Debra Dank on We Come With This Place

A Gudanji/Wakaja and Kalkadoon woman from the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory, Dr Debra Dank is an Enterprise Fellow with the University of South Australia. She has spent 40 years working in primary, secondary and tertiary education roles, in urban and remote areas across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the Northern Territory. She is interested in multiform narrative and its practice in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and the role semiotics plays in that. Her book, We Come with This Place, won numerous honours in 2023, including four New South Wales Premier’s Awards and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Debra is passionate about the environment, especially as her Country, on the Beetaloo Basin, is under threat of being fracked.

Suzy Wilson is the owner of Riverbend Books in Queensland. She is the recipient of the Dromkeen Award for her efforts in 'being a catalyst in changing children's lives through literature', and is the founder of the National Indigenous Literacy Foundation which aims to improve literacy for children living in remote Indigenous communities. She has also been honoured to receive the David Malouf Prize, an Australia Day award, and the Lloyd O'Neill Award for her outstanding contribution to the Australian Book Industry.