Opening Night: Visions & Revisions

Authors

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  Anita Heiss

  Anita Heiss (Wiradyuri Nation) is an internationally published author of over 20 books across genres.
  
  Her best-selling novel Tiddas was adapted for the stage and premiered at the Brisbane Festival in 2022. Her novel Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms was longlisted for the Dublin International Literary Prize.
  Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray won the 2022 NSW Premier’s Literary Prize for Indigenous Writing, and was shortlisted for the 2021 HNSA ARA Historical Novel.
  
  Anita is an Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland. She is also Publisher at Large for Bundyi Publishing, a First Nations imprint with Simon & Schuster Australia.
  
  Anita's curated events are:

  • Mother Tongue: Writing Matriarchies
  • Centring First Nations Knowledge
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  Daniel James

  Daniel is a Yorta Yorta man Melbourne based writer and broadcaster. He is the winner of the 2018 Horne Prize for his essay, Ten More Days. He also hosts The Mission on 3RRR FM. Daniel is the co-host of the 7am Podcast for Solstice media and is a contributor to the IndigenousX, SBS, Crikey, the Age/Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian.
  
  Daniel’s work explores notions of empathy, intergenerational trauma, hidden history and the political landscape that continues to shape the lives of Aboriginal people across the country. He is currently working on his first book with Affirm Press and was creative lead for Yoorrook Justice Commission’s report Truth Be Told and has recently been assisting the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria with the Treaty process. He co-administers The Spencer Street End, with friend Jacinta Parsons.
  
  Daniel's curated event is:

  • Making the Victorian Treaty
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  Don Watson

  Don Watson is the author of many acclaimed books, including Caledonia Australis, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, American Journeys, The Bush, Watsonia, and The Shortest History of the United States of America.
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  Evelyn Araluen

  Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, editor and educator. Her debut poetry collection DROPBEAR won the 2022 Stella Prize, and her second collection, THE ROT, was nominated for the 2026 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Poetry and Indigenous Writing.
  
  She works across the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, Overland Literary Journal, and the Institute of Postcolonial Studies.
  
  Evelyn's curated events are:
  
  Reimagining Resistance Beyond Colonies
  
  Burial Grounds: Indigenous Perspectives on Horror
  
  Sintering: An Evening of Indigenous Brilliance
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  Jessica Johns

  Jessica Johns is a queer nehiyaw aunty and a member of Sucker Creek First Nation. She is an interdisciplinary artist and award-winning writer whose debut novel, Bad Cree, was a Canada Reads finalist and won the WGA Fiction Prize, Alex Award, and MacEwan Book of the Year Prize.
  
  Jessica's curated events are:
  
  Reimagining Resistance Beyond Colonies
  
  Burial Grounds: Indigenous Perspectives on Horror
  
  Sintering: An Evening of Indigenous Brilliance 
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  Maria Reva

  Maria Reva writes fiction and opera libretti. She is the author of the short story collection Good Citizens Need Not Fear and of the novel Endling, which was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.
  
  Maria’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal, Granta, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She won a National Magazine Award in 2019 and was the 2025 winner of the Atwood Gibson Prize from the Writer's Trust of Canada.
  
  Maria was born in Ukraine and grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.
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  Omar Musa

  Omar Musa is an author, visual artist and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He has released two novels, four books of poetry, five hip-hop records and the acclaimed one-man play. His work has appeared in The Best Australian Stories and The Best of Australian Poems. His debut novel, Here Come the Dogs, was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Miles Franklin Award. He was named one of The Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015.
  
  His most recent novel is Fierceland, and his short story collection The Vape Lord of Queanbeyan comes out in July.
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  Sophia Brous

  Sophia Brous is a cross-disciplinary artist, performer and curator based in New York and Melbourne. Her practice draws on broad interests in contemporary and formal  music, devised performance, multidisciplinary collaboration and improvisation. She is a resident artist of The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), National Sawdust and The Watermill Center, and was Curator at Large of Pioneer Works and Artistic Associate of the Arts Centre Melbourne, where she founded Supersense: Festival of the Ecstatic in 2015.

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