Wiki | Writers | Australia | Jeanine Leane

Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri writer, teacher and academic from southwest New South Wales. After a longer teaching career, she completed a doctorate in Australian literature and Aboriginal representation and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Australian Centre for Indigenous History at the Australian National University. Her first volume of poetry, Dark Secrets After Dreaming: A.D. 1887–1961 (Presspress, 2010) won the 2010 Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Poetry and her first novel, Purple Threads (UQP), won the David Unaipon Award for an unpublished Indigenous writer in 2010. Her poetry and short stories have been published in Hecate: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Women’s Liberation, Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia, Journal for the Association of Australian Literary Studies, Australian Poetry Journal, Antipodes, Overland, Best Australian Poems, Lifted Brow, Southerly and Australian Book Review. In September 2023, Jeanine was appointed poetry editor of Meanjin. In October 2023, Jeanine won October she won the Sydney University’s David Harold Tribe Poetry Award – which offers $20,000 for an original unpublished poem on any theme, up to 100 lines in length. Jeanine’s poem 'Water under the bridge' was selected from a shortlist of seven poems, out of a record 522 total submissions.

Further reading

(from) The ballot box does not translate ideology (Overland, 14th Sept 2023)

According to the commercial media outlets, supporters of the Voice—the Yes Campaign are continually criticised for not getting their message across; or that the message is not clear. The approaching referendum question proposes To alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. I’m not sure how much clearer the message can be. But the constant echo from the commercial media promotes a narrative of not selling the message. It’s the sell then—the commodification of information that dominates here, rather than the socio-cultural values at the heart of the message of the Voice.

A good question is: should you really need to sell a simple, yet powerful truth. Apparently so, according to the opponents with their emphasis on risk and loss. Their campaign seems to be fuelled by what they perceive Australians will lose and the fear of what is at risk.