family. Find sign-ups for her newsletter, The Black Hand, at her website, an
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Melanie Cheng

I am a writer, mum and general practitioner from Melbourne, Australia. I have been published in print and online. My writing has appeared in The Age, Meanjin, Overland, Griffith REVIEW, Sleepers Almanac, The Bridport Prize Anthology, Lascaux Review, Visible Ink, Peril, The Victorian Writer and Seizure. My short story collection, Australia Day, won the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Unpublished Manuscript and went on to win the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction. My latest book is the novel, Room for a Stranger. If Saul Bellow is right and “a writer is a reader moved to emulation” then I am moved by authors like Richard Yates, Alice Munro, Haruki Murakami and Christos Tsiolkas.
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Lynette Noni

Australian author Lynette Noni studied journalism, academic writing, and human behaviour at university before venturing into the world of fiction. She is the #1 bestselling and award-winning author of THE PRISON HEALER series, THE MEDORAN CHRONICLES, and the WHISPER duology. To date, her books have sold more than one million copies in over 20 countries across the globe.
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Holly Ringland

HOLLY RINGLAND grew up in her mother's tropical garden on the east coast of Australia. When she was nine years old, her love of landscapes, cultures and stories was deepened by a two-year journey her family took in North America, living in a camper van and travelling from one national park to another.

In her early twenties, Holly worked for four years in a remote Indigenous community in Australia’s western desert. Moving to England in 2009, Holly obtained her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester in 2011.

After wanting to be a writer since she was three years old, Holly’s debut novel The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart was published in 2018 when she was 37 years old, and has since become an international bestseller. Publication
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Nina Kenwood

Nina Kenwood is the author of The Wedding Forecast, Unnecessary Drama, and It Sounded Better In My Head.
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Elle McNicoll

Hey, I'm Elle. I'm Scottish, autistic and an author/screenwriter who is really bad at logging her reading choices.

I write about autistic girls finding out who they are and what makes them happy, because I'm an autistic girl trying to find out who she is and what makes her happy.

I don't read reviews, as they are for readers, but I'm grateful to any and everyone who engages with my work, on the page or on the screen. My Young Adult Romance debut is called Some Like It Cold in it will be published on the 3rd of October. Official professional shiz below:

Elle McNicoll is a bestselling and award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Her debut, A Kind of Spark, won the Blue Peter Book Award and the Overall Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, as well
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Bella Green

Bella Green was a stand-up comedian, writer and sex worker in Melbourne. She got her start in comedy by telling jokes in brothels to anyone who'd listen. She told jokes in some of the best comedy rooms in the country. Her debut stand-up hour, Bella Green is Charging for It, answers all the questions you'd never thought to ask about the adult industry. It was nominated for Best Comedy at the 2018 Melbourne Fringe Festival, and awarded Best Comedy at this year's Adelaide Fringe Festival.
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Margherita Scialla

Margherita Scialla (they/them) is a gen-z author born and raised in Italy. They obsessively studied languages for years, only to drastically change paths and study design at university.
They now spend their days procrastinating and avoiding all and any responsibility (and getting their driving license) in order to read and write.
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Eva Des Lauriers

Eva Des Lauriers is a California girl who became a diehard romantic when she married her best friend, the boy she sat next to in eleventh grade Calculus. She holds both an MSW and BA in Psychology. As a clinical social worker, she had the privilege of working with the vibrant and complicated teens for whom she now writes. When she isn’t writing, you can find her wandering through the redwoods, staring at the sea, or pretending she’s in a music video. She lives with her husband, their two children, and her collection of kissing books in Northern California.
Visit her at evadeslauriers.com.
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Ellie Middleton

After a lifetime of feeling misunderstood, she was diagnosed with both Autism and ADHD at the age of 24.

Since then, she's gone on to build an audience of over 300,000 people online, create the unmasked community for neurodivergents, and work with global brands like The Independent, Google & LinkedIn to change the narrative on neurodiversity.

Ellie aims to shout about the positives that come with being neurodivergent, highlight the ways that society can better accommodate those of us with different brains, and help other undiagnosed neurodivergent people find the answers that they deserve.

She is living proof that getting a diagnosis can change your life, change your outlook and allow you to reach your true potential - and thinks that is some
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Matilda Boseley

Matilda Boseley is an award-winning social media reporter and presenter for Guardian Australia. She has spearheaded the publication’s popular TikTok channel where she writes and hosts their short-form news explainers. Her work on the platform has won her a Quill Award for Innovation in Journalism and was nominated for a Walkley Award for the same category. Named Walkley Awards’ 2019 Student Journalist of the Year, Matilda has also worked as a reporter and assistant chief of staff at 7 News Melbourne and as a breaking news reporter for The Age newspaper. She regularly reports on issues affecting young people, women and mental health and her first book, The Year I Met My Brain, documents her experiences and discoveries after being diagnosed w
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Laura Kate Dale

So, who am I? I've spent the last years as a freelance games critic, written for pretty much every gaming publication under the sun, and have a passion for digging down to the stories PR teams are not eager to talk about.

I love weird little indie games about sex imps living in Anne Hathaway's mouth, big sprawling JRPGs, and serious in depth discussions of the artistic value of video game character buttock designs.

I'm always looking for interesting stories about games, the people making them, and the stories that happened along the way to store shelves. If you've got a hot scoop, drop me an email or hit me up on Twitter.
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Bella Green

Bella Green was a stand-up comedian, writer and sex worker in Melbourne. She got her start in comedy by telling jokes in brothels to anyone who'd listen. She told jokes in some of the best comedy rooms in the country. Her debut stand-up hour, Bella Green is Charging for It, answers all the questions you'd never thought to ask about the adult industry. It was nominated for Best Comedy at the 2018 Melbourne Fringe Festival, and awarded Best Comedy at this year's Adelaide Fringe Festival.
Buy books on Amazon
Will Kostakis

Hi. A teacher-librarian yelled at me to update this, so here goes. Time to talk about myself in the third-person.

Will Kostakis is an absolute delight.

In the past, he has written everything from celebrity news stories that score cease and desist letters, to tweets for professional wrestlers.

Nowadays, he’s best known (but not particularly well known) for his award-winning YA novels.

His first novel, Loathing Lola, was released when he was just nineteen. His second, The First Third, won the 2014 Gold Inky Award. It was also shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year and Australian Prime Minister’s Literary awards, among others. The Sidekicks was his third novel for young adults, and his American debut. It went on
Buy books on Amazon
Leanne Yong

Leanne Yong is an Asian-Australian author of Singaporean and Malaysian heritage who loves writing the diaspora experience into contemporary and fantasy YA fiction. She started her career as an IT business analyst (boring) and is now an escape room creator (much more interesting). She has designed internationally recognised games with her partner that weave unique puzzle mechanics with narrative. She currently resides in Sydney for work, but Brisbane is where her home, family and heart (i.e. her cat) are. TWO CAN PLAY THAT GAME is her debut novel.
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Matilda Boseley

Matilda Boseley is an award-winning social media reporter and presenter for Guardian Australia. She has spearheaded the publication’s popular TikTok channel where she writes and hosts their short-form news explainers. Her work on the platform has won her a Quill Award for Innovation in Journalism and was nominated for a Walkley Award for the same category. Named Walkley Awards’ 2019 Student Journalist of the Year, Matilda has also worked as a reporter and assistant chief of staff at 7 News Melbourne and as a breaking news reporter for The Age newspaper. She regularly reports on issues affecting young people, women and mental health and her first book, The Year I Met My Brain, documents her experiences and discoveries after being diagnosed w
Buy books on Amazon