Kirsten Tranter is an internationally acclaimed author, editor and critic based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and co-founder of the Stella Prize for Australian women’s writing. She is the author of the novels Hold (2016), longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and the Voss Literary Award, A Common Loss (2012) and The Legacy (2010), a contemporary adaptation of Henry James’ classic Portrait of a Lady.  The Legacy was praised by The Guardian as “a seductive contemporary literary thriller… a knowing, classy debut” and named a Kirkus Review debut novel of the year, as well as being shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal and the ABIA literary fiction award and longlisted for the Miles Franklin award. Kirsten has mentored authors and taught creative writing and literary studies around the world, at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Copenhagen, the University of Technology, Sydney. Her short fiction is widely published in collections including her Edgar Award-nominated story in Sydney Noir (2019). Kirsten enjoys working closely with authors to develop their voice and build on existing strengths, and she is excited to explore the inspirational possibilities of adaptation in a residency workshop setting.

Trisha Pender is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Newcastle, Australia, who has taught courses on adaptations for over a decade. She is the author of I'm Buffy and You're History: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Contemporary Feminism (Bloomsbury 2016) and Early Modern Women's Writing and the Rhetoric of Modesty (Palgrave 2012). Trisha has published a chapbook of poetry, Bibliophilic, (Puncher & Wattmann 2018), featuring adaptations of canonical poets and contemporary pop culture, as well as shorter creative pieces in the literary journals Cordite, Overland, and Southerly. Having recently experienced wonderful writing residencies at the Relais de Camont and Centre Pompadour in France, Trisha is keen to share her literary expertise and project planning skills with a new set of readers and writers.