First Nations Writing

‘This is writing about us, by us’, as selected by Jeanine Leane and Dan Bourchier.

First Nations Writing: Meanjin 1977 to today captures powerful Aboriginal and Torres Strait writers who have shaped the national conversation across peoples, place and time. It showcases a richness of First Nations writing and ideas that reflect on the past and imagines a future built on respect, fairness and truth.

The collection includes work by poets, public intellectuals, writers, philosophers, critics and social commentators that altogether show what it is to be an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person in Australia, then and now.

About the Author

Dan Bourchier is a senior newsreader at the ABC and a passionate advocate for equity, especially for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the LGBTQIA+ community. Born on Warumungu Country, he has worked for various media outlets over a thirty-year career.

Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri writer, poet, and academic from New South Wales. Her poetry collection Dark Secrets After Dreaming won the Scanlon Prize, and her novel Purple Threads won the David Unaipon Award. Jeanine has won multiple poetry awards, including the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Prize and the David Harold Tribe Poetry Award. She teaches at the University of Melbourne.