AustLit
Deborah Mailman grew up in Mount Isa. She spent many of her childhood years around the rodeo because her father was a rodeo champion.
Mailman gained interest in acting during high school when she chose to study Drama to avoid doing Business Principles. She found that acting allowed her to express her creative side. When the school started the production of Wizard of Oz, Mailman auditioned for the Wicked Witch of the West but instead she was given the role of Dorothy.
From high school, Mailman travelled to Brisbane to study drama at the university. She found her first year of study difficult because she was constantly changing accommodation but she found support from friends and family, which helped her continue her studies. She graduated from Queensland University of Technology Academy of the Arts in 1992. Since graduating, she has worked in numerous theatre productions as an actor, co-director or co-writer. Mailman has also appeared on television as a presenter on ABC's Playschool and Message Stick, and as an actress in the series The Secret Life of Us. Her film credits include The Monkey's Mask, Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence, Radiance and Dear Claudia, The Third Note.
In 2012 Mailman won Female Actor of the Year at the Deadly Awards.
The granddaughter of Finnish immigrants, Foxlee grew up in Mount Isa but came to Brisbane when she was seventeen. She has worked most of her life as a Registered Nurse.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in creative writing, and has written for children and adults. Her first novel, The Anatomy of Wings, was published in 2007 and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book. Her second novel The Midnight Dress, won the Sisters in Crime Best Young Adult Debut Crime Novel.
Karen is based in South-East Queensland.
Azaria Chamberlain was the third child of Michael and Alice Lynne (Lindy) Chamberlain. In August 1980, Azaria was attacked and killed by a dingo at a camp-site at Uluru, Northern Territory. Her body was never recovered, but for a matinee-jacket that was discovered nearby in 1986. (Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography website)
Australian Aboriginal Didgeridoo player, William Barton was born in Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia. Barton is a widely recognised as one of Australia's finest and leading traditional didgeridoo players in the classical world. Barton had learnt to play the didgeridoo at an early age, from his uncle an elder of the Wannyi, Lardil and Kalkadunga tribes of Western Queensland. When Barton was 12 he was working in Sydney playing for Aboriginal dance troupes. By the age of 15, he toured America and became a soloist.
In 1998 Barton made his debut with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and became Australia's first didgeridoo artist-in-residence with a symphony orchestra. He has since performed at various musical festivals and has recorded a number of orchestral works.
Scott Prince a member of the Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Team, debuted his writing career in 2013, with the release of his first book Deadly D and Justice Jones: Making the Team. In 2013, Scott and his co-author, Dave Hartley had also been awarded the Kuril Dhagun Prize in the State Library of Queensland's Black&Write! Indigenous Writing Fellowships. (Source: The North West Star newspaper, and the State Library of Queensland websites)
Irene Howe worked as a researcher and indexer for BlackWords : Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers and Storytellers, a subset of AustLit (Australian Literature Resource) database from 2010 to 2017. She graduated from the University of Queensland in 2012, with an Honours degree in Archaeology and subsequently undertook a Masters of Museum Studies. In 2019, she joined the Australian Armed Forces in Canberra.
Kim Robertson has been an Executive Policy Officer with the Office of the Pro-Vice Chancellor Indigenous Leadership at Charles Darwin University.
