Purple Threads

Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri writer, poet and academic from south-west New South Wales. Her first volume of poetry, Dark Secrets After Dreaming: A.D. 1887–1961, won the Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Poetry, and her first novel, Purple Threads, won the David Unaipon Award. Jeanine has published widely in the area of Aboriginal literature, writing otherness and creative nonfiction. Jeanine was the recipient of the University of Canberra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Poetry Prize, and she has won the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Prize for Poetry twice. In 2023 she won the David Harold Tribe Award for Poetry, Australia's richest poetry prize. She has been the recipient of a Red Room Poetry Fellowship and two Australian Research Council (ARC) Fellowships. Jeanine taught Creative Writing and Aboriginal Literature for many years at the University of Melbourne, where she is currently First Nations Writer in Residence. In 2023 she won the David Harold Tribe Award for Poetry.

Shontane is a Noongar and Yamatji woman who came into acting when she completed the Aboriginal Performance course at WAAPA followed by the Bachelor of Arts (Acting). She comes from a dance background in contemporary and still undertakes dance classes in different styles to keep connected to her dance roots. She hopes to become a successful Indigenous actor to help tell Indigenous stories and assist the under representation of Indigenous Australians in theatre and on television screens.