Education

University of Technology, Sydney
Ph.D. (Aboriginal Writing), 2011

University of Canberra
Graduate Diploma (Education), 1985

University of New England
Bachelor of Arts (Literature and History), 1984

Bio

Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri writer, poet, critic, and essayist from southwest New South Wales.

Her first volume of poetry, Dark Secrets After Dreaming: A.D. 1887-1961 (2010, Presspress) won the Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Poetry, 2010. The manuscript for her first novel, Purple Threads (UQP), won the David Unaipon Award for an unpublished Indigenous writer in 2010; and was shortlisted for the 2012 Commonwealth Book Prize.

Her poetry, short stories, critique, and essays have been published in Hecate: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Women’s Liberation Australian Poetry Journal, Antipodes, Westerly, Overland and the Sydney Review of Books. Jeanine has published widely in Aboriginal literature, writing otherness, literary critique, and creative non-fiction. 

She was the recipient of the University of Canberra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Poetry Prize, and she has won the Oodgeroo Noonucal Prize for Poetry twice (2017 & 2019); and was the 2019 recipient of the Red Room Poetry Fellowship for her project called Voicing the Unsettled Space: Rewriting the Colonial Mythscape.

Jeanine taught Creative Writing and Aboriginal Literature at the University of Melbourne from 2016-2023.

She is the recipient of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Fellowship for a project called ‘Aboriginal Writing: Shaping the literary and cultural history of Australia, since 1988’ (2014-2018); and a second ARC grant that looks at Indigenous Storytelling and the Archive (2020-2023).

In 2020 Jeanine edited Guwayu – for all times – a collection of First Nations Poetry commissioned by Red Room Poetry and published by Magabala Books.

In 2021 she was the recipient of the School of Literature Art and Media (SLAM) Poetry Prize University of Sydney for an unpublished book-length collection of poetry. In 2023, Jeanine was the winner of the David Harold Tribe Prize for Poetry – Australia’s richest poetry prize.

Her recent poetry collection Gawimarra, gathering, (UQP) won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry, 2025 and was shortlisted for the 2025 Kenneth Slessor Prize, NSW Literary Awards.

Publishing Highlights (Selected)

Creative Works

Leane, J. van Neerven, E 2024 (ed.) Shapeshifting, First Nations Lyric Nonfiction University of Queensland Press

Leane, J 2024. gawimarra gathering. University of Queensland Press

Leane, J. (ed.) 2020. Guwayu, for all times. A collection of First Nations Poems. Magabala Books. Broome.

Leane, J. 2018. Walk Back Over. Cordite Press. Melbourne.

Leane, J. 2011. Purple Threads. University of Queensland Press. St Lucia.

Leane, J. 2010. Dark Secrets: After Dreaming (A.D.) 1887 -1961. PressPress. Berry.

Nonfiction/Critique

Leane, J. Cultural Rigour: First Nations Critical Culture, https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essay/cultural-rigour-leane/

(Sydney Review of Books 2023)

Leane, J. Close Encounters https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essay/close-encounters/
(Sydney Review of Books 2023)

Leane, J. As We Are: A Call Across the Islands, https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/shapes-of-native-nonfiction/ (Sydney Review of Books 2021)

Leane, J. Staring Back, https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/araluen-drop-bear/ (Sydney Review of Books 2021)

Prizes and Awards (Selected)

2025: Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, Poetry gawimarra gathering (UQP)

2024: Creative Australia Fellowship (literature)

2023: David Harold Tribe Prize for Poetry (winner)

2023: Rosemary Van Den Berg Prize for First Nations Critique (winner)

2022: Finalist: Pascall Prize for Literary Criticism in the Walkley Awards

2021: Sydney University School of Arts and Media Poetry Prize: Unpublished Poetry Manuscript (winner)

2021: Juncture Critics Fellowship, Sydney Review of Books (Copyright Agency Limited)

2019: Red Room Poetry Fellowship, Sydney (winner)

2019: Black Child Oodgeroo Noonucal Poetry Prize, Queensland Poetry Festival (winner)

2017: Historians Oodgeroo Noonucal Poetry Prize, Queensland Poetry Festival (winner)

2017: Still Gatherers University of Canberra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Poetry Prize (winner)

Writer’s Residencies (Selected)

2023: Cove Park, Peaton Hill, Argyle and Bute, Scotland (International Writer in Residence)

2022: Varuna Writers Centre, Katoomba (First Nations Fellowship)

2021: Booranga Writers Centre, Charles Sturt University, Wagga, Wagga (Writer in Residence)

2020: Varuna Writers Centre, Katoomba (First Nations Fellowship)

2019: Bundanon First Nations Fellowship, Illaroo, Nowra

2017: Claflin Historically All Black University, Orangeburg, South Carolina, USA (Writer in Residence)

2015: Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangdong, Guangzhou, China (Writer in Residence Creative Nonfiction Program)