VAN BADHAM is an internationally award-winning writer, theatremaker and occasional broadcaster.

As a journalist, she’s a featured columnist for The Guardian and has also written for The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Telegraph (UK) and The Age, amongst many others. She was a Walkley finalist for her non-fiction book debut, 2021’s best-selling QAnon And On: A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults, published by Hardie Grant. She was the first Australian to win Britain’s Harold Hobson prize for theatre criticism. 

In Van’s work as a commentator she’s appeared numerous times for the ABC’s Q And A and The Drum shows, for The Project on Ten, on Politics HQ for Sky and the Today Show on Channel 9, and regularly for ABC radio. In 2023, she narrated the “Dusted” documentary series for Radio National’s “History Listen”. As a writer of radio drama she’s been broadcast both by the ABC and BBC. Presently, she co-hosts the award-winning news/politics podcast The Week on Wednesday, which has had more than a million downloads as of August, 2023.

As a theatremaker, Van is a former literary associate at both London’s Finborough Theatre and Malthouse, Melbourne, and her plays include Banging Denmark for the Sydney Theatre Company, The Bloody Chamber for Malthouse, Animal Farm for Black Swan State Theatre Company of Western Australia, Big Baby for Terrapin and The Bull, the Moon and the Coronet of Stars for Griffin. Van was writer in residence at LAMDA in London for two years, she was the first Australian included in the New York Summer Play Festival and her plays have had professional seasons in across the UK and US and in Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Iceland. She has won three Premier’s awards for drama, a Green Room award for Best Production and a London fringe award, as well as numerous awards at the Adelaide Fringe. 

Van is currently writing a second non-fiction book for Hardie Grant. In 2024, she was the commissioned playwright of the comedy “A Fool in Love” at the Sydney Theatre Company and co-creator with Richard Wise of musical “The Questions” at the State Theatre Company of South Australia. She is show runner of an adapted television series in development with Jungle Entertainment in Sydney.

She is a graduate of a BCA/BA (hons) at the University of Wollongong, won an exchange scholarship to study at the University of Sheffield (UK) and has a Masters from the VCA.