Judith Ridge is internationally recognised as one of Australia’s leading experts on literature for children and young adults. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Judith has worked as an English Teacher, Teacher Librarian, children’s book and magazine editor, youth arts program coordinator and teacher of creative writing to adults. She is the commissioning and contributing editor of The Book That Made Me (Walker Books Australia 2016, Candlewick Press USA 2017) and co-wrote two chapters on children’s literature with Professor Angela Thomas for Teaching and Learning Primary English (Oxford University Press 2021). She has acted as a judge for the NSW Literary Awards three times, is a past Board Member of the Australian Society of Authors and is currently a member of the board of TasWriters.

Judith is a Churchill Fellow and is currently working on completing her PhD on Australian children’s fantasy fiction. She is writing about five Australian authors of fantasy novels for older children: Nan Chauncy, Patricia Wrightson, Joan Phipson, Gillian Rubinstein and Kate Constable. Her research interest is focused on how White Australian authors for children have used the fantasy genre to explore how non-First Nations people can form a connection to the unceded, sovereign First Nations Country we live on as settler colonials.   You can read an overview of her PhD research here. Judith's Masters thesis, "Feminist Criticism, Narrative Theory and the Fairy Tale Retellings of Donna Jo Napoli", can be read here.

Judith lives in Launceston, Tasmania, in an old house she shares with two cats and too many books.