Maryrose Cuskelly
Maryrose Cuskelly is a writer of fiction and non-fiction.
She is the best-selling author of The Cane (Allen & Uwin 2022), shortlisted for best debut in the 2023 Davitt Awards.
In 2019, her book Wedderburn: A True Tale of Blood and Dust (Allen & Unwin, 2018), was longlisted for Best Debut and Best True Crime in the 2019 Davitt Awards.
In 2016, she was awarded the New England Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing (non-fiction) for her essay on the 1972 abduction and murder of Marilyn Wallman.
She is the author of Original Skin: Exploring the Marvels of the Human Hide (Scribe 2010) and The End of Charity: Time for Social Enterprise (Allen & Unwin 2008) co-written with Nic Frances, and winner of the Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues.
Her
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Christine Gregory
Christine Gregory is an Australian writer of crime and general fiction. An earlier version of The Community, was runner up for the 2022 Banjo Prize. Christine has previously been shortlisted in the Sisters in Crime, Scarlett Stiletto Awards.
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Christine is a former international aid worker and now works as a Director in a national-not for-profit, working on the prevention of violence against women and children. She lives and works in Naarm (Melbourne) with her husband and two children. -
Kirsten Alexander
Kirsten Alexander is the author of three novels: Half Moon Lake (PRH, Australia & NZ, 2019; published as Lost Boy Found by Grand Central/Hachette, US & Canada 2020), Riptides (PRH, 2020) and After the Fall (Ultimo Press, 2025).
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Kirsten has worked as a nonfiction book editor, copywriter (inhouse four years for Aesop, also for Crumpler, M.L. Vintage, House + Universe), and occasional article writer (for the Age, the Daily Beast, Notebook, the Melbourne Weekly, Atticus Review and others). She’s worked as a reviewer for ABC Radio National’s The Book Show, a magazine section editor, and content manager for several websites.
She was co-founder and editor of three-volume digital journal Open Field.
Currently she works as an editor and tutor for the -
Riley James
Riley James lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her partner and two children. She was born and raised in north-west Tasmania and trained as a journalist before becoming an academic. The Chilling is her first novel.
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Fiona Higgins
Fiona Higgins is the author of four novels - An Unusual Boy, Fearless, Wife on the Run and The Mothers’ Group - and a memoir, Love in the Age of Drought. She writes predominantly about contemporary life, with a special interest in intimate relationships, families and the complexities of parenting in the digital age. Her novels have been translated internationally, including in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain and Estonia.
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Outside of writing, Fiona has tertiary qualifications in the humanities, social sciences and Indonesian Studies, and a longstanding involvement in the Australian not-for-profit sector. Over the past twenty years, she has worked with organisations specializing in philanthropy, international development, youth at risk, -
Petronella McGovern
Petronella McGovern writes psychological thrillers focusing on everyday characters and contemporary issues.
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Petronella is fascinated by what makes us tick, the lies we tell, and the secrets we keep. She is the best-selling author of Six Minutes, The Good Teacher, The Liars and The Last Trace. Her books have been nominated in the Ned Kelly Awards, the Davitt Awards and the Australian Independent Bookseller Awards. The Liars was selected in the Top 100 Big W/Better Reading list for 2023.
Petronella grew up in a large family on a farm in New South Wales. Australian landscapes and the bush feature strongly in her stories. Among other adventures, she has worked on a summer camp in America and travelled in eastern Africa which inspired parts of h -
Bruce Nash
I have always written.
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For three decades, I taught English in Secondary Schools throughout Queensland.
I survived.
I now live and write and make habitat on the far south coast of New South Wales, on Djiringanj Country by the shores of Wallaga Lake, with my partner Deborah, our dogs Finnegan and Rupert, numerous chooks, a Satin Bower Bird called Lord Byron, a Diamond Python who shall remain nameless, and numerous Wattlebirds, Lorikeets, Galahs, White-headed Pigeons, Whipbirds, King Parrots, Crimson Rosellas, Black Cockatoos, Eastern Spinebills.......
All the Words We Know is my most recent novel, published by Allen & Unwin in 2024.
My previous novel was The Long River of Cat Fisher, published in 2020 by Australian Scholarly Publishing (Arden -
Maggie Alderson
Maggie Alderson is a British-Australian author (that’s how I’m supposed to write it, but I’m not very good at talking about myself in the third person, so I’m going to can it).
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I was born in London, brought up in rural Staffordshire, and educated at the University of St Andrews - and then at the University of Life, Sydney campus.
I spent many years covering the fashion shows in Paris, Milan, London etc which is the best people watching ever (I had to remind myself to look at the models…).
An obsessed bookworm since childhood, all I wanted to do from the age of six was write books. I also hoovered up every magazine and newspaper I could lay my hands on and by the time I was a teenager was determined to edit a magazine and be a newspaper colu -
Polly Phillips
Polly is originally from South West London but after visiting Australia in 2011, she fell head over heels for the lifestyle, even though she doesn’t drink coffee and rarely goes to the beach! Polly currently lives in Perth with her husband, daughter and much-loved dog. My Best Friend’s Murder won the writing prize at the Emirates Literature Festival and is her debut novel. She hopes that after they read it, her friends will still be talking to her…
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Mark Smith
Mark Smith lives on the west coast of Victoria, Australia, He is the author of four novels: The Road To Winter, Wilder Country, Land of Fences and If Not Us (all Text Publishing). Wilder Country won the 2018 Australian Indie Book Award for YA. Mark is also an award winning writer of short fiction. He is the co-curator of Mind Went Walking, The Songs of Paul Kelly Reimagined and Into Your Arms, The Songs of Nick Cave Reimagined (both Fremantle Press). HIs first adult novel will be published by Pan Macmillan in January 2025
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Ella Baxter
Ella Baxter is a writer and artist living on unceded land of the Wurundjeri people. She is the author of New Animal, which was shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, and was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the Matt Richell Award for New Writers.
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Kate Horan
Author | Domestic Suspense
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I write stories about complicated families with dark secrets. -
Dave Warner
Dave Warner is the author of fourteen crime novels, including the winner of the 1996 WA Premier’s Award for Fiction (City of Light) and the 2016 Ned Kelly winner of Best Australian Crime Fiction (Before it Breaks). He has also written a children's book series and seven non-fiction titles, and screenwritten for film and TV.
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Dave Warner originally gained national recognition as a musician-songwriter in the late 1970s with Bob Dylan referring to Dave and Richard Clapton as his “favourite Australian artists”.
As early as 1973 Dave had formed Australia’s first punk band, Pus, playing early versions of tracks such as Suburban Boy and Hot Crotch which he was later to record with Dave Warner’s from the Suburbs. In 1975, Dave went to London and wrot -
Bronwyn Rivers
Bronwyn Rivers grew up in Newcastle, Australia with the mystery-novel gateway drugs of The Famous Five and Trixie Belden, before developing a solid addiction to Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and PD James. She moved to the UK to take a doctorate at the University of Oxford on nineteenth-century women’s novels, and was an academic researcher and book reviewer in England and Australia.
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Bronwyn now lives in Sydney with her husband and two children. -
Fiona Hardy
Fiona Hardy is a bookseller (and was in fact shortlisted for ABA Young Bookseller of the Year in 2017). She is a reviewer published in Books+Publishing, The Big Issue, and Readings Monthly, and was a committee member of the Australian Crime Writers Association, which organises the Ned Kelly Awards. Her short fiction has been published in The Big Issue Fiction Edition 2017, Gargouille, and other journals; her short story 'Green Thumbs' won the 2024 Scarlet Stiletto HQ Best Thriller Prize.
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Her first book, 'How to Make a Movie in Twelve Days', was longlisted for the ABIA and Indie Book Awards, and was a CBCA Notable Book for 2020. Her second book, 'How to Write the Soundtrack to Your Life', won the 2021 Children's Peace Literature Award. -
Christine Gregory
Christine Gregory is an Australian writer of crime and general fiction. An earlier version of The Community, was runner up for the 2022 Banjo Prize. Christine has previously been shortlisted in the Sisters in Crime, Scarlett Stiletto Awards.
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Christine is a former international aid worker and now works as a Director in a national-not for-profit, working on the prevention of violence against women and children. She lives and works in Naarm (Melbourne) with her husband and two children. -
Debra Oswald
Debra Oswald is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist. She is a two-time winner of the NSW Premier's Literary Award and author of the novels Useful (2015), The Whole Bright Year (2018) and The Family Doctor (2021). She was creator/head writer of the first five seasons of the successful TV series Offspring.
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Her stage plays have been performed around the world and published by Currency Press. Gary's House, Sweet Road and The Peach Season were all shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award. Debra has also written four plays for young audiences—Dags, Skate, Stories in the Dark and House on Fire. She has written three Aussie Bites books and six children's novels, including The Redback Leftovers.
Her television credits include award-winning -
Margaret Hickey
Margaret Hickey is an award-winning author and playwright from North East Victoria. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and is deeply interested in rural lives and communities. She is the author of Cutters End and Stone Town.
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Bronwyn Rivers
Bronwyn Rivers grew up in Newcastle, Australia with the mystery-novel gateway drugs of The Famous Five and Trixie Belden, before developing a solid addiction to Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and PD James. She moved to the UK to take a doctorate at the University of Oxford on nineteenth-century women’s novels, and was an academic researcher and book reviewer in England and Australia.
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Bronwyn now lives in Sydney with her husband and two children. -
Jane Caro
Jane Caro wears many hats; including author, lecturer, mentor, social commentator, columnist, workshop facilitator, speaker, broadcaster and award-winning advertising writer. Jane runs her own communications consultancy and lectures in Advertising Creative at The School of Communication Arts at UWS. She has published three books: The Stupid Country: How Australia is dismantling public education co-authored with Chris Bonnor (2007), The F Word. How we learned to swear by feminism co-authored with Catherine Fox (2008), and Just a Girl (UQP, 2011). She has also appeared on Channel 7’s Sunrise, ABC’s Q&A and ABC’s The Gruen Transfer.
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Kylie Ladd
Kylie Ladd is a novelist and freelance writer. Her essays and articles have appeared in The Age, Griffith Review, O Magazine, The Sydney Morning Herald, Good Medicine, Kill Your Darlings, The Hoopla and MamaMia, among others. Kylie's first novel, After the Fall , was published in Australia, the US and Turkey, while her second, Last Summer, was highly commended in the 2011 Federation of Australian Writers Christina Stead Award for fiction. Her previous books are Naked: Confessions of Adultery and Infidelity and Living with Alzheimer's and Other Dementias. Kylie’s third novel, Into My Arms, has been selected as one of Get Reading’s Fifty Books You Can’t Put Down for 2013. She holds a PhD in neuropsychology, and lives in Melbourne, Australia,
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Fleur McDonald
After growing up on a farm near Orroroo in South Australia, Fleur McDonald’s first job was jillarooing in the outback. She has been involved in agriculture all her life, including helping manage a 8000-acre station for twenty years. Today Fleur and her energetic kelpie, Jack, live in Esperance, Western Australia,
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Fleur is the author of 23 bestselling novels and two children's books.
Fleur chats about her daily writing life on her blog http://fleurmcdonald.com,
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Instagram @fleurmcdonald
Tiktok @fleurmcdonaldauthor -
Hannah Tunnicliffe
Hannah Tunnicliffe is the author of several books for kids and adults including The Pool, The Colour of Tea, Season of Salt and Honey, A French Wedding and the trilingual picture book, Marjory and the Mouse. She is the co-creator of the Detective Stanley series published by Flying Eye Books. Her work has featured in the New York Times Book Review and she is the founder and host of the body acceptance podcast, Bod Almighty. She is an eating disorder survivor, career and youth counsellor and holds a degree in social sciences and psychology.
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Michael Brissenden
Michael Brissenden is an author and journalist. His first book of fiction – ‘The List’ was published in 2017 and ‘Dead Letters’ 2021 also features the Federal investigator Sidney Allen.
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'Smoke' was published in June 2024 and his new book 'Dust' is published in September 2025.
Michael was a journalist with the ABC for 35 years. He was posted to Moscow, Brussels and Washington and worked in Canberra for many years in various roles – including as the Political Editor for the daily television current affairs program – the 7.30 Report, as the ABC’s defence and security correspondent and as the presenter of the ‘AM’ Current Affairs program on ABC radio. From 2017 to 2021 he was a reporter with the ABC’s investigative television documentary program -
Mary-Lou Stephens
Mary-Lou Stephens was born in Tasmania, studied acting at The Victorian College of the Arts and played in bands in Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney. Eventually she got a proper job - in radio, where she was a presenter and music director, first with commercial radio and then with the ABC.
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She received rave reviews for her memoir Sex, Drugs and Meditation (2013), the true story of how meditation changed her life, saved her job and helped her find a husband.
Mary-Lou has worked and played all over Australia and now travels the world slowly and writes, mostly.
Her debut novel The Last of the Apple Blossom was published by HarperCollins (HQ) in 2021.
The Chocolate Factory (HarperCollins HQ) 2024.
The Jam Maker (HarperCollins HQ) 2025
Praise for The Choco -
Mark Smith
Mark Smith lives on the west coast of Victoria, Australia, He is the author of four novels: The Road To Winter, Wilder Country, Land of Fences and If Not Us (all Text Publishing). Wilder Country won the 2018 Australian Indie Book Award for YA. Mark is also an award winning writer of short fiction. He is the co-curator of Mind Went Walking, The Songs of Paul Kelly Reimagined and Into Your Arms, The Songs of Nick Cave Reimagined (both Fremantle Press). HIs first adult novel will be published by Pan Macmillan in January 2025
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Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Ashley Kalagian Blunt is an author, speaker and podcaster. Her number one bestselling psychological thriller, Dark Mode, was published in Australia/NZ, the UK, South Korea and Germany. It was shortlisted for the 2024 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year, the Ned Kelly Awards and the Danger Awards.
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Her latest thrillers are Cold Truth and Like, Follow, Die.
She has two earlier books, How to Be Australian, a memoir, and My Name Is Revenge, a thriller novella and collected essays. Her writing appears widely across Australian and international publications.
Ashley is a frequent speaker and panel moderator, and co-hosts James and Ashley Stay at Home, a podcast about writing, creativity and health. She has taught creative writing across Austr -
Kate Horan
Author | Domestic Suspense
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I write stories about complicated families with dark secrets. -
Cassie Hamer
Cassie Hamer has a professional background in journalism and PR, but now much prefers the world of fiction over fact. She has published four novels, which focus on the dark side of suburbia.
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Cassie lives in Sydney with her terrific husband, three, mostly-terrific daughters, and a labradoodle, Charlie, who is the least demanding member of the family. In between making school lunches and walking the dog, Cassie is also working on her next novel but always has time to connect with other passionate readers via her website – CassieHamer.com – or through social media.
You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. -
Fiona Hardy
Fiona Hardy is a bookseller (and was in fact shortlisted for ABA Young Bookseller of the Year in 2017). She is a reviewer published in Books+Publishing, The Big Issue, and Readings Monthly, and was a committee member of the Australian Crime Writers Association, which organises the Ned Kelly Awards. Her short fiction has been published in The Big Issue Fiction Edition 2017, Gargouille, and other journals; her short story 'Green Thumbs' won the 2024 Scarlet Stiletto HQ Best Thriller Prize.
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Her first book, 'How to Make a Movie in Twelve Days', was longlisted for the ABIA and Indie Book Awards, and was a CBCA Notable Book for 2020. Her second book, 'How to Write the Soundtrack to Your Life', won the 2021 Children's Peace Literature Award. -
Michelle Prak
Coming in April 2025: BARREN CAPE.
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Michelle Prak's debut thriller THE RUSH was published by Simon & Schuster ANZ; Crooked Lane Books (US); and by HarperCollins France, as LE DELUGE. It's a road trip thrill ride that takes place over two frantic days.
THE RUSH was voted into Better Reading's annual Top 100 reads (2024), and longlisted in the Sisters of Crime Australia Davitt Awards.
Also a short story writer, Michelle was runner-up in the Furphy Literary Prize, 2021.
Between 2019 and 2020, Michelle self-published three women's contemporary novels. Now she's turned to the thriller genre and hopes fans will follow along.
Long before Michelle began writing professionally she was a reader and continues to share on Goodreads.
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Bruce Nash
I have always written.
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For three decades, I taught English in Secondary Schools throughout Queensland.
I survived.
I now live and write and make habitat on the far south coast of New South Wales, on Djiringanj Country by the shores of Wallaga Lake, with my partner Deborah, our dogs Finnegan and Rupert, numerous chooks, a Satin Bower Bird called Lord Byron, a Diamond Python who shall remain nameless, and numerous Wattlebirds, Lorikeets, Galahs, White-headed Pigeons, Whipbirds, King Parrots, Crimson Rosellas, Black Cockatoos, Eastern Spinebills.......
All the Words We Know is my most recent novel, published by Allen & Unwin in 2024.
My previous novel was The Long River of Cat Fisher, published in 2020 by Australian Scholarly Publishing (Arden -
Sarah Clutton
Sarah Clutton is an Australian author and former lawyer who writes contemporary fiction full of drama, suspense and humour. Having majored in psychology in her original degree, she is fascinated by people. How does the past shape us? What determines the outcomes when moral and legal boundaries collide? Are the adults really always right?
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Sarah's work saw her named as the national recipient of the Dymocks/Fiona McIntosh Commercial Fiction Scholarship in 2018. Her next book, The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains is published by Allen & Unwin and will be on the shelves in 2025. She lives with her family in the beautiful Southern Highlands of New South Wales in the tiny, historic village of Berrima. The region is famous for the International Cri -
Shelley Burr
Shelley Burr works at the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment in Canberra, Australia. She grew up splitting her time between Newcastle and Glenrowan, where her father's family are all sheep farmers.
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Ali Lowe
Ali Lowe is the author of bestselling novels The Trivia Night, The Running Club, The School Run and The Private Island. Ali is a journalist by profession: she was Features Editor at OK! in London and has written widely for magazines, websites and newspapers. She has dual Australian and British citizenship and lives in Sydney with her family. Follow Ali on Instagram @ali_lowe_author
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Riley James
Riley James lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her partner and two children. She was born and raised in north-west Tasmania and trained as a journalist before becoming an academic. The Chilling is her first novel.
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Lee Christine
Lee is the author of four crime novels with romantic elements published with Allen and Unwin.
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Lee's best-selling Snowy Mountains series Charlotte Pass, Crackenback and Dead Horse Gap were published in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively. Charlotte Pass won the Australian Romance Readers Association award for Favourite Romantic Suspense in 2020. Lee's latest crime novel Glenrock, published in 2024, is set in Lee's hometown of Newcastle.
Prior to her shift into crime writing, Lee wrote six romantic suspense novels published with Harlequin Australia’s Escape Publishing.
Lee loves connecting with her readers and has appeared on a panel at the Newcastle Writer’s Festival, Lake Macquarie Libraries Write Here! Festival, and the Mount Beauty Writer's Fe -
Tony Wilson
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Nin Mok
Author of 𝙎𝙪𝙙𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙎𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙎𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡: 𝙁𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙅𝙤𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙈𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙄𝙡𝙡𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨.
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Inspiring and heartfelt memoir, told with honesty and humor, demonstrates the power of reframing adversity when one’s situation cannot be changed. A sudden medical trauma forces a young executive's driven lifestyle to a standstill, sparking profound introspection on life’s meaning and purpose.
—"𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦" Maria Victoria Beltran
—"𝘈 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘵. 𝘐 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦" Asher Syed
—"𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨" Emma Megan