The Boroondara Literary Awards 2024 judging panel is comprised of Australian authors and poets.
Young writers prose – Davina Bell
Davina Bell is an award-winning author of books for young people from babies to teens. Her bestselling picture books include All the Ways To Be Smart, What To Say When You're Not Sure What to Say, All of the Factors of Why I Love Tractors and Under the Love Umbrella. Her debut Young Adult novel, The End of the World Is Bigger Than Love, won the CBCA Book of the Year for Older Readers and the NSW Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young Adult Literature, as well as being shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award.
Previously a children's book editor and publisher, Davina now writes full time in Melbourne, where she can be found with her toddler, watching out the window for hot-air balloons each dawn and drinking a lot of coffee.
Open – Katherine Kovacic
Katherine Kovacic is the award-winning author of many short stories and books, including the Alex Clayton art mysteries and the TV-to-page adaptation of Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries.
In 2023 Katherine’s non-fiction book, Australia’s Dogs, a celebration of the dog in Australian life, was published by the National Library of Australia.
Her latest thriller, Seven Sisters (HarperCollins Australia) was shortlisted for a Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction and will be released in the USA and China this year.
You can connect with Katherine on Instagram or find out more at www.katherinekovacic.com.
Young writers poetry – Grace Yee
Grace Yee is the author of Chinese Fish, winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier's Poetry Award in 2024.
Her poetry has been widely published and anthologised across Australia and internationally, and has been awarded the Patricia Hackett Prize, the Peter Steele Poetry Award and a Creative Fellowship at the State Library Victoria.
Grace has taught in the Writing and Literature Program at Deakin University, and in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Melbourne, where she completed a PhD on settler Chinese women's storytelling in Aotearoa New Zealand.
