ASA elects new Chair

At its meeting of 30 March, 2008, the Committee of Management of the ASA held elections for the positions of Chair, Deputy Chair, Treasurer and two members of the Executive. The following were elected: Chair, Dr Anita Heiss; Deputy Chair, Rob Pullan; Treasurer, Nicholas Angel; Executive members: Georgia Blain and Frané Lessac.

The ASA’s new Chair, Dr Anita Heiss, is a member of the Wiradjuri nation of central New South Wales and is one of Australia’s most prolific and well known authors of Indigenous literature.

In 2007 Anita released three titles: Not Meeting Mr Right (winner of the Deadly Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature), a poetry collection I’m not racist, but… (winner of the Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Poetry) and the kids novel Yirra and her deadly dog Demon (written with the students from La Perouse Public School) which was launched at the 2007 Sydney Writers Festival by Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir, Governor of NSW.

Anita’s other published works include the historical novel Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence, Sydney 1937, the non-fiction text Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight) – Publishing Aboriginal Literature, and a literacy reader entitled Me and My Mum. Anita has also edited editions of Southerly, Five Bells and the anthology Life in Gadigal Country.

Anita has performed her works nationally (Sydney Writers’ Festival, Perth International Arts Festival, Adelaide Writers’ Week, Byron Bay Writers’ Festival, Message Sticks, Brisbane Writers Festival, Dreaming Festival, Melbourne Poetry Festival, Brisbane Poetry Festival, Shanghai Literary Festival, among others) and internationally in Spain, Austria, the USA, Canada, Fiji, Japan, China and New Caledonia. She has also been published widely in journals, anthologies and on-line.

Anita was Communications Adviser for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board (2001-2003), a member of the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) Committee of Management from 1998-2004 and from 2007 (Deputy Chair), and Deputy Director of Warawara Department of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University from 2005-2006.

In 2003 in recognition of her literary achievements Anita was awarded the ASA Medal for Under 35s for her contribution to Australian community and public life. In 2004 Anita was awarded the NSW Indigenous Arts Fellowship and was listed in Bulletin/ Microsoft “Smart 100”.

In 2004, Anita wrote and directed her first short-film “Checkerboard Love” as part of the Lester Bostock mentorship program through Metro Screen, Sydney. In the same year she was also writer in residence at Macquarie University.

Anita is currently the National Coordinator of the AustLit - Black Words subset, and Chair of Gadigal Information Services / Koori Radio in Sydney.