Author Anita Heiss on writing, footy, marathon running and her great rodeo romance

It’s been a big year for Anita Heiss, author, playwright, public speaker and University of Queensland academic. 

In May, she won the Indigenous Writers Prize at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. In June, she was appointed a member of the Order of Australia. And this month sees the release of an anthology of personal stories by Wiradjuri elders, which Heiss, herself a Wiradjuri woman, has edited. Topping that off, her first play, adapted from her novel Tiddas, is on at Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre. Oh, and she ran three marathons between the ages of 49 and 51.

“I’ve had a lot of proud achievements,” she tells Konrad Marshall on this week’s Good Weekend Talks. “I was the first person in my family to go to university ... and then the first indigenous person to graduate from what is now known as Western Sydney University. Being a creative and being an author, I would have to say that my novel on the great flood of Gundagai is my greatest creative achievement. But having said that, we are in the middle of my play. So in two weeks’ time, I might have a different answer in that space!” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.