Wright, Alexis

Alexis Wright is from the Waanji people from the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. She has worked extensively in government departments and Aboriginal agencies across four states and territories as a professional manager, educator, researcher and writer. Wright was coordinator of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Constitutional Convention in 1993 and wrote Aboriginal Self Government for Land Rights News, later quoted in full in Henry Reynolds' Aboriginal Sovereignty (1996). Her involvement in many Aboriginal organisations and campaigns has included work on mining, publications, fund raising and land rights both in Australia and overseas. She has been involved as a writer and an activist in various Aboriginal campaigns.

Wright's first novel, Plains of Promise, was reprinted several times and has been translated into French. Wright completed her second novel with the support of a Fellowship from the Australia Council. She has been a judge of the David Unaipon Award and a community writer-in-residence for the Central Land Council. Wright has taken part in many readings and conducted writers' workshops.

Wright is in demand at writers festivals and conferences, most recently in London, Paris, Barcelona and new York City's BAM Next Wave down Under Festival. Wright has published award-winning short stories and her anthology Take Power celebrates 20 years of land rights in Central Australia. Her book Grog War is an examination of the alcohol restrictions in Tennant Creek.

In 2009 Wright received an honorary doctorate from RMIT where she had previously studied professional and creative writing.

Major source: Magabala Books website, http://www.magabala.com/Sighted: 05/06/07