Anita Heiss
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BOOKSHELF
Scroll down the page to find out more about my publications, or click on the links below.
Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature
Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence, Sydney, 1937
Yirra and her Deadly Dog, Demon
About the book:
'So it's final then, you're not taking James to Melbourne?' Liza asked.
'Are you kidding? Taking a man to Melbourne would be like taking a sandwich to a smorgasbord.'
Peta Tully has found her Mr Right . the only trouble is, she's not sure she's ready to settle down. Not just yet, anyway - so when she's offered a twelve-month contract interstate which just might win her the job of her dreams, she puts her Sydney life on hold, packs her bags and jumps on a plane, leaving her doting boyfriend behind. Peta takes a voluntary vow of celibacy, but sticking to it proves harder than she imagines.
This is Anita Heiss's second book about Peta, Alice, Liza and Dannie, four deadly, desirable and dynamic thirty-something chicks from Sydney's eastern beaches who first appeared in Not Meeting Mr Right.
Few people could achieve the publishing double of a chick-lit novel and a literary anthology in the same year, but Anita Heiss is one of them - Annabel McGilvray Vive Magazine
Anita Heiss could well be Indigenous Australia’s answer to Carrie Bradshaw - Judy Skatssoon AAP (Canberra Times, Adelaide Advertiser, Newcastle Herald, Courier Mail, Sunday Territorian, National Indigenous Times. New York Daily News)
Anita Heiss is a hoot. She is funny, generous, glamorous and looking for Mr Right. When not publishing scholarly editions of Indigenous writing she has a deft way with Chick Lit. - Rosemary Sorenson Festival Director, MWF 2008
Avoiding Mr Right is sassy, intelligent, strong, independent and brilliantly funny - Deborah Mailman star of The Secret Life of Us.
Avoiding Mr Right is fun, sexy and adventurous - Terri Janke author of Butterfly Song
Witty entertainment! - Woman’s Day.
Cheeky fun...Anita Heiss' witty prose will have you hooked from the first page - Andrea Black, New Idea.
Anita Heiss boomerangs back with Avoiding Mr Right! - Jeanne Ryckmans Vogue Australia.
It's enough to make a red blooded Aussie male install a wall mounted book rack in the ensuite - Darryl Brohman radio personality.
How to order:
QLD: Avid Reader
ACT (Canberra): Paperchain
VIC: Readings
Published by Bantam Books RRP $23.95
Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature
Edited by Dr Anita Heiss and Peter Minter
About the book:
The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature is a nationally significant literature project, and the first comprehensive anthology of Australian Aboriginal writing from the late 18th century to the present. It is edited by Indigenous author Anita Heiss and award-winning poet, editor and scholar Peter Minter. The anthology has been developed under the auspices of Macquarie University and Sydney Centre of International PEN, and funded by major grants from the Australian Research Council and the Australia Council for the Arts.
Literature has been a powerful tool for Aboriginal Australians, a group which has been rendered largely voiceless in the mainstream Australian political system. These works chronicle the ongoing suffering of dispossession, but also the resilience of Aboriginal people across the country, and the hope and joy in their lives. Included are selected pieces of literature, poetry, drama, letters, autobiography, radio broadcast and political statements —beginning with a 1796 letter by Bennelong (the first known text in the English language by an Aboriginal author) and culminating in the most recently published, from Tara June Winch’s Swallow the Air, which won the David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writers in 2004 and a NSW Premier’s Literary Award in 2007.
The resurgence of Aboriginal writing in recent years has taken place during a widespread and vigorous renewal in Aboriginal culture, which has seen the production of highly significant works that appeal to readers around the world. A central initiative of this project is to encourage the study of Aboriginal literature in schools and provide a much needed text to which teachers and parents can refer, to expose Indigenous children to their own literary heritage, as well as non-Indigenous children.
Literacy for Indigenous children is an important issue in our current social climate, which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has promised to address with the Federal Government’s policy on education for all Indigenous children under the age of four. This book celebrating Indigenous literature is sure to be a positive contribution.
This volume is extremely significant from an Indigenous cultural perspective, containing many works that afford the reader a treasured insight into the Indigenous cultural world of Australia - Mick Dodson
...an outstanding collection which is a history of Aboriginal writing in English, a cultural record and a reflection on Aboriginal contact with White Australia - Australian Bookseller & Publisher
How to order:
QLD: Avid Reader
ACT (Canberra):Paperchain
VIC:Readings
Published by Allen & Unwin RRP $39.95
Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence, Sydney, 1937
About the book:
I woke up this morning and I couldn't stop crying cos this place is not my home, even though everyone says it is. I miss Matron Rose and all the kids and now I miss my real mum more than ever. When I was a little girl Mum would always hug me when I cried and tell me everything would be all right. Who's gunna hug me here?
Mary was taken to Bomaderry Aboriginal Children's Home when she was only five years old. Now she's ten years old and living with a white family in Sydney. She doesn't fit in and starts to question why.
Short-listed for the NSW Premiers Young Peoples History Prize 2002
Judges comments:
Why is colour important? Mary Talence, an Aboriginal girl separated from her family when she was five, and several years later removed to live with a white family on Sydney's leafy North Shore, wants to know the answer. This skilfully written fictionalised account set in 1937 uses a series of diary entries to unfold both a personal and a national story. It includes detailed historical notes and a bibliography, making this book not only very moving and very readable, but also an introduction to the history of Aboriginal-white relations in twentieth century Australia. The tale is poignant, the ending optimistic; this book conveys both the tragedy and the courage of the stolen generation.
Listed on:
ACT Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge
NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge
SA Premier’s Reading Challenge
Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge
On-line reviews:
How to order:
Order the Spanish edition from Takusan
Yirra and her Deadly Dog, Demon
About the book:
With her mum on the warpath, it's a race against time for Yirra to find a dog trainer for naughty Demon.
Yirra's mum's sick of vacuuming up fur balls, the neighbours are fed up with having their undies nicked from the clothesline, and her step-dad just wants his slippers back.
If Yirra doesn't find a dog-trainer soon, she'll have to give her beloved Demon to a new family — one who likes dogs who run and dig a lot!
Bursting with energy and madcap fun, Yirra and her deadly dog, Demon gives young readers a contemporary view of urban Indigenous life in Sydney.
Yirra is a special book. It came about through the Indigenous Arts Reference Group of the NSW Ministry for the Arts, and the City of Sydney, who awarded Anita the 2004 Indigenous Arts Fellowship so she could work on this project.
Anita very much wanted to contribute to the community she lived close to all her life, having grown up in Matraville. Over a period of fifteen months, Anita worked with the students of La Perouse Public School, who are nearly all Indigenous, to write Yirra. From creative writing workshops to brainstorming sessions, the children used experiences from their own lifestyle at La Perouse for ideas. Royalties from the book will be split 50:50 between Anita and the school, and revenue generated will go towards writing and reading projects for La Perouse Public School.
Adam Hill began drawing at eight years of age. Adam earned extra food in primary school by drawing other students’ title pages. Later, Adam studied drawing at TAFE and then university. Today, Adam draws daily as a job.
Available at ABC Shops, ABC Centres, selected bookstores or phone 1300 360 111.
Review: '... graced with a warm, easygoing humour as it paints a human-scale portrait of a minority often in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.' (Rosemary Neill in Weekend Australian Review magazine, 30 June 2007.)
On-line Review: Goldcreek
RRP: $14.95
To organise an interview or for further information, please contact
Sue Ann Purcell on 041 436 2858 (from overseas ++ 61 414 362 858)
About the book:
I am deadly, desirable and delicious! This is Alice's mantra as she hilariously negotiates her way through the rocky terrain of singledom.
Not Meeting Mr Right opens with 28 year old Alice at her school reunion. All the girls seem to be married with children and to any outsider looking in, are with Mr Right.
Alice Aigner is successful in every aspect of her life except her love life. She is Head of the History Department at an exclusive girls school, she lives in a fabulous beachside apartment and drives a flash car but she can't find a man that she wants to stay with and 'settle down' or that wants the same from her. In a drunken moment she promises her girlfriends that she will meet and marry Mr Right before she turns 30. The challenge is set and throughout this novel we meet her prospective husbands! What Alice learns of course is that sometimes happiness is right under our noses and that unless we're happy in ourselves, we can't find happiness and love with someone else.
Who could not fall in love with our Aboriginal heroine as she dates, amongst others: Renan- whose career plan is to be one of the world's best moonwalkers and male hula dancers; Tufu the commitment phobic Samoan football player; scary Simon the one night stand and Paul - Mr Dreamboat with the inept criminal past. And she skilfully avoids dating Cliff, son of her mum's friend , who is a 42 year old bachelor hairdresser who isn't likely to settle down with a woman anytime soon.
How to order:
For media enquiries please contact Peta Levett on (02) 8923 9831 (or ++ 61 2 8923 9831 if you're calling from overseas.)
About the book:
I’m not racist, but… is a collection of social observations, thoughts and conversations the author has had over 15 years travelling Australia and the world; as a tourist, as a writer, as an academic, and always as a proud, strong, contemporary Aboriginal woman.
From the home of the largest Indigenous population in Australia – the city of Sydney – to the Mohawk Reserve of Kanhawake, Quebec, the work considers issues of Aboriginal identity, both imposed and self-defined, the process of reconciliation and issues around saying ‘sorry’, notions of ‘truth’ and integrity, biculturalism and invisible whiteness.
Poems like “My Best Friend’s White” demonstrate the way in which racism is entrenched in every day Aussie phraseology, while the saturation of political correctness, the increased need for ‘token Kooris’ and the unreal expectations of Aboriginal people are highlighted in the short radio play, “Token Kooris: Blackfellas for Hire”.
In this collection, Heiss challenges her reader to consider what it is they are doing when they research or write about Aborigines, what role Aboriginal Studies plays in academia and what indeed, anthropologists actually study. Heiss questions what the spirit of Australia is and offers a “10 Point Plan for A Better Australia”, which will possibly only come about after digesting her “A-Z of First Contact”.
Some may consider Heiss’ work as experimental. She considers them words that may help readers understand the issues that impact daily on the ways in which we all relate to each other regardless of heritage.
To order in Australia:
NSW: Gleebooks
ACT: Paperchain
VIC: Bookweb
Or order direct from the distributor download this order form
To order in the UK or the USA: Salt Publishing
To order elsewhere:
Amazon
Life In Gadigal Country is the first anthology of writing published by Gadigal Information Service, and a tribute to the Gadigal peoples of Sydney.
The book is a collection of writings of some of the strongest political voices, by some of the most promising cotemporary writers, about some of the most significant issues that have faced the first peoples of the country known as Gadigal Country, since the process of colonisation began in 1788.
With an introduction by Dr Anita Heiss, the contributors include: Brenda L. Croft, Kate Gilbert, Nancia Guivarra, Gordon Hookey, Terri Janke, Jonathan Jones, Ruby Langford Ginibi, John Lennis, Melissa Lucashenko, Lorraine McGee-Sippel, Brenda Palmer, Kerry Reed-Gilbert, and Steven Ross.
You can purchase a copy of Life in Gadigal Country for $10.00 by calling the Gadigal office during business hours on (02) 9564 5090 or visit the website.
About the book:
Following her satirical look at Ozzie Kulture in Sacred Cows, Anita Heiss ventured into the world of poetry with some hard-hitting realities about contemporary Aboriginality and issues around biculturalism. Her journey as an urban blackfella is touch by politics, passion and personal growth.
Testimonials:
‘The everyday life of a contemporary Koori woman is Token Koori – a book to be read – it’s Deadly.’ – Kerry Reed-Gilbert, poet and political activist
‘A passionate and articulate voice, Anita Heiss is a writer who provokes and challenges – and who does not let her readers off the hook.’ – Lynne Spender, Australian Society of Authors
‘Anita Heiss is one of the brightest of the new generation of Aboriginal writers. Intelligent, funny, incisive, her observations on black and white relations in Australia reveal a powerful and original new voice on the literary scene.’ – Irina Dunn, NSW Writers’ Centre
How to order:
This title is OUT OF PRINT but some poems are reprinted in I’m not racist, but…a collection of social observations. (Salt, 2007)
Anita co-edited Stories Without End (Southerly 2/2002) with Penny Van Toorn.
The collection includes:
Essays by A.Wright, S.P. Hopfer, J.A. Martinello, E.E. Hodgson, A. Brewster
Fiction by K. Scott, T. Janke, A. Taylor, J. Thomas
Poetry by J. Martinello, R. Smith, M, Lucashenko, K. Scott & many others
Drama E. Blackmore, W. Enoch
Document L. Fogarty
Interview Wayne King by P. van Toorn
Reviews S.W. Watson, M.A. Bin Sallik, A.M. Chalarimeri, V. Cleven, K. Reed-Gilbert, M. Mallett, A. Heiss, Papunya School with N. Wheatley & K. Searle, A. Moreton Robinson, E. Govor
Cover image is by Lionel Fogarty.
To order:
Email David Brooks or phone (02) 9351 2769 (++ 61 2 9351 2769 from overseas.)
More information to come.
How to order:
National Indigenous Times
Sacred Cows is a satirical take on white Australian icons from an Indigenous perspective, analysising Australian pastimes like going to Luna Park, the backyard barbecue, idolizing Skippy, celebrating Anzac Day and going to beach. The text is accompanied by Danny Eastwood's clever illustrations.
How to order:
For further information contact the publisher, Magabala Books via email