August 31st 2026
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WellBeing Magazine
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“We all have a different lens,” says author Anita Heiss, “and we need to be conscious of the author[‘s lens] of whatever it is we’re reading. If I want to learn about farming, I’m going to read a book by a farmer, not a stockbroker.”
Fifty-eight-year-old Dr Anita Heiss AM is the author of more than 20 books, including poetry, historical fiction, children’s literature and memoir. Her commercial fiction and romance novels often make the Australian bestseller lists, but beyond using them to tell a good story, Heiss interweaves political commentary into her narratives, using her books as a means to represent First Nations experiences, and to reach audiences that are often less engaged with the experiences of Indigenous Australians.
Alongside being one of Australia’s most well-known authors, Heiss is also a cultural activist, educator, and a Member of the Order of Australia for service to Indigenous studies and the arts.
A proud Wiradjuri woman, Heiss is an advocate for Indigenous Australian literature. She is a Lifetime Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, and an Ambassador of Worawa Aboriginal College. Heiss also founded, and is Publisher at Large at, Bundyi, a publishing imprint of Simon & Schuster, which focuses on amplifying the voices of First Nations authors.
Through her own writing and her work championing others, Heiss consistently centres authentic Indigenous voices and helps bring their stories to the forefront of mainstream publishing.
Am I black enough for you?
Heiss is the daughter of an Austrian father and Wiradjuri mother and grew up in Gadigal Country, in the Sydney suburb of Matraville. “I had a wonderful childhood where we played cricket, football and tennis in the street. I actually fancied myself as a bit of a tennis player when I was young,” says Heiss. “I went to a little Catholic school called St Andrew’s at Malabar. There were only a couple of Aboriginal kids in the school at the time, and that’s where I first experienced episodes of racism.” Heiss later wrote about these early experiences with racism and identity in her 2012 memoir, Am I Black Enough for You?
Her mother worked evenings at a local drive-in theatre and her father worked long days as a carpenter. “They were my greatest role models, mum and dad. They had incredible work ethics, which is why I am a workaholic now, and I don’t say that as a bad thing. I was raised to believe that you work hard and you live an honest life,” says Heiss. “I was very family-oriented growing up and still am now.”
Books were a luxury and not something often found at home when Heiss was a child. Her love for the written word came later when she started penning letters and diaries, which she now recognises as an early form of her storytelling. “Back in the ’70s, there’d be these international pen pal programs. I had pen pals and I’d write these epic letters … I guess you don’t think about it as a form of storytelling when you’re young.” She’d also keep diaries while backpacking for several months in her 20s. “I’ve used the travel diaries in some of my books,” says Heiss. “There was this desire, I think, to write and tell the stories and communicate.”
The lens of storytelling
When she was studying for a Bachelor of Arts at the University of New South Wales, Heiss started to notice something that made her uneasy. “I realised that everything I had to read about, anything to do with Aboriginal Australia, was pretty much written by a non-Indigenous academic, a historian and an anthropologist, who obviously write through particular lenses,” she says. “Their lenses were as non-Indigenous people, but also through their fields of research and study.”
One particular book that Heiss read as part of her Honours year was based on letters sent to Britain in the early 20th century by a white man living amongst Aboriginal Australians, who he referred to as “natives”. The letters were full of negative stereotypes, including the man’s assumption that the locals were cannibals, according to Heiss.
“His perception of what happened was written into a book, which became a history book,” she recalls. “I had two epiphanies then, and one was that the recording of history is completely subjective, and the way in which the colonisers remember and record history is significantly different to the way in which colonised peoples remember and record history. Yet the history of the world has been recorded by the colonisers.
“The other epiphany I had was that I had a responsibility — as the first person in my family, on both sides, Aboriginal and Austrian — to go to university, and I needed to use my skills, my privilege of going to university, to make some kind of change in that space.”
10 years of bad dates
Continuing to write, publishing several non-fiction books including a memoir and social commentary, Heiss soon turned to writing fiction, particularly love stories. “I wrote a book, Not Meeting Mr. Right, not knowing what genre it would fit into,” she shares. “I was just purging myself of 10 years of bad dates!” It was the first of many romance novels. She followed up with books such as Avoiding Mr Right, Manhattan Dreaming and Paris Dreaming.
Heiss realised that writing books that women can relate to, with themes of love, friendship, careers and family, opened up possibilities. First, to represent her own experiences as a successful, city-dwelling Indigenous woman in mainstream literature. But also to reach an audience of non-Indigenous readers who may not otherwise be exposed to or engaged with these stories.
“All of them have the goal of reaching a female audience who might not otherwise read a book by a First Nations author, might not otherwise sit in a book club and talk about the issues of intellectual property and cultural appropriation, or NAIDOC, or reconciliation, the referendum or whatever,” says Heiss. “Also using the vehicle of romance and all the things we have in common as women — not all women, but a lot of women — such as shopping and friendship and sisterhood, the desire for companionship and so forth. It’s connecting with what makes us the same, then bringing readers into a space they might not otherwise get to be a part of.”
Heiss’ latest book, The Paradise Pact, sees her protagonist jet off to Hawaii with her best friends to recover from heartbreak. It features common themes of Heiss’ romance books: a far-flung destination, family and friendship dynamics, and a well-educated, career-driven, strong female character who also happens to be Aboriginal.
“I’ve had women say to me, ‘I feel seen. I feel like my story is being seen,’” says Heiss. “And these are just normal stories. They’re not extraordinary stories. They’re stories of love and romance, and all the complexity of love and romance for, particularly, educated, articulate, strong women of colour.”
The books have been a huge success with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike. “I’ve also developed this large audience of First Nations women who are now reading in spaces that they’ve never read in before … because now they’re seeing themselves on the page,” notes Heiss.
Language lessons
Heiss has also been an advocate for including Aboriginal language in her books. Her 2021 historical fiction novel was titled Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, which means “River of Dreams” in the Wiradjuri language. “My publisher said to me, ‘We want to really push the boundaries, what should we do with the cover?’” recounts Heiss. “I said, ‘Let’s just take English off the front altogether.’” Heiss believes this was the first time in mainstream Australian publishing history that a book was published with an Aboriginal language title, without the English translation on the cover.
“We’re in the United Nations decade of international indigenous languages,” says Heiss. “We have a responsibility to lean into that, to be part of a process that reclaims and maintains language.” The United Nations declared 2022–2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages to highlight the critical loss of Indigenous languages and to advocate for their preservation and revitalisation. In Australia alone there are more than 250 Indigenous languages, including 800 dialects.
“The key to this, and language particularly, in the work that I do is about reminding the reader that everywhere you walk in Australia, you walk on land that has a first language, and it’s not English,” says Heiss, who dedicated herself to learning the Wiradjuri language at 50-years-old. “English is the dominant language, but in many areas it could be the second, third or fourth language. So if people read any one of my books in this language … and if all they walk away with is having learned one or two words, or thinking, ‘That’s right, I should find out what the first language is of where I live,’ maybe learn what ‘hello’ is, then I’m happy.”
Bundyi: share with me
After decades of writing and sharing her own stories, in 2024, Heiss, in partnership with Simon & Schuster, launched publishing imprint Bundyi, which supports emerging First Nations writers. Its creation was to address a gap in mainstream Australian publishing, where Aboriginal stories were being filtered or excluded by industry gatekeeping. Bundyi is a Wiradjuri word meaning “to share with me” and the imprint has published novels by authors including Tasma Walton, Stan Grant and Shannon Barnes.
Heiss’ publishing choices echo the early thoughts she had about wanting to read and share stories by those with lived experience. She believes that no Australian publishing house should have an acquisitions meeting that discusses manuscripts with First Nations content or from an Indigenous author without a First Nations knowledgeable person at the table.
Heiss hopes other big publishers follow Bundyi’s example, something she thinks will make the industry better for everyone — publishers, writers and readers alike. “I hope they do the same thing, because to me, it just makes the industry better and richer. I always feel, even with my own work, that it doesn’t matter how many books you sell at the end of the day; if the process to write that book, and to publish that book, has been disempowering to anybody, then the value of that book has diminished. I just want to see an industry where the process values everybody’s knowledge, everybody’s experience, and people are remunerated [properly] and copyright rests where it’s meant to rest.”
Growing up Aboriginal in Australia
It’s not just her own words that Heiss uses to challenge stereotypes and to share authentic Aboriginal experiences. She has also provided a platform for others. In 2018, Heiss compiled and edited an anthology of biographical stories from more than 50 First Nations writers reflecting on their experiences, titled Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia. The book had a lasting impact for sharing true, raw and unfiltered insights into what growing up Aboriginal in Australia is really like.
The anthology won the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards’ Small Publisher Adult Book of the Year, and educators recommend the anthology for secondary school study. Teaching notes have been published to support teachers using the book in classroom contexts, particularly since 2024 when NSW made education on Aboriginal cultures and histories mandatory in school from kindergarten to Year 10.
“When I was first asked to pull that together, I had no idea of the impact that work would have,” admits Heiss. “I did a keynote at Melbourne University, which wasn’t for academics — it was for professional staff and the university gave every single delegate — there were 600 — a copy of that book.” Heiss feels this was a positive sign, a statement that the university wanted all staff to engage with Aboriginal stories and have better insight into the experiences of First Nations people.
Inspiring the next generation
Helping to amplify compelling stories, told through the lens of First Nations people, continues to lead Heiss’ work. She is a lifetime ambassador for the Indigenous Literary Foundation (ILF), a community-led national charity of the Australian Book Industry. ILF provides books and early learning kits to more than 500 remote communities, and supports communities to write and publish their work in their chosen language. ILF has published more than 158 community books, written by both adults and children, in 48 first languages, as well as English.
The role is close to her heart; Heiss feels that her dream of becoming a writer was fulfilled because of her upbringing in the city, and having access to libraries and education, something she doesn’t take for granted. “The statistics around Aboriginal people, particularly in remote communities, and literacy are so devastating and embarrassing. I know that if those statistics were attached to white kids, it would be front-page news and ministers’ jobs would be on the line. And so I want that to change. I want every single kid in Australia, regardless of their demographic, to have the same access to the materials that they need to live their best lives.”
Whether it’s stories, poems or songs, Heiss hopes to use her role at ILF to inspire young people to read and write. “They’re seeing their stories on the page, and they’re also learning about the process of publishing. And many of those books are bilingual, so they’re in their own languages as well.”
Now based in Brisbane, Heiss works part-time as Professor of Communications at the University of Queensland. She continues to speak both nationally and internationally on Indigenous identity, reconciliation and storytelling.
When she’s not working, Heiss loves to have a holiday booked, partly to feed her love of travel and partly to inspire her next holiday-romance novel. Her next stops are Bali and New Zealand. And like the protagonists of her romance books, Heiss also hopes to find love one day. “I would like to fall in love and get married before I’m 60,” she says with a smile.
She continues to write romance novels, as well as having a children’s book in the works for 2026. “I’m really happy that I can continue to write work that is informed by my own experiences,” she reflects, “that actually speaks to a lot of other people as well.”
This article is featured in WellBeing Magazine 223
The post Anita Heiss – Doer & Thinker appeared first on WellBeing Magazine.
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https://www.wellbeing.com.au/community/thinkers-doers/anita-heiss-doer-thinker.html
