Dr Anita Heiss is an award-winning author of non-fiction, historical fiction,
commercial women’s fiction and children’s novels. She is a proud member of
the Wiradyuri Nation of central New South Wales, an Ambassador for the
Indigenous Literacy Foundation, the GO Foundation and Worawa Aboriginal
College. Anita is a board member of the National Justice Project, Aboriginal Art Co, and Circa Contemporary Circus. She is Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland, and as an artist in residence at La Boite Theatre adapted her novel Tiddas for the stage.

Her novel Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms set in Cowra during World
War II, was the 2020 University of Canberra Book of the Year. And Bila
Yarrudhanggalangdhuray about the Great Flood of Gundagai, won the 2022
NSW Premier’s Indigenous Writer’s Prize, was shortlisted for the 2021 HNSA
ARA Historical Novel (Adult Category), and longlisted for the 2022 Stella Prize. Anita’s non-fiction works include Am I Black Enough for You?, Dhuuluu—Yala (To Talk Straight) — Publishing Aboriginal Literature, and as editor, Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia and The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature which she co-edited with Peter Minter.
In 2004 Anita was listed in The Bulletin magazine’s “Smart 100”. Her
memoir Am I Black Enough for You? was a finalist in the 2012 Human Rights
Awards and she was a finalist in the 2013 Australian of the Year Awards (Local Hero).

Anita enjoys eating chocolate, running and being a ‘creative disruptor’.