Ray Norris and Bruce Pascoe: Big Sky

Bruce Pascoe has published widely in both adult and young adult literature. He has won numerous awards, including the Children’s Book Council of Australia Eve Pownall Award for Young Dark Emu (Magabala Books 2019), New South Wales Premier’s Book of the Year Award in 2016 for Dark Emu (Magabala Books 2014) and the Prime Minister’s Literature Award for Young Adult fiction for Fog a Dox (Magabala Books 2012) in 2013.

In 2018 Bruce was awarded the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. He has worked as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, fencing contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker and editor. 

Bruce is a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man, and currently lives on his farm in Gippsland, Victoria.

Ray Norris is an astrophysicist who has spent his life trying to figure out how the Universe evolved from the Big Bang to the present day, including mysteries such as the Black Holes at the centres of galaxies. For the past 20 years he has studied the astronomy of Indigenous Australians and is fascinated by their many intellectual achievements as they sought to understand their Universe, and the way that astronomy is deeply intertwined with culture. The more he learns about Aboriginal astronomy, the more he realises that it will take another lifetime to truly appreciate it.

Rachel Withers is a freelance writer and commentator living on unceded Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Country. Rachel has written for Crikey, Meanjin, The Age, The Saturday Paper and The Monthly, where she was awarded Mumbrella’s “2021 Columnist of the Year” for her newsletter, The Politics. She is passionate about independent media, and has spent the last few years co-hosting RRR's Spin Cycle, as well as a recent stint filling in on Breakfasters.