Carpentaria

Alexis Wright is a multi-award-winning Australian author and a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The author of the prize-winning novels Praiseworthy, Carpentaria and The Swan Book, Wright has also published three works of non-fiction: Take Power, an oral history of the Central Land Council; Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the Northern Territory; and Tracker, an award-winning collective memoir of Aboriginal leader, Tracker Tilmouth. Wright's books have been published widely overseas, including in China, the US, the UK, Italy, France and Poland. Wright has won a number of literary awards, including the Miles Franklin Literary Award twice – for Carpentaria in 2007 and for Praiseworthy in 2024. Praiseworthy also won the 2024 James Tait Fiction Prize and the 2023 Queensland Literary Award for Fiction, and was also shortlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award, one of the world’s richest literary prizes. Wright is the first author to win the Stella Prize twice – for Tracker in 2018, and for Praiseworthy in 2024. She held the position of Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne, and was honoured with the title of Distinguished Professor at Western Sydney University. She is the inaugural winner of the Creative Australia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.

Isaac Drandich is of the Nyungah (southwest WA) on his mother's side and Croatian on his father's side. He graduated from WA Academy of Performing Arts (WAPPA) in 1999, completing the Indigenous Theatre Course. He has worked with the following companies: Kooemba Jdarra, Black Swan Theatre, Griffin, SA Opera, Playbox, Malthouse, Ilbijerri, HotHouse, Melbourne Workers Theatre and has toured the country telling stories through theatre.