Judith Catherine Green born on 13 February 1936 in Perth, Western Australia. She attended the Ascot State School, Brisbane Girls' Grammar School, gained an Open Scholarship to the University of Queensland where she obtained first class honours in English, received her Master of Arts from Cambridge University. She met her first husband, Fabio Rodriguez while tutoring at Kingston University, Jamaica. They married in 1964 and divorced in 1981. In 1982 she married Thomas Shapcott. She has published numerous volumes of poetry, some illustrated by her own woodcuts. From 1979 to 1982 she was poetry editor for Meanjin and from 1988 to 1997 poetry editor with Penguin Australia. Judith Rodriguez has also co-written the play Poor Johanna with Robyn Archer and her libretto for the opera Lindy was performed at the Sydney Opera House in 2002. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Christopher Brennan Award and in 1994 received the Order of Australia for services to literature. Rodriguez died on 22 November 2018.

David Malouf AO, internationally renowned Australian author, was born in South Brisbane in on 20 March 1934 and is of Lebanese Maronite Catholic, Portuguese Sephardic Jewish and English heritage. He was educated at Brisbane Grammar School and graduated from the University of Queensland in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts. After graduation, he lived in Europe for nearly ten years (1959 – 1968) and worked as a teacher in London and Birkenhead. He returned to Australia in 1968 and lectured in English at Sydney University from 1968 to 1977. In 1991 he was made Doctor of Letters honoris causa by the University of Queensland, having previously been given an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Sydney in 1988. He has spent much of his career as a professional writer splitting his time between Australia and Italy.
His novels include Johnno (1975), An imaginary life (1978), Remembering Babylon (1993) and Ransom (2009). He has also written several volumes of award-winning poetry and short stories as well as regularly contributing to the national and international press.