dr debra dank
author &
uniSA visiting research fellow

Dr Debra Dank is a proud Gudanji/Wakaja woman, hailing from the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory. With almost four decades of experience in education, Dank has held various roles across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. She has served as a class teacher, special education teacher, senior teacher, regional consultant, regional manager, lecturer, senior lecturer, and Head of School. Dank has worked in both urban and remote areas of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and the Northern Territory.

Dank's professional interests centre around the practice of narrative in Aboriginal communities, particularly the significance of semiotics in comprehending the range of communicative mechanisms and functions utilized in this practice. Her book, We Come with This Place (Echo 2022), has garnered widespread acclaim and recognition, with its inclusion on the shortlist for the prestigious Stella Prize and was recently awarded the NSW Premier's Literary Award across four categories: the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, the Indigenous Writers' Prize, and Book of the Year. Her book also received the Australian Literature Society (ALS) Gold Medal.

Articles and Further Reading:

Indigenous author Debra Dank sweeps NSW Premier’s Literary Awards with memoir We Come With This Place
National Indigenous Time: Debra Dank weaves childhood stories into 'honest' Gudanji tribute book
RN Radio: We Come With This Place by Debra Dank review – a jewel to rival Australia’s great desert memoirs

associate professor sue joseph
senior research fellow, unisa

A journalist for more than forty years, working in Australia and the UK, Sue Joseph (PhD) began working as an academic, teaching print journalism at the University of Technology Sydney in 1997. As a Senior Lecturer, she taught in journalism and creative writing, particularly creative non-fiction writing. Now as Associate Professor, she is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of South Australia; a doctoral supervisor at the University of Sydney, and the University of Technology Sydney; and holds a position at Central Queensland University, supervising and training HDRs and other doctoral supervisors. She is currently Joint Editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics and co-editor of the Literary Journalism Palgrave book series.