John Manifold, poet, was born in Melbourne and educated at Geelong Church of England Grammar School and Jesus College, Cambridge, where he became a member of the Communist Party. During the Second World War, he served in the British Army's Intelligence Corps in Africa and Western Europe. After the war he moved back to London before returning to Australia in 1949, settling in Wynnum, Brisbane. Manifold established the Realist Writers group in 1950, and was involved in a number of communist-associated groups, including the Communist Arts Group. As well as publishing poetry, he wrote non-fiction on various themes, notably Australian bush ballads which he collected and was particularly interested in.

Kathleen Kinkead Watson was born on 13 January 1911 in Brisbane. She won an open scholarship to University of Queensland to study Arts when it was located in George Street. She joined the Communist Party in 1940 and was politically active in the labour movement from the 1940s. She worked in the trade union movement including for the Union of Australian Women in fighting for equal pay. She married Harvey Alfred Pete Thomas and it is by her married name - Kath Thomas - that she is most remembered. Throughout the 1970s Watson continued preparing submissions to the Federal Government on the role and status of women. She wrote poetry into the 1980s. She died on 3 October 1994.