Lech Blaine is the author of the memoir Car Crash and the Quarterly Essays Top Blokes and Bad Cop. He is the 2023 Charles Perkins Centre writer in residence. His writing has appeared in Good Weekend, Griffith Review, The Guardian and The Monthly. His forthcoming book is Australian Gospel.

Ross King is a renowned expert in the Italian Renaissance. He is the author of numerous bestselling and acclaimed books including The Bookseller of Florence, Brunelleschi's Dome, Machiavelli, Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling and Leonardo and the Last Supper. He lives just outside Oxford.

Author photograph by Stephanie Tuttle

David Marr’s books include Patrick White: A Life, The High Price of Heaven, Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson), Panic, My Country, Killing for Country and six Quarterly Essays. He has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly and The Guardian and been a reporter for Four Corners and presenter of Media Watch and Late Night Live.

George Megalogenis has written three previous Quarterly Essays. His book The Australian Moment won the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Non-fiction and the 2012 Walkley Award for Non-fiction. He is also the author of Faultlines, The Longest Decade, Australia's Second Chance and The Football Solution.