Director Mike Mullins grew up in The Rock, New South Wales, southwest of Wagga Wagga and started his career as an actor and director at the Wagga School of Arts. After spending a year in Poland with director Jerzy Grotowski he found his niche in performance art. Mullins is known for his Lone Anzac performance art in the 1980s where he walked the streets wrapped in bandages: he was arrested for one such performance on Australia Day in 1981 due to its republican sentiments. Mullins was the founder of The Performance Space in Redfern in 1982. In 1984 he spent three weeks in a cage at Taronga Zoo as a Human Exhibit. In 1988 he was the Artistic Director and Producer for the Light Fantastic Parade at Expo 88 in Brisbane, Queensland. In 2013, to celebrate the 25 year anniversary of Expo 88, Mullins curated Light Fantastic Parade : Expo 88 Parades Rewired at the Museum of Brisbane where he was guest curator (2012-2013). He was the Venue Manager at Arts House, City of Melbourne from 2006 to 2014. In 2016 Mullins received the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the performing arts.

Peter Carey, author, was born on 7 May 1943 at Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. He was educated at Bacchus Marsh State School from 1948 to 1953, then boarded at Geelong Grammar from 1954 to 1960. Carey enrolled in organic chemistry and zoology at Monash University in 1961 but after a car crash that same year he ended his schooling and worked as an office clerk and executive assistant for a Melbourne advertising agency. He wrote fiction at night and weekends and in 1974 was successful in getting his first work published. This was the short story collection The fat man in history. In 1980 he and Bani McSpedden opened McSpedden Carey Advertising. Carey sold his share of the business in 1990 and moved to New York. He has lived in Melbourne, London, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Yandina (Queensland), Bellingen (New South Wales) and New York. Carey has been awarded honorary degrees and has won numerous literary awards.