Our Team

EDITOR: Di Bates

Founding editor of Buzz Words (2006) and author of many books for children, Dianne (Di) Bates makes a living from full-time writing. Some of Di’s books have sold overseas in translation; others have won state and national literary awards, including two children’s book choice awards. Di is an avid reader and over the years has reviewed many books for a wide variety of literary magazines. She is a recipient of the Lady Cutler Award for Services to Children's Literature and the founder of the website Australian Children’s Poetry.

REVIEWERS:

Buzz Words reviewers are active members of the children’s book community. They are all volunteers and may be writers, illustrators, teachers, librarians or parents. Above all, they share a love of children's and young adult books. Meet the Buzz Words’ reviewing team.

Dannielle Viera                                                                                                                                  

Dannielle has been involved in the Australian publishing industry for over 20 years, first as a copywriter and then as an editor, project manager, proof-reader and author. She has worked on more than 70 printed books and has written about subjects as varied as the history of Christianity, Native American mythology, vampires, knights and the death of Hollywood film stars. Some of the books for which she is credited as a contributor include Outside in Takes a Stab (2018), From Quarantine to Q Station (2016) and How to Act Like a Champagne Expert (2013). Her first love, however, has always been children’s books, and she has written stories for young children for many years (with an increase in inspiration since the birth of her two daughters). She is listed as an Emerging Author on the Creative Kids Tales website, and her children’s story entitled ‘The Tree’ has been shortlisted for the ZineWest 2018 awards.  

Kylie Buckley                                                                                                                                     

Kylie is an avid reader and full time Primary School Teacher. She is passionate about children’s literacy and developing a book-loving culture at her school. Besides teaching her class, she particularly enjoys coordinating whole-school reading events such as Book Week, author visits and the Premiers’ Reading Challenge. In her spare time Kylie likes running, playing tennis, drinking wine and eating cheese.

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Karen Hendriks

Karen is an emerging children’s writer and is passionate about children’s literacy. In April,
2019 Karen established the Shellharbour Children’s Writers and Illustrators at Shellharbour
City Library. She is a moderator for the Creative Kids Tales site which supports fellow
creatives.

Karen has many short stories published both online and in books. This includes The Toy
Chest Anthology (2018), It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas Anthology, 2018, The
Creative Kids Tales Story Collection (2018) and Things That Go Bump and Enchanted, a flip
book Anthology (2019) and Spooktacular Stories (2019).

Feathers is Karen’s picture book being published by Empowering Resources (2020). Go
Away, Foxy Foxy will be released in August (2020) and is being published by Daisy Lane
Publishing. This is being followed by Home, a picture book story being released in April
(2022), also published by Daisy Lane Publishing.

Kellie Nissen

Kellie taught mainstream, Japanese and EAL/D in primary schools for 25 years (longer than a life sentence) and now runs her own freelance editing and coaching business. She is a long-time member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), The Duck Pond and Creative Kids Tales, and sits on the committee for the Australian Literacy Educator’s Association (ALEA) and the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) ACT branch.

 

Passionate about the quality teaching of literacy, Kellie writes curriculum-aligned teaching notes for a range of books and runs a small, boutique speaker’s agency servicing Canberra schools.

 

Kellie is an aspiring author with a love for both children’s literature and bone-chilling paranormal ‘fiction’. She has published several short stories and has just completed an autofiction work that, as an ex-teacher, she hopes will blow the wind up the education industry when it comes to their treatment of children on the autism spectrum. She is currently in the thick of another memoir where she has long conversations with Cancer and its minions and is working on retrieving a host of picture book manuscripts from the abyss.

 

You can follow Kellie on Instagram @justrightwords or find out more on her website https://justrightwords.com.au/

Sarah Tegerdine

Sarah Tegerdine is a writer, reviewer and aspiring author for children and adults. So far, she has had work published in Share your Story Anthologies, 'Tell'em They're Dreaming - Bedtime Ballads and Tall Tales from the Australian Bush' 2020, and later this year 'It's a kind of Magic: Short Stories by Second Rate Sorcerers'. In 2021 a Sci Fi short story called 'The Butterfly Age' was selected for the Rainforest Writers Retreat (RWR) anthology 'Short Stories of Science and Space'. Sarah has also spent time as an online writer for Supanova Comic Con and Gaming, a reviewer for Beauty and Lace online magazine and for her local bookshop Sandy Pages Noosa until it ceased trading. Sarah is an avid reader and passionate about story, a keeper of journals and a dedicated pop culture nerd.  When she is not wrangling her young family, she can nearly always be found daydreaming or drafting magical story ideas.

 

You can find Sarah at www.facebook.com/SarahTegerdine-Author

Debra Williams

Debra Williams (Debra Clewer, author) resides in far North-West Tasmania. She moved there in 2020 after a lifetime in Sydney and country NSW.  Debra has 3 Middle-Grade time travel historical fiction novels independently published (The Harriet Series), with the 4^th Harriet adventure currently under construction.

 She has children’s stories published in 5 anthologies, along with several short (mostly adult) stories published online on the UK-based Reedsy site.

In 2022, Debra released her first chapter book, Ah-Fur, Super Sleuth: The Case of the Missing Moggies. Two more chapter book manuscripts are completed and awaiting a home. Debra’s secondary interest is in creating custom-made puppets, particularly for other authors. She can be found at: https://www.clewerbooknook.com  and https://www.facebook.com/DClewerauthor.

Susan Hancy

Susan develops digital software in her day job and is an aspiring writer at night. She loves language and being a lifelong learner. She has taught English as a second language, speaks Dutch at home with her partner and young twins and is currently learning Italian. Her favourite thing to do since she was a little girl is to READ READ READ, especially when she gets to share the special magic in children’s books with her kids. Her second favourite thing to do is swim and she’ll jump in a pool, ocean, lake or river regardless of the temperature. She also has a knack for numbers and is Treasurer of the CBCA Northern Sydney Sub-Branch.

You can follow Susan on Instagram @hancypancybooks.

Robin Gillies

Robyn has been a professional writer and editor specialising in government, business and the

not-for-profit sector. She is now semi-retired. Robyn is a beta reader for an Australian

publishing business, which she has been doing for the last several years. Robyn has worked

in various roles, including as a lecturer, careers counsellor in higher education, and

schoolteacher. She loves travelling to meet people and experience different cultures. She

spent eight months teaching English in Chile. Growing up, she was known as the girl who

was always reading and would walk to the local library independently at a very young age.

She still enjoys reading and writing children’s stories. She is a member of IPED, the ASA,

and The Duck Pond and subscribes to various Kidlit newsletters. She has had a poem

published in the children’s magazine The Toy. Keep trying and every step is progress are

some of her personal mantras.

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Jude Mullen

Jude has a passion for children’s literature. In her roles as a teacher and then an education

officer for student wellbeing, specialising in children’s social and emotional development,

Jude recognises the power that books have in helping young people explore and

understand themselves and their world, as well as in fostering a lifelong love of reading.

As an emerging children’s author, Jude writes stories to delight kids - to make them

laugh, take them on adventures, and spark their imaginations. Her first picture book

Jeffery’s Dress was published in 2021. She has also had several shorts stories published,

for both children and adults.

Jude is active in the children’s writing community. She is a member of the CBCA,

Booklinks Queensland, Girl and Duck, ASA, Writing NSW, and the Hunter Writers

Centre, and has been a judge for the children’s writing competition ‘Tell Me a Story’ four

times.

Jude’s best friend is her imagination. It takes her to the most amazing places and lets her

do whatever she wants – including eating chocolate for breakfast!

Rebecca Fung

Rebecca is a Sydney-based children’s author. Her short stories have appeared in The School

Magazine and anthologies published by Christmas Press. Her chapter books include Princess

Hayley's Comet (Christmas Press, 2018) and A Very Special Moon Mission (Christmas Press,

2022). Her latest children's novel is Septopus (Owltitude Press, 2024). She loves owls,

mandarins and chocolates and can often be found curled up on the sofa with her face in a

book.

Sylvia Forbes

Sylvias love for picture books grew after reading hundreds of them to her son when he was

young and observing the deep connections he made with his favourites. There was one that

had to be read to him three to four times every night for months.  She got to see first-hand

the power of picture books and the important role they play in a child's developing

awareness of self, others and the world around them.

Along with the honour and joy of being a mother and raising a child, Sylvia spent many years

working closely with groups of children, teaching, choreographing, and preparing them for

school musicals and end-of-year concerts. Being essentially a big kid herself, she found it

easy to be in their company and feels she learnt as much from them as they did from her.

After completing a course in Professional Writing for Children, Sylvia spent several years

honing and refining her writerly voice. Once she was brave enough, she began entering

some of her stories into competitions and earned a few writing credits.  She refers to

competitions as being the best tutorials for learning and improving her writing skills.

Sylvia is currently writing her first Middle-Grade novel.