Anita Heiss

Anita Marianne Heiss (born 1968) is an Aboriginal Australian author, poet, cultural activist and social commentator.

She is an advocate for Indigenous Australian literature and literacy, through her writing for adults and children and her membership of boards and committees.

Heiss was born in Sydney in 1968, and is a member of the Wiradjuri nation of central New South Wales.

Her mother, Elsie Williams, was born at Erambie Mission, Cowra in Wiradjuri country, while her father, Josef Heiss, was born in St Michael in the Lungau, Salzburg, Austria.

Heiss was educated at St Clare's College, Waverley, then at the University of New South Wales, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1989.

After a cadetship at the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau (later AusAID) in Canberra, she returned to UNSW to complete an honours degree in History in 1991.

In 1993, Heiss, along with writers Jared Thomas and Kerry Reed-Gilbert (the latter also a good friend ), participated in a writers' workshop at which they discussed the germ of an idea which would become the First Nations Australia Writers Network.

From 1998 until 2004, and again from 2007, she was on the management committee of the Australian Society of Authors (ASA).

She gained her PhD in Communication and Media at the University of Western Sydney in 2000, becoming the first Aboriginal student at the university to achieve this, which she considers her proudest achievement.

While working on her doctorate, Heiss ran writing workshops in regional New South Wales, and also travelled to Canada and New Zealand to do research there, giving several guest lectures while abroad.

Heiss is known as an author, poet, cultural activist and social commentator.

Her work spans non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women's fiction, poetry, social commentary and travel articles.

Heiss was a consultant researcher and writer for the Barani Aboriginal history website, first published by the City of Sydney in 2001.

From 2001 until 2003 she was Communications Adviser for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts.

In 2004 she was writer in residence at Macquarie University, Sydney, a part-time position, at the same time working from home on her writing.

She was Deputy-Director at Warawara Department of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University from 2005 to 2006.

Heiss was chair of Gadigal/Koori Radio until September 2008.

After attaining her doctorate, Heiss taught an Introduction to Indigenous Australia course at the University of Western Sydney, but became disillusioned with academia and resigned her position after a year or two, although retaining her unpaid role as an adjunct associate professor at the Badanami Centre for Indigenous Education at the university, a position she continued until at least 2011.

She was a witness in Eatock v Bolt, a 2011 decision of the Federal Court of Australia which held that two articles written by columnist and commentator Andrew Bolt and published in The Herald Sun newspaper had contravened section 18C, of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

Bolt had accused Heiss and other Aboriginal people of "choosing" their identity for personal benefit.

In 2011 Heiss was a board member for the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy, and an ambassador for Indigenous Literacy Day and for the Books in Homes program.

She has been an advocate for the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, a social enterprise in Sydney.

She was Adjunct Professor at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning (now Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research ) at the University of Technology, Sydney, from 2012 to at least 2014.

, Heiss is Professor of Communications at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, University of Queensland.

In 2015 Heiss became an ambassador for the Worawa Aboriginal College.

Heiss was appointed to the State Library of Queensland board in 2017.

she is not on the board, but a member of the Indigenous Advisory Group, an independent advisory group to the Library Board.

Heiss is Ambassador of the GO Foundation (founded by Adam Goodes, Michael O'Loughlin and James Gallichan); and the Sydney Swans Australian rules football club.

She also runs her own communications business, Curringa Communications.