Scriptwriters & Screenwriters
Maura Pierlot
Maura is an award-winning Canberra-based author, playwright and filmmaker who creates across art forms for children and adults. Her latest Picture Storybook, Alphabetter, published in 2024 by Affirm Press, is an A to Z of Building Character. It showcases character traits in a positive sense as ways to be, gently supporting the element of agency and choice and active learning. By using real life examples the book presents easy to understand concepts in a holistic manner that helps children explore who they are, and who they would like to be, in a safe and supportive manner. This book is a unique and timely resource that makes character-building a fun, accessible and rewarding exercise at home, in the classroom and in life. It's a great stepping stone to ethical understanding and deliberation. Maura is working on a new picture storybook text which has been acquired for publication.
Maura's acclaimed play, Fragments, has been adapted as a hybrid young adult fiction novel and award-winning web series, and is also a feature-length film that toured festivals in Australia and overseas. Maura has a Ph.D. in philosophy and has worked as an ethicist, business owner and Editor of Australian Medicine.
Praise for Alphabetter:
''Written by Philosophy and ethics scholar Maura Pierlot, ALPHABETTER takes readers on a journey through the alphabet empowering them with words and behabviours around developing a growth mindset - from 'engaged' and 'inclusive' to 'loyal' and 'selfless'....''
Karys McEwen, Review in Books+Publishing
Praise for Fragments, the play:
"Fragments…. gives audiences a multi-sensory, embodied experience of what it’s like to be a teenager in distress….. It’s an effective exploration of not quite being able to communicate effectively, and what happens when those around you can’t quite see your reality under fake smiles and photoshopped selfies…..And despite the angst, the script also contains moments of genuine humour, of wit, and of hope. "
Erin Stewart, Review in Arts Hub
Praise for Fragments: Journeys from Isolation to Connection, the book (2nd Edition):
"Fragments offers a raw, authentic glimpse into the lives and struggles of young people. The play and web series are essential experiences for any young person searching for the light at the end of their tunnel, and a literary space where they can exist as more than just a fragment."
Jade Breen, Review in Reading Time, 2023
Patricia Johnson
Patricia Johnson has been a trail-blazer for women script writers. Her early work as a journalist, in Sydney, then London and Madrid nourished her talent for writing 'true' stories. Her original work for stage and screen has been inspired by real events and her fictional characters interpret these events. Her receipt, as yet unpublished and unproduced, work includes a novel in which the central character is an 8-year-old boy who is a Ward of the State in Queensland, as well as several scripts including a screenplay, Tessie, for a Feature about cloning, science and the Tasmanian Tiger.
Patricia's first full-length stage play, Gladbags, was praised by the Sydney Sunday Telegraph: The playwright's characters are sharply perceived and deftly drawn ... and unforgettably funny; and the Perth Western Mail: Deliriously funny. The success of this play led to Patricia's appointment as the STC's writer in residence, in 1984, where she wrote And the Best Man Makes Three. The Sydney Morning Herald said: "And the Best Man Makes Three" will be one of the most memorable productions of the season. Her script is exemplary. She offers two wonderfully original characters, carefully observed and generously conceived. The dialogue is sparse, purposeful and idiomatic. It is a thoughtful, funny and gently profound play.
Heather Nimmo
Scriptwriter and Non Fiction Writer
Heather wrote Grasping at Shadows: Balfour the mining town in the Tarkine for the Circular Head Historical Society.
Heather Nimmo’s engaging book is a chain of reminiscences as well as the story of the swift rise and fall of the gallant mining field called Balfour. Of the hundreds of books on the history of our mining fields, this is the only one I know which so neatly combines these two ingredients of history and memoir.
~ Professor Geoffrey Blainey
Heather was born in the UK and immigrated to Australia with her family as a child. She grew up and attended school and university in Adelaide and before settling in Perth, lived in several isolated places around Australia through her involvement in the mining industry. She is at present living with her husband in Adelaide.
Kevin Nemeth
Scriptwriter and Children's Author
Kevin Nemeth is a popular and award winning scriptwriter with over 25 year experience in the industry. He has been awarded five Australian Writers' Guild Awards and has received another nine nominations. He graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Diploma in Dramatic Arts and has received an Australia Council Literature Board Fellowship. Nemeth's first children's picture storybook will be published in 2025.