Maura Pierlot

Maura is an international award-winning children’s book author, playwright and filmmaker who creates on Ngunnawal / Ngambri country (Canberra). Her writing explores existential themes, prompting vital conversations about identity, mental wellbeing and the complexities of the human experience.

Tackling youth mental health themes, Maura’s groundbreaking play, Fragments, is now an award-winning web series, feature-length film anthology and hybrid young adult novella. Maura’s latest picture book, Our Family Zoo, a fun and fresh take on growing families, is out with Scholastic Australia in June 2026. Her critically acclaimed young adult novel, The Lies We Tell Ourselves and sustainability-themed picture book, Clutterbugs, were published in 2025 by Big Ideas Press.

Maura enjoys writing creative non-fiction and fiction for children, with many of her titles garnering awards in Australia and overseas. Alphabetter – A Better You and Me, from A to Z (Affirm Press, February 2024), presents fun, relatable scenarios that encourage children to explore virtues, positive character traits and values. What Will You Make Today? (Storytorch Press, June 2023) empowers young readers to make a difference in the world. Maura’s music-inspired debut picture book, The Trouble in Tune Town, encourages young readers to be in the moment with music (and learning in general) rather than focusing on performance and outcomes.

Drawn at an early age to big ideas, Maura has a PhD in philosophy, specialising in ethics. She has worked as an ethicist, editor of Australian Medicine, medical writer/producer and business owner. Besides writing full-time, Maura visits schools and libraries as a guest reader and speaker. She is the founder of The Book Bench Project, a Canberra initiative that fosters a shared love of reading and sense of community. Maura is also a regular reviewer for the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s (CBCA) online magazine, Reading Time, a 2025 CBCA ACT Branch Ambassador, a Role Model and Sponsor for Books in Homes Australia and a qualified art therapist.

When she’s not busy thinking, dreaming and creating – and sometimes even when she is – Maura enjoys spending time with her family at their avocado farm set within a coastal NSW rainforest, a mountaintop property they share with wombats, echidnas, lyrebirds, kangaroos and two energetic Bordoodles.

To learn more about Maura’s work, check out ‘Works’ on this website,

or view her Writer’s CV and list of Publications and Awards.