Debra Dank

Dr Debra Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja woman, from the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory. She has Kalkadoon heritage. With almost four decades of experience in education, holding various roles across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels in classroom-based work to leadership roles, Dank has worked in both urban and remote areas of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and the Northern Territory and was instrumental in setting up the Indigenous Literary Foundation.

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 and how the use of English vocabulary is impacting own language use. 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 awarded the NSW 2023 Premier's Literary Award across a record breaking 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 won Non-Fiction book in the Queensland Literary Awards, was shortlisted in the Prime Ministers Literary Awards, and received the Australian Literature Society 2023 (ALS) Gold Medal.