Angelo Loukakis has been a writer, teacher, scriptwriter, editor and publisher. He is the author of the fiction titles For the Patriarch, Vernacular Dreams, Messenger, The Memory of Tides, and Houdini’s Flight. His non-fiction works include a book for children, The Greeks, and the book of the SBS television series, Who Do You Think You Are? His collection of short stories, For the Patriarch, was winner of a New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award.

He was the founding chair of the NSW Writers’ Centre (now Writing NSW), and Executive Director of the Australian Society of Authors (2010–16).

If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?

Aristotle, for his foundational contributions to the understandings of politics, science, rhetoric (that is the means of persuasion, so important to artists and writers) and logic and reason, which is increasingly short supply today.