The 2015 Emerging Writers’ Festival kicks off tonight with their Opening Night Extravaganza (featuring must-see guest speaker, Emily St. John Mandel). Here are ten debut Australian authors we’re looking forward to seeing at this year’s festival.

Ellen van Neerven, author of Heat and Light

Ellen van Neerven is a writer of Mununjali and Dutch heritage. She belongs to the Yugambeh people of the Gold Coast and Scenic Rim. She won the David Unaipon Award for an Unpublished Indigenous Writer in the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards.

See her at: #writingwhilefemale

Rebecca Starford, author of Bad Behaviour: A Memoir of Bullying and Boarding School

Rebecca Starford is the co-founder and publishing director of Kill Your Darlings, and an editor at Text Publishing. She was a founding member of the Stella Prize steering committee. TV rights to her debut memoir have been optioned by director Pip Karmel and Amanda Higgs.

See her at: Freelancing for Life Masterclass

Eli Glasman, author of The Boy’s Own Manual To Be Being A Proper Jew

Eli Glasman is a Melbourne-based author. In 2013 he was placed second in the Josephine Ulrick short story competition.

See him at: The National Writers’ Conference 2015

Miles Allinson, author of Fever of Animals

Miles Allinson is a writer and an artist. Fever of Animals won the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript. He works as a bookseller for Readings St Kilda.

See him at: The Long and Winding Road to Getting Published

Abigail Ulman, author of Hot Little Hands

Abigail Ulman was born and raised in Melbourne. She has a Bachelor of Creative Arts from the University of Melbourne/VCA and was a recent Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University

See her at: Late Night Lit – Kill Your Darlings: Nerds Gone Wild

Jane Harrison, author of Becoming Kirrali Lewis

Jane Harrison is an indigenous Australian playwright, novelist, writer and researcher. Becoming Kirrali Lewis won the State Library of Queensland 2014 black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship.

See her at: black&write!: Coming of Age

Emily Bitto, author of The Strays

Emily Bitto was the winner of the 2015 Stella Prize for her debut novel, The Strays. In her spare time, she runs a bar called Heartattack and Vine.

See her at: #writingwhilefemale

Luke Ryan, author of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Chemo

Luke Ryan is a Melbourne-based writer, comedian and two-time cancer survivor. His first book grew out of his critically acclaimed 2009 Melbourne Comedy Festival show, Luke’s Got Cancer.

See him at: Freelancing for Life Masterclass

Eliza Henry-Jones, author of In the Quiet

Eliza Henry-Jones has qualifications in English, psychology and grief, loss and trauma counselling. She lives in the Dandenong Ranges with her husband and too many animals.

See her at: The National Writers’ Conference 2015

Chris Somerville, author of We are Not the Same Anymore

Chris Somerville is a writer and teacher from Tasmania. We are Not the Same Anymore was shortlisted for the Steele Rudd award in 2013 and one of the stories was included in Black Inc’s Best Australian Stories anthologies.

See him at: Late Night Lit – Kill Your Darlings: Nerds Gone Wild