Debra Dank

Dr Debra Dank, a Gudanji/Wakaja and Kalkadoon woman from the Barkly Tablelands region on the Northern Territory/Queensland border, is an Enterprise Fellow with the Adelaide University. 

She has spent 40 years working in education, in urban and remote areas across much of Australia. She is interested in multiform narrative and its practice in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and the role semiotics plays in that. Her first book, We Come with This Place, won numerous honours in 2023, including four New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Her subsequent two books have been long and short listed for various Literary Awards across Australia since their 2025 publication. 

Debra is deeply concerned about and works with her family to raise awareness and support for the environment and water security, especially as her Country and her homelands community on the Beetaloo Basin, is being impacted by hydraulic fracking.