SATURDAY 31 AUGUST | STELLA DAY OUT
2pm - 3pm | 60 mins
Stella Day Out is a free one-day literary festival that celebrates and promotes the outstanding contributions of women and non-binary writers to Australian literature.
There will be refreshments available before and after each panel throughout the day. We will be hosting drinks and nibbles at the close of this session.
Join authors Debra Dank and Anita Heiss as they explore the vital topic of reclaiming and revitalising First Nations languages. This session will be moderated by Cheryl Leavy.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Debra Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja woman, married to Rick, with three adult children and two grandchildren. An educator, she has worked in teaching and learning for many years - a gift given through the hard work of her parents. She continues to experience the privilege of living with country and with family. Debra completed her PhD in Narrative Theory and Semiotics at Deakin University in 2021. Debra's memoir We Come with This Place, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize in 2023 among many other prestigious nominations.
Dr Anita Heiss is an internationally published, award-winning author of 23 books; 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 and the GO Foundation, and Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland. Anita is also the Publisher at Large of Bundyi, an imprint of Simon & Schuster cultivating First Nations talent, and a board member of the National Justice Project and Circa Contemporary Circus. As an artist in residence at La Boite Theatre, she adapted her novel Tiddas for the stage. It premiered at the 2022 Brisbane Festival and was produced by Belvoir St for the Sydney Festival in 2024. Her novel, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, about the Great Flood of Gundagai, won the 2022 NSW Premier’s Indigenous Writers' Prize and was shortlisted for the 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize and the 2022 ABIA Awards. Anita’s first children’s picture book is Bidhi Galing (Big Rain), also about the Great Flood of Gundagai. Anita enjoys running, eating chocolate and being a creative disruptor.
Cheryl Leavy is from the Kooma and Nguri Nations in western and central Queensland. A poet, Cheryl was the 2022 winner of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize. Several commissions followed, including for Camerata – Queensland’s chamber orchestra, Red Room’s Poetry Month, 2023, and most recently poetry activations for Daniel Boyd’s Rainbow Serpent (Version) at the Institute of Modern Art and Judy Watson’s exhibition at Queensland Art Gallery. Cheryl was a proud recipient of the inaugural FNAWN Varuna Residency Fellowships for 2024 to work on her poetry manuscript, Mudunja - Song Country. Cheryl’s first children’s book, Yanga Mother, written in Kooma and translated to English, will be published by UQP this year, with her second, For You Country, in 2025. Cheryl often writes in her Kooma language and is passionate about its revitalisation. Cheryl has enjoyed a long career in the arts and cultural sector, serving on many boards, including for the Brisbane Writers Festival, where she established and co-chaired the First Nations Advisory Committee. Cheryl has also achieved notable success in First Nations policy and rights advocacy, with her most recent focus on environmental and land justice.
