Judges
2026 Stella Prize Judges
Sophie Gee is inaugural Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Sydney, co-leading the Campus Collaboration initiative, amplifying public trust in university communities and academic knowledge. Her focus is on the social impact of arts and humanities. She speaks worldwide at arts and literary festivals about why books and humanities matter more than ever.
Sophie is also a professor of English at Princeton University, where she teaches literary history from Beowulf to Jane Austen, as well as classes on contemporary fiction and creative writing. She’s the author of scholarly monographs about the origins of the novel and the history of waste in the eighteenth century, and the widely translated and acclaimed historical novel The Scandal of the Season.
She writes regularly for The New York Times, the TLS, the Washington Post and the Sydney Morning Herald, among other places.
Her Ph.D. in English is from Harvard, where she received awards for teaching and scholarship. She has held fellowships at Yale and UCLA.
Sophie is co-host of The Secret Life of Books, a weekly podcast about the history and ongoing relevance of classic literature. The podcast is regularly the #1 books podcast in both Australia and the UK. She is on the Board of Red Room Poetry, Australia’s largest poetry and education non-profit, and the advisory committee to the Board of Primary Ethics, Australia’s leading ethics education program for schools.
Jaclyn Crupi is a book editor, literary awards judge, event moderator and bookseller. She has worked in publishing and bookselling since 2002. Jaclyn has written numerous books for both children and adults. Her book, Garden Like a Nonno, was shortlisted for an Indie Book Award and longlisted for an Australian Book Industry Award. Her most recent children’s book, The ABC Kids Guide to Loving the Planet, won the Environment Award for Children’s Literature (Non Fiction). Jaclyn’s work has appeared in The Guardian, SBS Voices, Galah, At Home, The Canberra Times, PIP Magazine and Frankie, as well as the anthology Family published by Text Publishing.
Benjamin Law is an Australian writer and broadcaster.
He’s the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia (2013), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019).
Benjamin is also an AWGIE Award-winning screenwriter. His forthcoming play for Melbourne Theatre Company is Dying: A Memoir (Oct–Nov 2025). He’s the co-executive producer, co-creator and co-writer of the Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania (2023), playwright of Melbourne Theatre Company’s sold-out play Torch the Place (2020), and creator and co-writer of three seasons of the award-winning SBS/Hulu/Comedy Central Asia TV series The Family Law (2016–2019). He has a PhD in creative writing and cultural studies from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
Every week, Benjamin interviews public figures for Good Weekend. He hosted ABC TV’s two-part feature documentary on Chinese-Australian history Waltzing the Dragon (2019) and co-hosted ABC Radio’s Stop Everything with Beverley Wang from 2018–2023. He has appeared on TV shows like Australian Survivor (Ten), Filthy Rich and Homeless (SBS), Q&A (ABC), The Drum (ABC) and The Project (Ten). He has also written for over 50 publications in Australia and beyond—including the Monthly, frankie, Guardian, Monocle and Australian Financial Review.
Benjamin works and lives on Gadigal Country, part of the Eora Nation (Sydney). He is a board member of Story Factory and Co-Curious, and an ambassador for Plan International Australia, the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation, Victorian Pride Centre, Bridge for Asylum Seekers and the Pinnacle Foundation.
Gillian O’Shaughnessy is a reader, writer, and journalist from Walyalup/Fremantle. She presented the Afternoon Show on ABC Local Radio in Perth and Western Australia for a decade, and was a senior reporter and presenter with ABC News and Current Affairs for over 15 years. She curated the Writers Weekend for Perth Festival, and has extensive experience as a moderator, panellist and interviewer. Her award-winning short fiction has been widely anthologised and was selected for the Best Small Fictions worldwide in 2023 and 2024.
Ellen van Neerven is writer and editor of Mununjali and Dutch heritage. Ellen’s books include Heat and Light, Comfort Food, Throat and Personal Score (UQP) and their play swim (Griffin Theatre) premiered in 2024.
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