Award-winning Aboriginal author Anita Heiss has 16 titles to her name but one book she wants to see rewritten is the Australian Constitution.
Renowned for her broad range of writing skills - from “chic lit”, to poetry, to non-fiction - her hope is once Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people have constitutional recognition, it will lead to a treaty.
Heiss is famous for being part of the successful racial discrimination class action case against News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt, which provoked calls for Section 18C to be dropped from the legislation.
“As a blackfella, the most important thing I've done in my life is take Andrew Bolt to court with a group of other Indigenous people,” she said.
“Winning that case was really about representing all those people who are persecuted in the media every day but have no comeback at all.”
The battle for equality is one she has fought since childhood and does not shy away from both her Aboriginal and European heritage.
“I’m a Wiradjuri woman, I'm a Williams from Brungal mission, Griffith, Tumut and Canberra, but I was born and raised in Gadigal country," Heiss said.
“My dad was Austrian. Heiss means ‘hot’ (and) I'm never changing my surname.”
Born a year after the 1967 referendum, the changes it brought took years to filter through society.
“When I was socialised as a child, it was by white people saying you're a ‘boong’, ‘abo’, ‘chocolate drop’, ‘coco pop’, telling me who I was,” she said.
“But in the next breath they were taking it away saying, 'you're only half-caste'.
“I grew up in a time where Australians believed they had the right to give you your identity but also take half of it away.”
Heiss wants constitutional recognition, but it is not her final goal.
“As a writer I see this is where it starts, we write ourselves into the Constitution. That is the stepping stone to the treaty, that we all want,” she said.
It parallels her ambition as an author.
“I’d like to write the great Australian novel, it’s most writer’s dream,” she said.
“If it doesn’t include our people and our place, it can’t be the great Australian novel, you can’t exclude us from that landscape.”
Improving Indigenous literacy is her mission - books are her passion and reading her obsession.
“It's my most intimate relationship at this point in time, let's say that,” said the author of ‘Not Finding Mr Right’ with a cheeky grin.
“The power there is for our people in terms of self-determination. We need to be able to read and write in the English language.”
Her younger brother Mark Heiss is a highly respected educator and has admired his big sister from early on.
“I’m very proud of Anita, she’s been a great role model for me, she’s been the type of person that I want to be, and I look up at her. Yeah she’s an inspiration to me,” he said.
“I’m an educator myself and she’s very big on educating our young people, in particular around literacy needs and language.
“Around the 18C debate, that was something Anita was drawn into through no fault of her own and made a stand in a class action when injustice was being done for our people.”
Heiss draws her inspiration from one of Australia's most important literary voices.
“I always go back to Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Kath Walker, and she changed her name in 1988 as a protest against the Bi-Centenery,” Heiss said.
“I have an original hard cover of 'We Are Going', which was the first book of Aboriginal poetry published, and the Charter of Aboriginal rights, which is still relevant today.”
