Cheryl Leavy
Cheryl Leavy is from the Kooma and Nguri nations in western and central Queensland.
A poet, Cheryl was the 2022 winner of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize. Several commissions followed, including for Camerata – Queensland’s chamber orchestra, Red Room’s Poetry Month, 2023, and most recently poetry activations for Daniel Boyd’s Rainbow Serpent (Version) at the Institute of Modern Art and Judy Watson’s solo exhibition at Queensland Art Gallery.
Cheryl often writes in her Kooma language and is passionate about its revitalisation. Cheryl was a proud recipient of the inaugural FNAWN Varuna Residency Fellowships for 2024 to work on her poetry manuscript, Mudunja – Song Country, which will feature several poems in Kooma. Cheryl’s first children’s book, Yanga Mother, written in Kooma and translated to English, will be published by UQP this year, and her second, For You Country, in 2025.
Cheryl has enjoyed a long career in the arts and cultural sector, serving on many boards, including for the Brisbane Writers Festival, where she established and co-chaired the First Nations Advisory Committee. Cheryl has also achieved notable success in First Nations policy and rights advocacy, with her most recent focus on environmental and land justice.
HEADSHOT PHOTO CREDIT: Rhett Hammerton