Visiting authors and illustrators bring much more than just great stories to your school, library or event. They bring a priceless connection between the creator and their readership that inspires and nurtures literacy and writing skills. For audiences of all ages they may also educate, challenge, motivate and entertain.
Speakers Ink strives to promote communication, literacy and confidence and to inspire creative endeavours by engaging audiences with quality literary presenters.
We are a literary speakers' agency of excellence, committed to providing a quality service with professional guidance, support and management for all speaking engagements. We focus on improving all aspects of literacy and in providing opportunities, inspiration, motivation and practical help. We work diligently with every visit organised by Speakers Ink to ensure the best possible outcome.
Speakers Ink can arrange the perfect speaker for your next educational or motivational event. Feel free to browse this site to explore what the Speakers Ink Speakers have to offer!
Sandie Fraser – Director
Sandie is a former bookkeeper/office manager with over 30 years of experience.
She has worked closely with the Founder of Speakers Ink, Helen Bain, for more than 3 years, delivering Speakers Ink's services in Queensland and around Australia. In late 2015, Sandie was thrilled to take on the Director's role.
Sandie has the background and commitment to maintain the high level of customer service for which Speakers Ink is very well known.
Our clients within the schools, festivals, libraries, councils and events wish to find the right speaker for their particular needs and to be sure of fabulous outcomes.
Our Speakers are also our Clients - for whom we are committed to securing bookings - not only locally, but nationally and internationally, to enable the broadest sharing of their important messages.
Sandie is focussed on ensuring Speakers Ink provides these services efficiently and reliably for all concerned.
Our ultimate clients are our Speakers' audiences, and as a base for all else, Sandie is committed to improving literacy in our society through the activities of Speakers Ink. To support this, Speakers Ink holds memberships of societies and strong partnerships with UQ Press, UQ Cyberschool, the State Library of Brisbane, local Councils and many bookshops, with the ongoing support of the Founder, Helen Bain.
Helen Bain - Founder
Helen started her career as a Teacher/Librarian and from there gained experience working as part of Speaker’s agencies around Australia. With this background, Helen built Speakers Ink to provide much needed services ensuring that the key needs of client organisations and Speakers were built into the way the company operates.Under her leadership, Speakers Ink has grown with continual positive feedback received from customers and the broader Industry on the services delivered and the style of communication with all people involved.Helen is recognized and trusted by well over a thousand Client organisations and Speakers around Australia and also globally. She is firmly committed to improving literacy and has active memberships of:
- The Australian Society of Authors
- Book Links (QLD)
- The Brisbane Writers Festival
- The Children’s Book Council of Australia (committee member)
- The English Teachers Association of Queensland
- The School Library Association of Queensland
- SCBWI - Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators.
- The Queensland Writer’s Centre
Helen is now working fewer hours, but is still active behind the scenes assisting with the running of Speakers Ink.
Please feel free to contact SPEAKERS INK with any enquiries or booking requirements throughout the year.
Featured Speakers
Stop Press
Welome to Term 2
Hope that everyone has had a relaxing break.
If you haven't already secured your booking for Book Week, please get in touch - we still have availability for some wonderful speakers.
We look forward to hearing from you soon!
New Releases See all books
Touring Speakers See all tour dates
| Speaker | Location | Tour dates | Book now |
|---|---|---|---|
Perth | 05 May - 15 May 2025 | ||
Brisbane | 16 May - 16 May 2025 | ||
Singapore | 19 May - 21 May 2025 | ||
Melbourne | 25 Jun - 27 Jun 2025 | ||
Newcastle | 01 Jul - 02 Jul 2025 |
What people are saying
We finished Book Week with Author Milly Reynolds and Illustrator Simon Dechon facilitating writing and drawing workshops for an entire day with all K-6 students. The students had a wonderful and informative time learning about the creative process behind creating and publishing a book. A big thank you to Milly and Simon who were so generous with their time and provided such engaging sessions for our students. Thank you again for coming to our school! It was really great to meet you and Milly an [...]
Vikki is engaging and inspirational. She filled the children with enthusiasm and wonder, helping them to think in new ways. She connected her own childhood with her writing, inspiring the children to use their personal experiences in creative ways.
We had six virtual sessions with Chris, spread across two different days. I appreciated that he took on feedback I delivered from the first days sessions and applied this to the latter three sessions. Applying the feedback brought some more structure to the sessions and allowed the students to learn more about Chris and his practice, which showed them why the workshop was relevant and why he was a relevant person to deliver the workshop (as opposed to the same prompts coming from their teachers) [...]
Peter Meares provided the after-dinner address to the fathers [at a Father & Son Literacy Weekend] by reflecting upon his literary and broadcasting experiences throughout his varied professional life. The range of experiences addressed, humour and humility enabled Peter to connect very well with his audience. The fathers were intensely interested in his stories, observations and encounters with sportspeople around the World and the developments that resulted in the authoring of his books.The con [...]
Professional in all interactions. Prompt and friendly communication.
The Narrative Workshops in Year 3/4 conducted by Chrissy Byers were extremely rewarding for students. They were well run and made efficient use of time. The visual prompts used were engaging and made it possible for the students to clearly structure a narrative into beginning, middle and end. To make the writing more interesting and individual, Chrissy endorsed the use of a Hook Question. Most importantly, over the weeks, there was a clear improvement in the outcomes of the children's writin [...]
Justin engaged our students by sharing his stories and the writing process. He was entertaining and has generated interest in reading and writing. Thank you, Justin, for a very successful visit.
Jackie more than met all our expectations. She was very warmly received by the students. She was very entertaining and empowered many of them to read. The students are still talking about her visit. We would certainly recommend Jackie to visit other schools.
It was a pleasure to have Sheryl Gwyther work with our students at The Cathedral School of St Anne and St James in Townsville. Sheryl delivered workshops and presentations to students from years 3 to 9, before guiding our senior students on a three-day writing camp in the rainforest of Paluma. Sheryl's theoretical knowledge of the writing process was exemplary and her ability to use real-world stimuli to inform her work was inspirational. Sheryl was generous with her one-on-one feedback to stude [...]
Kristin Darell’s visit to our school was an absolute highlight! Her energy, warmth and enthusiasm had our students completely captivated and her ability to connect with young readers was truly inspiring. She brought storytelling to life, sharing her journey as an author in a way that was both engaging and encouraging. Our students left the session buzzing with excitement, eager to continue reading her books and even start writing their own stories. It was a fantastic experience that has left a l [...]
I have been very lucky to have Lorraine come to 6 of my little regional schools to take poetry workshops. As a mobile library teacher my role is to teach students the many wonders of literature and hopefully as a consequence instil a love of reading. Lorraine has been a wonderful addition to my program. Lorraine comes with a lifetime of knowledge and several bags of resources! She shares her own wonderful work with classes and has a myriad of simple, achievable poetry techniques to inspire the [...]