Award-winning Australian author Anita Heiss loves Canberra.

“I think Canberra is underrated,” she said. “There is a spirit of community there that is lost in other big cities. Many Australians who don’t appreciate the Capital think it’s just roundabouts and politicians, but I see a relaxing place to enjoy arts, culture and lots of open space.”

Anita will be back in the city she once lived in at the inaugural 2012 Canberra Readers Festival, held this Saturday, September 22, at the Canberra Theatre. The Canberra Readers Festival celebrates the National Year of Reading, and Anita is a National Year of Reading ambassador. “My role is essentially to promote and encourage reading to all those I can, via whatever medium I can,” she said.  “I completely support any process, program, or campaign that encourages Australians to read.”

For Anita, stories lie close to her heart: “I love the power of storytelling and appreciate the role of books in both entertaining and educating.” Indeed, Anita’s own writing not only sets out to entertain and engage audiences, but they pack a very powerful punch on the traditional Australian literary landscape as well.

Because it is through Anita that Aboriginal voices can be heard.

Born and raised in Matraville, Sydney, Dr Anita Heiss identifies herself as belonging to the Wiradjuri nation of central New South Wales. Her mother Elsie’s family live in Cowra, Brungle, and Griffith, which make up part of the very large Wiradjuri nation. On the other hand, Anita’s late father’s family are from a little Austrian village called St Michael in Salzburg. Growing up as one of five children, Anita remembers a “wonderful childhood full of chocolate cake, street cricket and lots of trips to the drive-in theatre where my mum worked nights.”

Anita is now one of Australia’s most prolific and well-known authors of Indigenous literature. She has written and published historical fiction (Who Am I? The diary of Mary Talence, Sydney 1937), poetry (I’m Not a Racist, but…), non-fiction (Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight) – Publishing Aboriginal Literature), social commentary, children’s fiction (Yirra and her deadly dog, Demon), commercial women’s fiction or ‘chick lit’ as it is more popularly known, and her memoir, Am I Black Enough For You?, published this year.

Anita has won numerous awards for her writing. Who Am I? The diary of Mary Talence, Sydney,1937 was shortlisted for the 2002 NSW Premier’s Award for young fiction, and this year, Anita won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing. She has also won four Deadly awards -the Deadly Awards is the annual celebration of indigenous achievement in music, sport, entertainment and community-which have been some of the most rewarding moments of Anita’s career so far “because it reflects affirmation within the community.”

“I think the fact that many people are surprised when we achieve in the mainstream reflects this ongoing undercurrent of thought that Aboriginal people can’t,” Anita told me. “So I think the challenge is still there to break down stereotypes and continue to prove that we can mix it with the best in any field or industry that we choose to work.”

With her writing, Anita aims to break down these stereotypes. She wants to reach audiences that haven’t previously engaged with Aboriginal Australia in any format, either personally, professionally or subconsciously. Such is the intention of her chick lit books (or ‘choc lit’ as some have cheekily called it!). The heroines of her novels Not Meeting Mr Right, Avoiding Mr Right, Manhattan Dreaming and Paris Dreaming are urban, educated, articulate, career- minded, capable, savvy, sexy women, and like all human beings, they are flawed, especially in terms of their personal relationships. And what’s more, these women are Aboriginal.

“I wanted to write these Aboriginal women into Australian literature because they did not exist in any genre,” Anita said. “I wanted to reach an audience of non-Aboriginal Australian women – largely aged between eighteen and forty-five years of age – who may not have ever heard of Anita Heiss or cared about Aboriginal women in Australia before. They may never have shared a coffee or dined with or worked alongside an Aboriginal woman. I wanted these readers to have an insight into just some of the realities of just some of the Aboriginal women like me. I knew that the way to reach them was to look at the things we had in common in life – such as the issues around personal relationships – and then to ease them into my world as an urban Koori woman and all that entails. When I write my novels, I want to use my storylines to challenge the notions of what it means to be Aboriginal in the twenty-first century, with a focus on urban experiences because they are what I know best, having lived in Sydney, Canberra and on the Gold Coast.”

HerCanberra readers will be delighted to see Canberra featured so prominently in two of Anita’s books, Manhattan Dreaming and Paris Dreaming. In fact, Anita knows Canberra well. She lived here over 20 years ago when she was a cadet with the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau (now AUSAID).  Since then she has returned on a regular basis to visit family and friends. Among her favourite haunts in Canberra are Manuka, the Diamant Hotel, Sammy’s Kitchen in the city (“the hotrock salted calamari is my favourite dish!”) and the ANU (“There’s nothing like a stroll through the ANU in autumn or spring when the grounds are just stunning”).

Like her chick lit novels, Anita’s latest book, Am I Black Enough For You? (published by Random House, 2012), is also a very powerful statement. It continues to challenge the stereotypes of Aboriginal people often perpetuated through the media and embraced by Australians more generally. “I wanted to demonstrate that we as Aboriginal people have our own forms of self-identification and self-representation,” Anita said. “Regardless of where we live, we are strong in our identity, and it is one of the few things that can never be taken from us – like governments took away our children, our land rights, and most recently the rights to manage our own incomes in the Northern Territory. Writing my memoir on Aboriginal identity has been a significant and challenging personal process, but as someone who sees the need for resources in the classroom I also felt a responsibility to provide answers to inquiring minds.”

Indeed, Anita takes her role as an educator very seriously. She said that one of the most joyful aspects of her job is visiting schools and working with students because schools are “where we really need to get the stories told in the first instance.” She has worked with students at La Perouse Public School in Sydney on writing and publishing two novels set in the area. And this year she worked with students at St Laurence’s College in Brisbane to produce a short crime novel.

“I hope that by unravelling my own forty-plus years of life as an Aboriginal person that the general Australian reading public and students in our schools and colleges come to appreciate without criticism or concern, the diversity and complexity of Aboriginal identity in the twenty-first century,” Anita said, “and that the power of self-identity and representation is a right, as Australians, that we should all enjoy.”

Anita will be presenting at the Canberra Readers’ Festival this Saturday alongside fellow acclaimed Australian author Melina Marchetta at 11am. Find out more about the festival and to book your tickets here. You can also learn more about Anita and her books via her website and her blog.