Kelly Gardiner writes historical fiction for all ages. Her new crime novel, Miss Caroline Bingley, Private Detective, is co-authored with Sharmini Kumar. Kelly's recent series is The Firewatcher Chronicles and her other books include 1917, shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Young People’s History Prize; Act of Faith and The Sultan’s Eyes, both shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards; and the Swashbuckler pirate trilogy. 

Goddess, her novel based on the life of the seventeenth-century sword-fighting, opera star, Mademoiselle de Maupin, is being adapted for the screen. Kelly taught creative writing at La Trobe University for many years, and is now writing full-time and running writing retreats and masterclasses.

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

Julie d'Aubigny, who I wrote about in Goddess. She is enormously entertaining and also extremely complex, but I'd be too shy to speak.